The Pillow Friend Read Online Free PDF Page A

immediate neighborhood. The pecan tree in her backyard was pretty good, but they both agreed that the best tree of all was the huge old oak on the corner at the other end of the street, in Mr. and Mrs. Darwin's front yard. The Darwins were an elderly, childless couple, but they were the friendly natives who never objected to having their yard taken over and used as a playground. Rosamund and Clarissa had given up climbing trees as being too childish shortly before becoming, officially, teenagers. If that was the kind of deal you had to make to become a teenager, Agnes thought it was definitely not worth it. She was pretty sure that she and Leslie were the only children who played in that tree now. There was a hollow in a branch near the top which they called their “cubbyhole,” and they left treasures and messages in it which no one else had ever found.
    There were also things to do indoors, during the heat of the day. Often she played with Leslie, but, for the first time this summer, Agnes found herself wanting to spend more time on her own. Myles wasn't the only thing she couldn't share with her friend—there were also books. Agnes had fallen in love with reading, but Leslie couldn't understand why anyone would want to sit quietly with a book outside of school. It puzzled and hurt her that Agnes would rather read than play with her. One day that hurt came spilling out.
    They had been at Leslie's house all morning, playing with dolls, and then outside in the inflated wading pool, with the hose and the Slip 'n' Slide, splashing and shrieking and scooting along on their stomachs through the wetness. Leslie's mother, Jane-Ann, had given them lunch, and after lunch they'd been sent off to Leslie's room with instructions to stay there and play quietly for at least an hour, so Jane-Ann could have a rest.
    “Maybe I should go home?”
    “No, you can't go home. Let's play games. We can play Candyland.”
    So they had played Candyland and Go Fish and Old Maid and Beetle, and all the time Agnes had been fretting, impatient to get away, her mind wandering off to the stack of library books waiting for her at home. She had read the first one last night, but the others called to her, tempting, tantalizing, each one different, exciting, new. The one she wanted to read next was called
My Favorite Age
. She had peeked at the first page that morning and was in a tingle of excitement trying to imagine what would happen next. She had expected to go home for lunch, after which it would have been easy to curl up in the big leather chair in her father's den, surrounded by his books, and lose herself in the undiscovered pleasures of a new library book.
    “Aggie, will you just play
right
?” Leslie threw down her cards and Agnes stared at her in astonishment. She was crying.
    “What's the matter?”
    “I don't know! You don't want to play with me, I don't know why. Aren't we best friends anymore?”
    “Of course we are!”
    “Then why don't you tell me things like you used to? Why don't you tell me the truth about him? Why don't you ever let me hear him talk?” She gestured at Myles, on the floor, and Agnes reached down without thinking to cover him with her hand.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Do you think I'm stupid? You told me what your aunt said about her pillow friend, and then for your birthday she gives you that doll. It was her doll, wasn't it? Well, it's obvious. You carry it around with you all the time, it must be special, but you don't play with it. So what is it with that doll that you won't tell me?”
    Although Leslie left pauses for her to speak, Agnes was unable to say anything. She had not told Leslie anything about Myles, because there was nothing to tell. It had been nearly two months now since her birthday, and Myles had still not spoken, or moved, or given her the slightest sign that he was the special, magic doll she still longed to believe in. She continued to hope, and always kept him near her, to be ready for the