Free The Imaginary by A. F. Harrold

day.’
    â€˜Our job is to share it, to enjoy it. Guide it if you can, make suggestions, make requests, but you’re always working with someone else’s imagination. Remember that.’
    He sipped another mug of hot chocolate and said nothing. He was thinking about Amanda. Emily’s words from earlier were still rolling round his head. He was sure he’d be able to prove her wrong. Maybe no other imaginary friend had made it back to their real friend before, their original friend, but that just meant he’d be the first.
    He listened to the conversations going on around him. They were about people he didn’t know who’d done things he didn’t understand in places he’d never heard of with children he’d never met. After a while he decided he had to speak up.
    He coughed.
    â€˜Excuse me,’ he said.
    The room fell silent, except for the rhythmic bouncing noise of a Friend who was the spitting image of a ping pong ball. (Rudger was more than glad Amanda had imagined him as an ordinary boy. It made things much easier.)
    â€˜I’m new here,’ he said. ‘As you know. Emily’s been very helpful and has told me about how this place works. But…I don’t…I don’t think I’m meant to be here, not yet. There was an accident, you see.’
    He began to tell the story, beginning the night before, when they’d been playing hide and seek with the babysitter.
    â€˜Did you say “Mr Bunting”?’ Snowflake asked, from somewhere near the ceiling, when Rudger first mentioned the man.
    â€˜Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s what Amanda said his name was. She heard him tell her mum.’
    â€˜â€œ Mr Bunting ”?’
    There was something funny about the way the dinosaur said the name. As if it were teasing him.
    â€˜ What is it?’ he said.
    Emily put a hand on his shoulder and chuckled.
    â€˜Sorry, Rudge. We all know about Mr Bunting already. It’s no good trying to make out you met him. You're not gonna fool us. Sorry to ruin your story.’
    â€˜No, but we did meet him. He tried to—’
    The teddy bear, a girl called Cruncher-of-Bones, laughed.
    â€˜Oh yeah? Next you’ll be saying you met Simple Simon.’
    â€˜Who’s Simple Simon?’
    â€˜He’s even scarier than Mr Bunting,’ Emily said. 'He takes the place of your real friend in the night. Puts on their skin, looks at you through their eyes, and he tells you to do things. Weird things. Dangerous things. And because he says it in their voice, using their tongue to make the words, well…you have to do it.’
    â€˜Oh, be quiet, Emily,’ said Snowflake. ‘Simple Simon gives me the willies. I’ll not be able to sleep tonight now you’ve put the thought in my head.’ The dinosaur gnashed its great teeth together and shook as if a shiver were going up its spine. ‘Brrr.’
    â€˜But it wasn’t this Simple Simon bloke,’ Rudger said, ‘it was Mr Bunting. Tell me about him. What do you know?’
    â€˜Only what everyone knows, Rudge,’ Emily said. ‘He was born hundreds of years ago,’ she went on, sounding as if she were reciting from an encyclopaedia, ‘but he made a bargain with the devil. Blah, blah, blah.’
    â€˜I heard it was with pixies,’ someone said.
    â€˜ No, aliens,’ said another.
    â€˜I thought it was with a bank manager,’ said Cruncher-of-Bones.
    â€˜Well, I heard it was the devil, but it don’t matter,’ Emily went on. ‘The point is, he just keeps on living. He don’t die, even though he’s hundreds of years old.’
    â€˜And what keeps him alive is…go on…’ the ping pong ball urged between bounces.
    â€˜He eats imaginaries, Rudge. He eats people like us. And for each one he eats, he lives another year longer. That’s what they say. But the stories don’t say anything about him