The kid who bullied me vanished the morning after I made my imaginary friends. I never asked where he went. (Part 2)

[u/Lantern_and_Lye]

[Part 1]

Everyone is afraid of something. Some people avoid their fears. Others learn to control them. I had my friends.

They came to me in a moment of overwhelming uncertainty. The unknown made me anxious, and in the waiting, I tortured myself with what-ifs that were more than unlikely, mere figments of my imagination. So I let my imagination take over, and I built five friends: Mister Cocoa, Mister Wuffles, Lulu, Vivi, and Itsy. Where I used to avoid my fear, I learned to control it.

I couldn’t keep a real friend to save my life, but I never had trouble keeping bullies, Danny being the worst of them. That first night, when Mister Cocoa asked what I needed, I thought of Danny, naturally. I thought about the times he’d taken my lunch money. I thought about the times he’d stolen my glasses. I thought about the beatings. I thought about how he’d taken my name from me. I was a quiet kid, so Mouse stuck. Even some of the teachers, I’m sure thinking it a cute nickname, joined in on the teasing. So when it hurt, I thought about his fears. Everyone is afraid of something, and Danny was afraid of dogs.

I knew the story behind it the way any child learns an urban legend: on the playground. When Danny was in kindergarten, he walked to the bus stop with his older brother, Daryl. About a hundred yards from their house, they came upon a dilapidated trailer that belonged to an even more decrepit old man. Mr. Thibodaux was semi-retired and bred guard dogs for a living. He was a grouch who, instead of giving candy to kids, found it fun to hurl insults and keep every ball that flew over his fence. He got his kicks walking his beloved beasts and letting them yank their leashes taut inches from terrified children.

One morning, Daryl thought it would be funny to run ahead as they passed Mr. Thibodaux’s fence. That left little Danny petrified in front of a row of foaming, snarling pit bulls, each tied to a stake with frayed rope. Daryl called back, laughing, that Danny had better hurry up before Thibodaux’s dogs got him. He barely finished the sentence before one of the pit bulls yanked its stake out of the ground, crawled through a shallow trench under the fence, and went after Danny.

Danny took off running. Daryl dropped a few obscenities, realizing he’d just dropped the ball on being the protective older brother. Danny turned around, tripped on his shoelaces, and before his feet could slap the pavement, his face did. The dog ran over and latched onto his ankle. Daryl, panicking, ran back and kicked it as hard as he could to free his brother from its grip. The bus rounded the corner just then, and a busload of impressionable children watched the whole thing. By lunchtime, it had solidified into playground legend.

From that point on, Danny was deathly afraid of dogs. His father had been leaving for work when he spotted his sons on the concrete, one of them bleeding badly. Without turning off his car, he asked what happened, and before he’d gathered all the details, he stormed over to Mr. Thibodaux’s door and pounded on it with fatherly fury. The old man answered with an expression that said he was ready to scold, and Danny’s dad clocked him in the face, dragged his bleeding son into the car, and drove to the hospital. It took eight stitches to close the wound.

The rumor was that the rabies set into Danny’s brain that day and turned him into the vile child I knew. I know now that if it were true, he never would have survived. Maybe bullying was how Danny took control of his fear, but he always avoided the straight way to the bus stop across Mr. Thibodaux’s yard. Instead, Danny always came from the side.

After the chaos of that day, Mr. Thibodaux got even by pressing assault charges against Danny’s father. That sent him down a dirty rabbit hole of alcoholism, and one day, Danny’s mother had enough. With a black eye and bruises, she kicked her husband out of the house. Some say he moved away to work in the plants between here and Texas. All I know is that I never met him, but Danny idolized him. He was one of those fathers who tried to win back his family’s love with love-bombing gifts, the most recent being the Nintendo 64 and electric scooter Danny got for his birthday.

Danny was twelve years old and still in the fifth grade. When he wasn’t hassling kids for money, he could often be seen collecting cigarette butts at the Circle-K down the road. Whatever happened to him that day changed his life for the worse. A boy his brother once described as timid, even shy, had become a pre-teen who reeked of death and defiance.

I was afraid of Danny. Danny was afraid of dogs. And dogs were the beasts that lorded over the wild. That is, until they became man’s best friend. For when we conquered fear, we conquered the wilderness.

The next morning, I must have counted my money over seven times as I waited for Danny to arrive. He’d promised things would get worse if I came up short. As the minutes passed, I felt certain he would turn up any moment. Like a sprinkler, I turned and scanned the yard, waiting for him to come running down the side streets of our neighborhood. My world was growing gray as the dread of the inevitable set in. But before my heart could leap into my throat, I heard the squeal of brakes. The bright yellow school bus, my chariot to safety, had arrived, and Danny hadn’t. I couldn’t believe my luck.

I smiled and kicked my legs in joy as the bus rolled under the awning at my elementary school. For the first time in months, I made it to class with my money and my face intact.

That morning, peace reverberated through the school halls, as my fellow classmates were spared, too. At recess, I learned that Danny hadn’t made it to school at all. Already, rumors had begun to spread. People said he must be home sick playing GoldenEye 007, or maybe he was playing hooky, smoking cigarettes in the woods. But part of me wondered what the truth really was.

I wish I had never found out. Even though I’d felt better that day than I had in ages, the guilt and shame I came to carry proved too much for me. When I got home from school, I found Mister Wuffles lying on my bed, pawing at his mouth as if to wipe away a mess.

“How was school? Were you safe?” he asked, his deep golden eyes playful.

I nodded and smiled uneasily, because it looked like Mister Wuffles had been eating raw pork, which I cared little for.

“Danny was absent,” I said, matter-of-fact.

“Of course!” sang Vivi. She dangled from my ceiling fan, coiled like a spring, with a swollen middle and a small lump resting in her gut. “Did anything hurt you?” she asked.

Lulu and Itsy crawled out of my closet, curious about Vivi’s question, and as they shut the door behind them, I thought I saw something I wasn’t supposed to.

“Not today,” I said. I couldn’t explain why at the time, but I had a feeling that something was going terribly wrong.

“We brought you something!” said Itsy. “Open the closet. It’s for you.” The silky friend smiled a tiny smile, revealing two fangs I hadn’t noticed the night before.

“I don’t like the closet. It’s dark and scary.” I quivered.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of!” begged Lulu. “Here, I’ll light it up for you.” The rainbows from her lamp shot out across my floor, and as I walked toward the closet, my feet stuck and peeled free with every step.

“Why is the floor so sticky?” I asked.

Mister Cocoa began to laugh, a deep and unnerving laugh. “I spilled my lunch, is all.” The smile spread thin across his face. “Go on now, check out the gift we got you.”

I grabbed the doorknob as they all waited in anticipation. I turned it and pulled with all my might, afraid of what I might see. As the door swung open, something fell out onto the floor with a loud thud. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was an electric scooter.