Audrey’s head was lost in the clouds. She stared up at the tremendous breadth of sky vaulting over her, and she was infatuated. The puffy cumulus cotton balls, the clouds that slid along the sky like whales, hanging low and heavy. The stringy cirrus shoelaces, which floated up in the highest heights, scraping space, lighter than a feather. In the clouds she saw animals, kingdoms, adventures, stories. Anything and everything.

She lay on her back, the water from the lake gently rolling her jon boat, lulling her into its natural trance. Wind, wait, water’s motion. A delayed response to nature’s breath. She heard a car in the distance, but she didn’t look away from the rabbit-cloud now hopping along the sky.

Suddenly, a wave crested the gunwale, splashing Audrey’s face. Startled, she looked down to see Porter the Rabbit standing in her boat, formed from the puddle on the deck.

Porter the Rabbit twitched his nose-made-of-water. “What was that?”

“Porter. I’ve asked you not to splash me like that.”

“What was it? I’ve got to know! I’ve never seen that thing before.”

Audrey groaned and sat up. “What thing?”

“The big thing that just went by that way!” Porter leaped onto the gunwale and pointed, rocking the boat. “Didn’t you see it?”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “I heard a car, I think, but no, I did not see it. As a matter of fact, I was watching your Momma. You wouldn’t want me to tell her that you keep splashing me even after I’ve asked you nicely to stop?”

“Okay, okay,” Porter said, not registering what Audrey had said in the slightest. “Listen, Audrey, and look. It went over to that… What do you call it again? That burrow for humans.”

“A house.”

“It went over to that house.”

“It’s probably just my neighbor,” said Audrey.

“I know what your neighbor’s car looks like—it’s black. This was red—not your neighbor's car.”

Audrey was confused, then her eyes lit up. “Oh,” she said, “I know! Momma said our old neighbor moved out. That must be the new neighbors!” She smiled broadly and leaned on the gunwale, peering toward her new neighbors’ house. Through the dense pines, she saw tiny specks of the bright red car in the drive. “I hope they have a kid to play with! The old neighbor was just an old man. He was nice and all, but a little girl would be—well, it’d be great!”

Porter dispersed into the puddle, shrinking himself to only a head sitting on the puddle’s surface.

“What’s wrong, Porter?” Audrey asked, sitting down again and looking at him.

“Me and you are friends. Why do you want a new friend?”

“Come back up here, silly,” Audrey said with a smile. “We can all three be friends, of course.”

“I don’t know,” said Porter, looking off toward the neighbors’ house. “What if you forget me?”

“I’d never! You’re my best friend.”

“But you won’t just forget me. You’ll forget your imagination. Everyone does.”

“Well,” Audrey proclaimed, crossing her skinny arms, “I’m not everyone, am I? I’m Audrey. Not to mention, Momma didn’t forget how to imagine, either. When I tell her about you and all my other friends, she’s all ears! And yesterday I told her about you becoming a cloud and floating up with the other clouds. She said she saw you up there!”

Porter came around at this, and because Audrey was so excited, he became excited, too. When excited, Porter evaporated and condensed into a vivid white cloud. This happened presently, and he took to the air, hopping madly.

Audrey had always wanted to fly, and lately, Porter had been teaching her the art of cloudification. “Teach me!” she sang, and forgot all about the new neighbors.

She was making steady progress—everything above her waist was cumulus, everything below flesh. She hovered about ten feet high, the smell of pine in her nose. “It’s like I’m covered in the softest blanket absolutely everywhere! Comfier than I ever imagined!” Audrey exclaimed, rubbing her cloud-arms all over her cloud-body.

Porter skipped around and around, encouraging her. “Try for your legs, too! Keep believing!”

“I believe!” Audrey wailed.

Then, an unknown voice echoed across the lake. “Who are you talking to?”

Audrey looked where the sound originated and saw that a boy had burst from the wood. A real boy. Not imagined. Her heart stopped. She was sitting on her boat, rolling in the water’s motion. Porter was gone and her cloud-body had reverted to normal. “Um,” she stammered, “nobody.”

“You’re talking to yourself?”

“No,” Audrey said.

The boy looked puzzled. Audrey’s chest pounded and her face reddened, burned. She only felt this way when singing at church. Embarrassment. She thought of Porter’s foot-stamping, wishing he were here with her. But she knew he had to hide from strangers—his Momma’s rule.

“I’m James,” said the boy. “What’s your name?”

“Audrey.”

“I just moved in. Dad told me to check the woods out. Is it fun living here?”

“I guess so.” Audrey took up the boat’s oars.

“What grade are you in?”

“First.”

“Do you go to Brickwood? That’s where I’m going, Dad said.”

“I’m homeschooled,” Audrey said, paddling her boat back to shore as quickly as she could without seeming in too big a hurry.  

“Oh.” It was a statement. A declaration of the boys’ prejudgments.

Audrey did not say anything and continued paddling, nearing shore, wishing for home and Porter and safety. She had met a mean girl in Children’s Church who said the same thing about homeschool. Oh. Audrey stayed with Momma during church now.

“What do you do for fun?” James asked as Audrey pulled her boat up onto the cattail-crammed coast. He came near her, and Audrey saw his clean face and white shoes.

Audrey grunted and heaved the boat up and out of the water, her boots, already brown with mud, sinking into the grime. “I like to go out on the boat. And I play in the woods and climb trees.”

“Do you play inside?”  

“Sometimes I build puzzles with Momma.”

“Are there other kids around here?”

“Not really,” Audrey said, starting for home, looking down. She watched her muddy boots as she stepped safely over a patch of mushrooms. “I have to go to dinner now.”

“Oh,” said James, “okay. Bye.”

“Bye,” said Audrey, hurrying home. She sat at the kitchen table as Momma prepared spaghetti for dinner and told her about James. Momma said that was no proper introduction and that Audrey should give it another go tomorrow.

“But,” Audrey said, “he doesn’t like it outside, I don’t think. And he doesn’t believe in imagination.”

“How do you know all that?” asked Momma from the sink, looking over her shoulder.

“Because he said, ‘Are you talking to yourself?’ No, I wasn’t. I was talking to Porter.”

“Didn’t Porter have to hide?”

Audrey nodded.

“Well, that explains it,” Momma continued. “He just couldn’t see Porter, so he figured you were talking to yourself. Remember, don’t judge people before you get to know them.”

Momma doubled down: a proper introduction was in order. Audrey reluctantly agreed. So, right around lunch the next day, that’s what Audrey set out to do. She walked to James’ house slowly, taking the seldom-used path cutting through the woods. Her little heart beat and her hands sweat. On the way, she confided in Porter, who rode on her shoulder, a droplet of water.

“I’m nervous. If I mess it up, he’ll hate me,” she said.

“Be brave!” said Porter. “And if he hates you, then better off you’re not his friend. You don’t need a mean boy like that to be your friend. And don’t forget about me! You’ll always have me.”

Audrey nodded and told Porter to run along, for she was nearing the house. She didn’t want to be seen talking to nothing again. As Porter scurried away, he said, “I’ll be waiting for you out here, just in case. We’ll play together if things don’t go good. But don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

Audrey nodded and went to James’ door, knocking timidly. In a flash, James opened the door, as if he’d been expecting her. “Hi, Audrey!” he beamed, “I’m starting up Mario. Wanna play?”

Audrey, surprised, followed James inside slowly. “What’s Mario?”

The boy shot her a mischievous look. “Oh. You’re in for a treat.”

James showed Audrey a small, gray box which he called his Nintendo. It sat on the carpet of his bedroom beside a huge box television. Audrey had never seen anything like it. “Did your dad build it?”

“Heck no,” he laughed. “It comes from this place, Japan. Japan’s, like, a thousand miles away.”

Silently, Audrey watched as James turned on the device and grabbed a controller. He handed Audrey a second controller, which felt hard and strange in her hands. Then, all of a sudden, the television’s fuzzy screen lit up. Huge letters cascaded down: Nintendo. Music played, as if a full orchestra performed in the bedroom. Two little, pixelated men ran across the screen. “That’s Mario,” smiled James, “and that’s Luigi.”

Audrey had never seen television beyond the News. This, she thought, was totally different than the News. She watched James press buttons on his controller, and it corresponded to things happening on the screen, as if he were pressing the buttons on the TV itself.

“How are you doing that?” asked Audrey.

“What? Controlling the screen? You’ve never seen video games at all?”

Audrey shook her head, embarrassed. She felt like the homeschooled kid who does not understand the latest trends, remembering the mean church girls’ words.

“You’re really in for a treat,” said James, starting up the game. Super Mario Bros. To Audrey’s surprise, James did not mock her. “Look,” he said, leaning over so she could see his fingers on the controller. “When I press this, Mario moves. See? That’s Mario, but it’s like I’m Mario.”

Audrey’s mouth fell open. She forgot all about the mean girls and being homeschooled and not knowing the latest trends. “You are him?”

“Yeah, look,” James said, excited. He pressed another button and Mario jumped.

Audrey laughed and looked at James' face. He was smiling, too. “You wanna try?” he offered.

Audrey did not only try, but played. Time flew by, and soon, the two were laughing together. On the carpet of James’ room, Audrey had two monumental realizations. One: James’ Nintendo could imagine (IMAGINE!) for her. Two: James was her very first real-life friend.

Audrey started for home at dinnertime, gushing to Porter of what fun she’d had. She failed to notice, however, Porter’s downcast eyes as she spoke. At home she relayed the same message to Momma. Momma smiled and said “I told you so. I bet you and James will be thick as thieves.”

After this, Audrey and James were inseparable. Every single day (for it was James’ summer break) they played together—video games or hide-n-seek, inside or on the lake. They constructed forts of dropped branches, worked puzzles on Audrey’s kitchen table, and they even explored the shallow cave near the creek—which Audrey had never braved alone. James’ shoes soon came to match Audrey’s boots: dyed brown with dried mud. Audrey’s fingers soon became more dexterous on the controller, matching James’ expertise.

Audrey was so engaged with James that even the always-reliable dinner bell struggled to get her attention. Believe it or not, Momma was once forced to knock on James’ door to retrieve her.

Walking through the woods home, on the old trail now well-worn from two children’s back-and-forth footsteps, forever coming and going, Audrey apologized. “Sorry, Momma. I can’t hear the bell inside. What’s for dinner?”

Momma smiled. “Don’t be sorry, baby. I’m glad you found a nice friend. I’ve got chicken in the oven.” Then Momma teased, “You’re like an eloper nowadays.”

So much fun was Audrey having with James that her playdates with Porter grew scarce. At first, he walked with her to James’ house, but as time went on, he appeared less and less frequently. Eventually, he stopped accompanying her on the trail, and Audrey failed to realize. But how could you blame her? Too many exciting things were waiting to be done with James! Before James came, Audrey had been companionless. Then James moved in and lit Audrey’s world aflame. A person! A peer! A real friend!

But, one day, James went on vacation, leaving Audrey alone. She was infinitely bored, flipping through the comic book that James had lent her. She’d read it twice through, and the characters were losing their charm. Then she remembered! The lake! The Jon Boat! Porter!

She hurried down to the water, climbed into the rusty old boat, put the plug in, and pushed off. As she drifted out, she looked towards James’ house. If he were home, she wondered, what would he think of her being out on the lake alone? Would he judge her, think her immature for still imagining friends to play with? She shook her head and lay on her back, pushing the thoughts away, for James was gone, and she knew it.

She stared at the clouds, but she did not see any shapes. No frogs, no dragons, no rabbits. She squinted and focused very, very hard. Thoughts of James, embarrassing thoughts, surged in on her, uninvited little tricksters. She pushed them away as best she could, but they refused to leave, loitering in the back of her mind. She focused, clearing her head, but as she lay there, water rippling and breeze blowing, more thoughts came. The Nintendo. The imagination machine. If only she had one. She could turn it on right now and it would handle the imagining for her. It would be the perfect remedy for this curse of boredom.

She shook her head and found a cloud that looked vaguely like a four-legged animal—maybe a cat, or a dog, or a buffalo. But the clouds weren’t the same. Before, she had seen the world recreated in the sky. Now, she saw only random shapes on a blue background.

Where’s Porter, she wondered. “Porter,” she said, hardly above a whisper. She looked toward James’ house and the car was gone. He was gone, she assured herself. She called again, a little louder, “Porter.” A little louder, “Porter.”

But she could not make herself go louder than what Momma called her inside voice. She could not call out to her imaginary friend. She waited, waited, and waited some more, but Porter never hopped down. Her imagination never whirred into action, and she felt more alone than ever.

After a while, Momma rang the dinner bell. Audrey went inside, hoping that James’ vacation would be over soon.