The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (the two towers ebook .TXT) 📗

for an adult, so no matter who was doing the sitting, it would mean a torturous discomfort. Discomfort and aggressively cheery yellow walls.

Julie squirmed until she found that crossing her legs at the ankle and hunching forward wasn’t quite so awful as any other position. The elderly receptionist smiled blandly at her over a stack of paperwork, but only for a second. No doubt the administrative staff were in on the joke, secretly broadcasting the unfortunate souls waiting to face Principal Boden to a network of evil academic sadists who cackled uproariously with every pained expression—or, the case of poor Augie, who sat beside her, short legs sticking out in front of him like straight pins, with every tear.

Her nephew hadn’t stop silently crying since the second his butt hit the chair.

“Come on, Augie,” Julie said for the tenth time. “Tell Aunt Julie what the problem is. Why’d Principal Boden call me? What does he want to tell me?”

Augie’s thin shoulders rose and fell, quick as a breath. His pudgy face was pink; brown eyes, bloodshot. There was no sign he’d been in a fight—his red and white striped shirt and his jeans looked the same as when they’d left her house that morning—and he wasn’t exactly the type anyway. He wasn’t a cheater or a back-talker. There wasn’t much left that a first grader could have done bad enough to warrant a parent being summoned.

“Principal Boden will see you now.” The receptionist gestured toward the closed wooden door to Julie’s left and fixed a cold, rheumy gaze on Augie. “And you, August, you’re to stay right where you are.” He nodded and kept crying. Poor kid.

Julie groaned as she unfolded herself from the plastic chair. She dropped a kiss on the top of Augie’s head. “Hey, don’t worry about it, buddy. Everything will be okay.”

The door opened like magic and inside, behind an enormous metal desk, was a short man with a dark comb-over and a blue tie just off-center, his jacket hung askew on a coat rack in the corner of his tiny yellow office. More stellar work from the design company, for sure. The chair that waited for her in front of his desk was another of those goddamn torturous tiny-big chairs. Perfect.

He didn’t smile when she crammed herself down and balanced on the edge of it.

“Miss Strawbridge, I’m afraid we have ourselves a problem. An imaginary friend problem.”

She knotted her mouth to keep herself from letting loose something very inappropriate. Her sister and brother-in-law would only be gone another few days, but they’d shit a brick if Julie got on the principal’s bad side—but all this over an imaginary friend?

Finally, she said, “I’m not a child development expert, but isn’t having an imaginary friend… I don’t know, normal for a kid Augie’s age?”

She’d had her own secret, invisible friend when she was a child—a razor-fingered, corkscrew-haired woman named Mona with a fondness for laughing at the top of her lungs whenever young Julie got in trouble, who told her stories and commiserated with her when she was grounded. It was comforting—maybe Augie needed comfort, too. And now these jerks were making him feel bad for it? She set her jaw to keep her face neutral.

Boden’s throat clearing ripped the certainty from her like an extra-sticky bandage, pulling with it bits of skin and hair. “You have to understand,” he said. “We aren’t concerned that August has an imaginary friend, or friends, as the case may be. You’re right. That’s perfectly healthy for a child of his age. But he’s selling them.”

“Selling them? What do you mean?”

“He’s selling imaginary friends to the other children in his class. For a dollar.”

“I see.” A fission of laughter welled in her stomach. God, that kid was a riot. “You know, maybe you should wait until Augie’s parents gets back to discuss this. I don’t feel—”

“Yes, well. You are listed as August’s legal guardian until his parents return, and I’m afraid the matter is quite serious.” Principal Boden stared at her from behind his compulsively-organized desk. The dirty overhead lights buzzed and tittered, flickering like an eyelid spasm. For just a moment she could imagine all of those other kids sitting here while he lectured them. Scaring them. Hammering the creativity and uniqueness out of them.

Screw this guy. Augie was a good kid. A quiet kid.

“If it’s a matter of the money, I’ll just pay it back.” Julie reached for the purse she’d set on the floor beneath her splayed knees. “How many kids are in Augie’s class?” She peeled a twenty-dollar bill from the fold in her wallet. “This should cover it, right?”

Principal Boden help up an oversized hand. It shook slightly. “That’s not the main problem.”

She dropped the twenty back in her purse. “What is the main problem?”

“The problem is that August is doing a little more than simply fooling these kids into buying imaginary friends. He’s filling their heads with unfortunate, dangerous ideas.”

Her back cramped. She contorted her body, feeling like a pretzel. “Not to rush you, but could we cut to the chase? Does Augie have detention? Do I need to give a donation to the class trip fund?”

“Your nephew has been selling these imaginary friends to his peers, with the promise that they will do the bidding of those who own them.”

She fought the urge to laugh again. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Augie watch late night television last weekend. Her sister would love that—Julie would never hear the end of it for leading poor Augie into a life of petty crime.

The principal continued, “I’ve had dozens of calls from parents. Their kids are setting fires, stealing things, committing acts of vandalism, and blaming these imaginary friends. We cannot have anarchy like this, Miss Strawbridge. We really cannot. The President of our PTA woke up this morning with a dead mouse planted on her pillow next to her face. Her child said her imaginary friend did it. No, I’m sorry to say that detention is not