Best Friend

Best Friend





How I loved talking to him

Other than him, no one understood

Rick always knew what to say

I stood tall when he praised me

Zane was jealous, I didn’t care

Only Rick, seated on my bookcase, staring at the horizon

Normally I talked to him, today, he talked back.



Somehow, I knew I was special.  Somehow, I knew that Rick and I shared a unique bond.

Today though, I had to wonder.  He stayed so quiet, for so long.  It was almost as if he wasn’t there at all.

Any other day, I might not have minded.  Any other day, but not today, today I needed him.

Now, as I stare at him, I can’t see any flicker of life.  His eyes are normally so bright, so warm.  Today, they are just shinny glass.

“Don’t worry,” my mother said.  “Toys do that as you get older, when you don’t believe in them as you once did.”

I got so angry.  I yelled at her.  How dare she tell me that Rick was leaving me!  He was my best friend. 

Nonetheless, I went and talked to him.  He talked back.  Told me he wasn’t leaving. 

Gee, I was so happy.  I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.  I went to tell mother that Rick wasn’t going anywhere; she simply smiled and patted my head. 





Somehow, even though I knew she was patronizing me, it didn’t matter.  I had Rick back, my best friend.

‘E even looks like me.  His shaggy brown hair, deep brown eyes and his pink lips curved up in a tiny smile.

Anthony came to visit me yesterday.  He took Rick down from his shelf and started to pull out his hair.  Do you know what I did to him?  I said: “Anthony, you give me back my doll, or you’ll be sorry.”  He just smirked and kept going.  I took the tennis racquet to him.

Today, I kind of regret that.  My mother scolded me, then told me Anthony couldn’t come and play anymore coz his mother didn’t like me.  Then, mother told me that I had to go visit a doctor man.  I told her I didn’t want to. 

Ernest Geoffrey is his name. 

Despite my protests, I went anyway.  It just shows that nine year olds can’t really stop their mothers.  Anyway, Doctor Geoffrey asked me if I knew what I’d done to Anthony.  I laughed and said: “Of course, he stole my Rick and hurt him... so I beat him to get it back.”  Doctor Geoffrey just clicked his tongue and wrote things down.



“Viola,” he said to my mother, “Your daughter has a problem.” 

“I know,” she replied, her hand resting on my shoulder.  Well, not really resting, gripping it and holding on for dear life would be a more apt expression.  She could feel the tension in my body.

“Every child has attachment issues, but Ileana... she is, excuse me, has something different.”

“Well, what should I do?” my mother asked.  I glanced up at her face.  She was smiling when we walked in, but now her teeth were gritted in concentration.  Doctor Geoffrey was telling her nothing we’d heard before.



However Doctor Geoffrey proceeded from then, he was on treacherous ground.  I enjoyed telling Rick about this.

Our appointment ended when Doctor Geoffrey told my mother I needed a psychiatrist and that she needed to get rid of Rick.  “Only occasionally to begin with, then for longer periods of time,” he’d explained.  “Just get her used to the idea of her not having Mick with her.”

“RICK!” I’d shouted, “His name is Rick... and Zane is insanely jealous!”

I couldn’t help but add that detail.  It was true.  Zane sat on the shelf below Rick, and as it were, I hardly ever talked to him.  One day he actually jumped out at me... I nearly threw him in the fire place, but mother convinced me to keep him.

Zane didn’t understand our relationship.  Rick’s and mine that is.  Before Rick came along, Zane and I were like two peas in a pod, but then... then I set eyes on Rick and Zane was history.  Rick knows all my secrets, I love him with all my heart.  I still talk to Zane sometimes... but only when Rick is sleeping.

Oh, it’s not my fault Zane is jealous.  I know that.  It’s just in his temperament. 

Not like my Rick.  That’s why what Doctor Geoffrey said annoyed me so much.  Rick knows me so well.  I don’t want to only have Zane.



Somehow though, someone, or something was against us.  A week after my appointment with Doctor Geoffrey, Rick was missing.  I cried for hours.

Then, I realised my mother may have decided to try Doctor Geoffrey’s advice.  So I asked her.

And when I saw her face go white, I knew I was right.  That afternoon, Rick came back.

Now, I take him everywhere.  I never used to take him to school, but now he sits in my bag, we have lunch together and everything!

Dinah, my ‘best friend’ at school told me I was weird the other day.  So I hit her.

I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she kept saying that I was weird, and that doll’s didn’t talk.  So I introduced her to Rick.

Now, she doesn’t talk to me anymore.  I don’t mind.

Guess what though!  Dinah might have stopped talking to me, but Jamison started.  I told him to go away then he showed me his doll.  So we introduced them.  Now Rick and Monique are best friends too.



So now, I sometimes let Rick go home with Jamison and he sometimes lets me take Monique home.  She is a bit weird, but I don’t tell Jamison that.  I like Jamison.

Every now and then, I catch him looking at me, I smile back.  Then I look at Monique and she is scowling at me.  It doesn’t really bother me.  Or didn’t.

After the last time she glared at me, Rick didn’t talk to me for the whole night!  He still hasn’t said why.  In fact, he’s really withdrawn from me.  This made me sad to start with, but now I just ring Jamison.

Today, I didn’t talk to Rick at all.  I noticed that Zane looked extremely pleased about that.  I poked my tongue out at him.  My mother caught me, and warned me that I may have to go back to Doctor Geoffrey if I wasn’t careful.  I just smiled and nodded.

Even if she forced me I wasn’t going back to see him.  I had my tenth birthday the other day.  I don’t need a doctor now.  I’m a big girl! 

Don’t worry; I had a party... in my room.  Jamison came, and brought Monique and I had Rick.  I even let Zane come.  Jamison didn’t seem too pleased about that.  He told me to close my eyes.  So I did.  Hearing him moving things around I opened my eyes.



“Victory!” Jamison cried, “I knew you couldn’t do it!”

I shut my eyes again, and waited.  It took forever before I heard him sit down again.  He was so close.

“Eh, Ileana, open your eyes...” 

“Why?” I asked, still clamping my eyes shut.  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he retorted.  So I did as I was told.  And he kissed me.



“How could you-”

“Oh come on, I know you didn’t mind,” he laughed.  The held Rick up in front of me, “see, he doesn’t mind either...”

Rick smiled, he looked so happy.

I didn’t know what to say.  He wasn’t jealous at all.

Zane on the other hand was fuming.  His tiny eyebrows knitted together, a sneer spreading across his face.

Otherwise, the room didn’t look that different.  Everything else was just where it had been.

“Now, do you want some cake?” Jamison asked, “I’ve given you your present.”



“Sure, yes please.”  He took my hand and we left the room.  Rick, Zane and Monique were left behind.

That night, I even forgot to take Rick to bed with me.  I left him on the floor where he’d been discarded that afternoon. 

Any other night, I couldn’t get to sleep without Rick, but that night, I feel asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Now, I don’t really take Rick with me anywhere.  I put him back in the bookcase.  I still talk to him sometimes, but mostly I spend my days with Jamison.

Doctor Geoffrey said it was good for me.

I didn’t pay any attention to the rest of our session after that.  I just wanted to go back out to the park.  Mother promised to take me to meet Jamison.

Now, I spend most of my days with him.  He even gave me Monique.  She sits on my bookcase, just above Zane.  She shares the same shelf as Rick, and he doesn’t mind at all. 

“Goodnight,” said my mother poking her head through the door one evening.  “Who have you got there?”  I didn’t answer, I just held him tighter.  His small shape fitted snugly against my body, my new doll.  Jamison.