Imaginary Friends

My mother used to tell me about the times she'd hear me playing on the sun porch or in the front room with my two friends. That was when we lived in the house on the lane before we moved out to the country. I really loved that house on the lane. It had a back stairway leading down from my  bedroom and the kitchen had a very high counter where I remember watching a tadpole turn into a frog inside a glass fish bowl sitting on top of it. From the back steps off the sun porch was a flagstone patio that my father and grandfather created with the help of the cement they mixed inside an old wheelbarrow. Beyond the patio was an intriguing backyard of shrubs and lilac bushes and trees. It was the biggest backyard in the neighborhood so it was the backyard all the neighborhood kids played in except for those two friends my mother heard me talking to on the sun porch or in the front room. That's because those two friends were my imaginary friends.

Their names were Chunnie and Winnie. I don't remember them looking like anything in particular. I only remember their names and carrying on distinct conversations with them. Winnie really made me laugh except for when we played cards. She was a good Old Maid card player. She tried to trick me when she held the Old Maid card by making it stand out more than the other cards she held but I never fell for it. I always won and Chunnie usually ended up with the Old Maid. We had lots of fun when my mother threw an old blanket or sheet over some chairs making us a hideaway in the front room. We'd camp out in our tent in the house for long periods of time. Sometimes we ate lunch in our tent. The Old Maid came along too as did pads of paper and pencils and crayons for scribbling great pieces of artwork. I'd pile books inside from my mother's bookshelves even though I couldn't read but I could pretend I was reading as did my two friends. I also brought some of my dolls with their doll bed down from my bedroom. I made sure there was a doll for each of us. I always got to choose first.

Once I started kindergarten at the elementary school right up the street, Chunnie and Winnie didn't come around to play anymore. I think that's because I made new friends. I liked my new friends but I never played Old Maid with them. It wouldn't have been as much fun as it was when playing with my two very best friends ever.