I awoke at seven in the morning. My curtains were closed, but the sunlight still managed to make its way through the thin fabric and shine in my face. I pulled the bed covers up to my neck and listened to the sounds coming from another room in the house. Emma was talking to herself again.
Swinging my legs out from beneath the warmth of my bed covers, I slipped my bare feet into my slippers and crept across the floor to my bedroom door. It opened silently as I pushed gently against the wood. I poked my head around the corner of the door and, seeing that nobody else was around, closed it behind me and made my way along the corridoor.
I could see that the light in Emma's room was switched on because the brightness shone through the gaps along the edge of the door frame. Faint, mumbling voices could be heard from inside. I leaned my head against the wall and listened.
"Why aren't you happy?" Emma was saying. There was no reply as she was silent for a moment. "I know you don't like it here, but I do."
My fears were confirmed - Emma did talk to herself! Why did Mummy and Daddy have to pick her to live with us instead of somebody normal? Unsure about wanting to hear anything more of what she had to say, I removed my ear from the wall and sat down on the carpet. This was not how I had imagined feeling about my new sister. I was supposed to love her, wasn't I?
I sat there for a few minutes, considering what to do. 'Perhaps if I tell Mummy about it all, she'll take Emma back to where she came from and she won't have to live here', I thought. Then I remembered about how excited she and Daddy had been about her coming and realized it would not be so simple. Being so wrapped up in my own thoughts, I didn't notice that noises were no longer coming from Emma's room. So, when I looked up and saw her standing next to me, it was a bit of a surprise.
"What are you doing?" She whispered. I couldn't think of anything to say in reply, so stood up and began to walk back to my bedroom. "Don't go!" She cried, before lowering her voice back to a whisper. I stopped and turned back to face her. "Come in my room. I have something to show you."
Before I even had the chance to say no, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into her bedroom.
The walls were painted a light pink. Cream curtains hung down on either side of the window and the furniture was all painted the same matching colour. Both light and bright, her bedroom was annoyingly girly and peaceful. In the centre of the room, her bed looked comfy and inviting. Colourful pillows were propped up along the headboard and thin blankets covered the length of the mattress.
"Did you hear me talking earlier?" Emma asked me as I turned back to face her. I was unsure how to reply so just gently shrugged my shoulders. "You probably think I was talking to myself, but I wasn't. Honestly."
"Okay." I didn't belive her but I wasn't going to try upset her.
"You don't believe me, do you?" It was like she could read my mind.
"No." There was no point in lying.
"Let me tell you a secret," she said, pulling me down onto the bedroom rug. We crossed our legs, sitting opposite each other. "We're not alone in this room."
"What do you mean?"
"I would like to introduce you to your new... brother. He's sitting beside you," she pointed to the place next to me.
Quickly turning my head to where her finger was, I told her "There's nobody there."
"I'll explain things to you," she said.
The two of us sat in silence for what could have been a few minutes. I could see she was trying to come up with a way to explain things clearly, but knew I couldn't believe anything she told me. After all, she could have easily been fibbing.
"His name is Tod," she began.
"Who?"
"Your brother," she said, as if it was completely obvious. "Our brother, Tod."
"Why is he called Tod?" I questioned.
"It's a nice name," she whispered back, sounding angry. My new sister put a finger to her lips and, looking sternly at me, continued to speak. "Anyway, only I can see him. He's kind of invisible to anybody else."
"What's invisible?" I had never heard that word before.
"It means you can't see him. He's there, next to you, but you cannot see him. I can."
Again, I looked to the empty place beside me. I was finding it very difficult to belive that anybody was sitting there - visible or invisible and I didn't know what to say back to her without hurting her feelings.
"I used to imagine I had a brother," I explained, realizing that maybe 'Tod' was made up. About a year ago, when my friend Tomas had moved schools and I had nobody to play with, I had imagined a friend who had been just like him. "We played together all the time."
"I guess that Tod is kind of like an imaginary friend," she agreed.
"Do you play with him a lot? Like a friend?"
"I do kind-of play with him," she replied. "But he's not really a friend. Oops! I shouldn't say that when he's here!" she looked to the space on the rug next to me. "Sorry, Tod," she mumbled, then turned back to face me. "He's more like a brother. He's always been with me - all my life."
"So he's an i-mag-in-ar-ee friend?" I tried the word out for the first time. She shook her head.
"Well... only I can see him and we do play together sometimes. The only difference is, he isn't imaginary. He's real."
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