Hazel

This is about me and my friend Hazel.

I didn't have anyone to play with out in our new house, so I threw a lucky penny I found into the old, yucky pond that's down the road from us and I wished real hard for a new friend to play with.

A few nights later there was tapping on my window. I thought it was old Mr. Willow Tree tapping it in the wind, but it kept up so I looked and wouldn't you know it there was Hazel.

I opened the window and she climbed in and we been the best of friends ever since.

She goes with me everywhere. Even when I don't want her to.

She rides the bus to school with me and sits behind me in class and whispers answers to me. Teacher thinks I'm real smart because of it.

Sometimes I want to play with the other kids, but Hazel doesn't like them, so we keep to ourselves and she pushes me on the swing or we go and sit and talk underneath the play structure.

One time Sam was mean to me at recess and said I was weird cuz I never played with anyone and he made me cry. I was alone that night cuz Hazel went to visit him. Sam didn't come to school the next day and he hasn't talked mean to me since.

When school is over me and Hazel play in the backyard when it's not raining. Hazel doesn't like getting wet. It makes her cranky. I don't like it when she is cranky, so I do whatever I have to to keep her smiling.

When it's bath time she sits in the corner and watches me wash. She is always real quiet when I'm in the tub, so when she is cranky sometimes I just go soak in the water. When that happens she glares at me from the corner, but that is better than her screaming or saying mean things.

Her screaming is the worst. One time when I went swimming with my mommy Hazel screamed in the corner of my room all night. Mommy came in twice and told me to be quiet and go to sleep, but I never got to sleep. I was real tired the next day. I said I was sorry to Hazel and picked her some flowers and that made her happy again.

The only water she seems to like is the water of the old pond I threw my lucky penny into. She tried to get to go swimming in it once, but I told her that it was gross because of all the slime in it and that daddy told me he would spank me if I ever went to it alone. She got mad and told me she was going to stop playing with me if I didn't go swimming in it, but I still told her no.

It's nice to have someone to play with, so I don't care that she gets mean every now and then. It's better than being alone. Sometimes.

Mommy and daddy said that I needed to stop talking to Hazel because I was too old to have an imaginary friend. I told them that Hazel was as real as we are and they got mad and told me to go to my room.

I snuck out and listened at the top of the stairs to hear what they were saying about us. Mommy said that she didn't want me to have to go to the doctor, but daddy was saying that some pills might be the only way for me stop seeing Hazel.

Hazel didn't like that. She went and visited daddy that night. I heard her talking to him from down the hallway. She was saying real mean words. I finally fell asleep, but I don't think daddy did. He called in sick to work the next day.

After talking with my teacher and the doctor mommy and daddy decided that I needed to go stay in the hospital for a few weeks. Then people were real nice and they gave me Jello whenever I wanted it. I didn't like the clothes they had me wear, but Hazel told me not to make a fuss over it.

Most of the days I talked in some groups and I talked with doctors a few times a day. They asked me about Hazel. She told me not to tell them anything, but the doctor told me I couldn't go home unless I told her the truth.

So I did. She gave the nurses pills to give me. Hazel told me not to take the pills and I didn't for the first few days. But they figured out that I wasn't taking them, so I had to swallow them in front of the nurse and then they checked my mouth to make sure the pills were gone.

The pills made me feel real funny and tired. I felt cold and dull all the time. I didn't like taking them, but I wanted to go home. I slept a lot. Mommy and daddy came to visit me. Mommy cried real hard.

Hazel told me the only way I was going to get to go home was to make the doctors believe that she wasn't my friend anymore. I told the doctors that Hazel had gone away and that made them happy.

It wasn't true. Hazel just sat in the corner all quiet like and we didn't talk to each other because we both wanted to go home. It wasn't long before mommy and daddy came to pick me up.

Things got back to normal at home. Mommy and daddy seemed happy now that I didn't talk to Hazel in front of them. It worked for the rest of the school year, but mommy heard me whispering to Hazel and her and daddy had another talk at the kitchen table like the one before they sent me to the hospital.

They came up and told me they were sending me away again. Hazel told me that they didn't love me anymore and I thought she was right. Mommy packed me a bag that sat in the corner waiting to be stuffed into the car trunk in the morning when they were going to take me back to the hospital.

Hazel told me that the only way for me not to go back to the hospital was to go swimming in the old pond down the road. That didn't sound right, but I really didn't want to go back to the hospital, so I would try it. So I changed into my favorite bathing suit, snuck out of my window and walked down to the old pond.

It was cold and slimy at first, but Hazel told me it would get better. And she was right. It's not so bad now. And I found the lucky penny I threw in the pond. It was right next to an old burlap sack that Hazel said her daddy put her in a long time ago.

A new family moved into my old house. There is a lonely little boy there to play with and Hazel says before long he will ask us to come play with him.