The Imaginary Friend

How It Began

"Harry, your mum is comeing!" Clementine giggles, pushing Harry into his room                                                                                             

"Eww, stop touching me!" Harry replies in disgust. "I'll get cooties!"

"Uh, shut up, you're watching way too much american telly!" Clemintine giggles again.

"You're not allowed to say that!" Harry grins."I'm telling mum!"

"No, Harry!" Clemintine groans."She won't believe you anway."

"Maybe she will this time." Hary held his head up high before running down the stairs, curly mop of hair flopping beind him. Clemintine rolled her ocean blue eyes, walking grumpily down behind him.

"Mum, Mum!" Harry yelled smuggly.

"Yeah, love?" She smiled, putting away the shopping.

"Clemy told me to 'shut up'!" He grinned at the girl now leaning at the doorway with a bored look on her face.

"It's Nox!  Not 'Clemy!" She retreated, glareing at him.

Harry's mother looked at him wearily before sighing and bending down to his level.

"Harry... you're nearly eight now...and, well... do your friends at school know about Clementine?"

"Uh, no. She said that they'd sat I was Loco crazy." He shrugs.

"Well, yes Harry. They-they would think that. But not that you are! It's just, well, you have real friends now, love. Do you really need Clementine?" She smiled kindly. It was an odd thing to say to a child about friends, girls in particular.

"What does she mean?" Clemintine almost whisperd. "She said somthing about this before, remember?" She added worridly.

Harry didn't reply to Clementine.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Harry, Clementine is just imaginary. It was a lovely litle game at first, but your getting much older now. You have to stop with this silly little game!" She says slightly annoyed.

"I - I suppose so..." He trailed off. He knew no one else could see Clementine. Only he could, and only his mother knew about it. She just hadn't made it clear tht she didn't like her being around.

"Good boy!" She beamed at him."Now, go ahead upstairs till dinner is ready. Maybe, er, maybe you could tell Clementine?"

"Yeah..." He frowned, towing himself upstairs.

"Ha-Harry? You aren't actuallt going to listen to her!" Clementine scoffs, although worried herself.

"She's right though." He jumps onto his bed and stares at the ceiling."You're just imaginary. Kyle is real. He can be my friend..." He trails off, no longer talking directly to Clementine anymore.

"Kyle? But he's so boreing!" Clementine gasped. "And he picks his nose!"

"He's normal." Harry replie angrily."Not like you, you're a freak."

"Freak? Harry you know that won't insult me. I'm not the freak." She grins."Whos's the one with the imaginary friend?"

"Then why don't you have normal hair?"

"Because." She crosses her arms."I'm not a freak. I'm just a little different. That isn't something weird, it's normal in a person."

"But why is it purple?" He pestered on.

"Because I was born with it." She rolls her eyes. Was the questions ever going to stop?

"But I've never met anybody else with purple hair." He mumbles.

"Because mine is natural. People usually have to buy their hair color. That's what your mum was telling one of her friends on the phone yesterday." Clementine smiles sheepishly."I was only listening because she's very loud when she's talking on the phone..."

"Clementine!" Harry hisses angrily.

"Nox!" She corrected in a mock-happy voice.

"Fine then, 'Nox', look, mum's right. I don't need you to keep you company anymore." He glares at her.

"Harry, you don't mean that. I went away for three days when we where six and you cried for an hour straight." Clementine rolled her eyes.

"Did not!" He gasps.

"Did to!" She taunts in her thick Cheshire accent.

"Harry, dinner's ready!" Harry's mother called from the kitchen.

"Look, Clementine -Okay,Okay, Nox- I'm going downstairs. I want you gone before I come back. I.Don't.Want.You.Here." He spits.

"Fine." She huffs, moving away from the door to let him through.

"Alright... goodbye, then." Harry says coldly. He'd just get a few  new friends round his house or something... no girls though.

She stared into his bright green eyes, her ocean blue ones swelling up with tears she hoped wouldn't shed.

"Fine." She replied, just as coldly. Harry stalked down the stairs, frowning slightly. He may have just lost his oldest friend.

Clementine blinked back a tear and turned around to take a last look at the room she and her best friend started out in.

That was the last time Clementine ever saw Harry.

Until now.