WELL, WHO WOULD'VE THUNK IT, I thought. I've got seventeen-year-old Merilee Rowling in my room. No, not just in my room. In my bed!
Spencer Adams Honesty.
The last kid in Paisley, Kansas.
I hauled up a few sofa cushions and quilts and fashioned on the floor the same sort of nest I was accustomed to sleeping in when the bed belonged to me. I couldn't see Merilee Rowling from where I was curled up, but I could certainly hear every sound she made, and it was pretty clear to me that she wasn't sleeping.
"What's on your mind?" I asked.
"You," she said.
"How's that?" I inquired.
"I was thinking I might be better off with the Indian," she explained. "You don't strike me as being old enough to have developed a code of honor."
"What do you mean, 'code of honor'?" I asked.
"In the days of old when knights and their royal ladies had to travel together and it came time to sleep, the knight would place his sword between them as a sign that he would not cross over while she slept. This was an important part of the knight's code of honor."
"No problemo," I replied. "I'll just fetch that pie knife from downstairs. Okay with you if there's still some pumpkin goo on it?"
"I'm not certain you understand," Merilee Rowling said. "How old are you, again?"
"Nineteen," I lied, adding some six years to my life in a single stroke. "But I'm small for my age. I had a rare disease when I was a child."
"Yeah, you had a disease, all right," Merilee Rowling retorted. "You had bullshit disease."
"We're hoping for a cure," I answered.
"There isn't one," Merilee Rowling replied. "Trust me. I know."
"You mean like your favorite activity being baking? Is that what you mean?" I asked knowingly.
Merilee Rowling giggled
"Oh, all right, you caught me," she said. "But I was just trying to be a good houseguest."
"Well, in your own special way, you are, Merilee Rowling," I said. "Anyway, good night. And don't worry. I'll keep an eye out for Indians."
"Thank you, Spencer," she replied. "And I'm sorry for doubting your code of honor."
And that was it until the next morning and the half-hour wait for the bathroom.
I couldn't stand having Chief Leopard Frog angry with me. The chief and I go back a long way, back to a time when I really needed a father and instead, after a whole lot of wishing, I got Chief Leopard Frog, who in many ways was better than a father.
Sometimes I'd mention to my mother that he'd told me something and she'd just smile and say, "That's nice." But I don't think she ever believed in him. The thing is, with an imaginary friend, no matter what age you are you have to be willing to suspend your everyday disbeliefs.
I've known people who've seen angels, received secret messages from ghosts, and had long conversations with Jesus (who must be terribly busy). I've known people who jabbered with their dead ancestors or wives or husbands as if they were standing right beside them.
Who am I to say they're mistaken?
And who are they to say that Chief Leopard Frog is nothing but a figment of my imagination?
Mr. Riley, who once lived three miles down the road before he went to live with his daughter in Florida, used to talk to his dog Flag all the time, and Flag had been dead and buried for five years!
I used to leave pork bones on Flag's grave.
Mr. Riley wouldn't make a decision without first talking it over with Flag. Heck, it was Flag who'd said, "Let's go to Florida and see the sights."
There are millions of people who talk to their cats. How many cats are listening? There are people who talk to goldfish, and hamsters, and parakeets, and I've read in magazines about scientists—educated people—who talk to plants.
Potted plants.
When we pray, to whom do we pray?
When we ask for forgiveness, whom are we asking to forgive us?
Ourselves?
I found Chief Leopard Frog squatting underneath a walnut tree, whittling a talisman in the shape of a pony.
"I wish you'd let me explain," I said.
"I know what happened," he replied. "I figured it out."
"It's turned out well," I went on. "Commercially speaking."
"That's good luck, then," he said.
"Yes," I agreed. "Very good luck."
"Bad art, though," Chief Leopard Frog added. "Aesthetically speaking."
"Who's to say what art is?" I asked. "The sender or the receiver?"
"You may have something there, Spencer," Chief Leopard Frog observed, thawing just a little bit. "Who's the girl?"
"Someone looking for you," I answered. "A poetry writer. She wants to make you famous, but you scared her last night."
"I was looking for you," he said.
"I figured," I replied. "What'd you want?"
"To say I'm sorry for my anger," he explained. "Not for my disappointment. I'm entitled to that. But it was wrong to blame you for events."
I held out my hand.
"Friends?" I said.
He covered it with his own while at the same time placing the freshly carved pony into my grasp.
"Always," Chief Leopard Frog said.