The Story About How My Imaginary Friend Died

Chapter Six - Tense Air

That next Monday wasn't the worst one I'd ever had, and I'd survived the grief of leaving the weekend fairly good, and I'd pushed through school, knowing that I would meet Tim and Katja and plan fort the project.

"Okay, I think we're done," Tim said when he'd finished examining the papers we'd been working on for the last couple of hours.

We sat at the table in the cabin, Katja and I slowly drinking hot chocolate while Tim read through our planning.

We'd gathered all our notes and figured put a storyline to our movie.

Tim had said the movie was supposed to be under half an hour, so adjusting to that had been a little hard, seeing that we had so many awesome ideas.

We'd finally settled on a plan that would allow us to keep the film short enough, while still cramming all the action in there.

"This is gonna be so awesome!" Katja squealed.

"I'll play the villain," Tim offered, studying the notes.

"Well, duh, you're the only guy here," Katja said, rolling her eyes.

"You'll play Sally, right?" I asked Katja.

Katja swirled and turned in her step.

"What? No, Emma, that's your roll."

I started.

"Wait what?" I asked furrowing my brows.

"This was your idea, you'll get the lead. Besides, Sally doesn't look anything like me."

"Of course she does!" I said. A gnawing feeling had started to chew inside my chest, and I felt terrified.

I couldn't act, and even though that was the case for bot Tim and Katja as well, they at least seemed to have some control over their actions.

Meanwhile, I was some klutz who had no idea where my limbs where, and how to look normal.

"I'm not sure I can do that," I said.

"Nonsense, Emma! You will play Sally, and it'll be awesome."

I wasn't convinced, which Katja picked up on.

"You'll be awesome," she said, shooting me a smile.

"But--"

"EMMA!" she yelled, which made me shut up. "Sorry for yelling, but you'll need to stop it."

When I didn't answer, she sighed and said;

"I wish it didn't have to come to this, but you kind of have np choice. We're using your dog, and I am allergic."

Tim looked at Katja with a smile and raised eyebrows.

I became alert at the allergic-thingy.

"If you're allergic, we can't have a dog at all. Trust me, we'll need to hire a poodle or something, because this one is hairy."

Katja got distracted by my statement.

"I don't think you can 'hire' a poodle..." she said and scratched her forehead.

Things became too much for Tim then.

"Emma, Katja is trying to lure you. She's not actually allergic to dogs."

Katja slowly turned to her brother and sent him murderous gazes that made me happy I wasn't in his shoes.

When she tuned her gaze back to me, she was defeated.

"I picture Sally to not have black hair. I want her to have freckles. You fit her a lot better."

When I still didn't answer, she lit up for a second.