“It makes me kind of wonder about fairy tales. I mean, if you’re real, then why shouldn’t fairy tales be real, too?” Clare stands up, still pondering the board, and does a little dance, hopping around like her pants are on fire. “I think the ground is getting harder. My butt’s asleep.”

“Maybe they are real. Or some little thing in them is real and then people just added to it, you know?”

 

“Like maybe Snow White was in a coma?” “And Sleeping Beauty, too.”

 

“And Jack the beanstalk guy was just a real terrific gardener.”

 

“And Noah was a weird old man with a houseboat and a lot of cats.” Clare stares at me. “Noah is in the Bible. He’s not a fairy tale.”

 

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” I’m getting very hungry. Any minute now Nell will ring the dinner bell and Clare will have to go in. She sits back down on her side of the board. I can tell she’s lost interest in the game when she starts building a little pyramid out of all the conquered pieces.

 

“You still haven’t proved you’re real” Clare says. “Neither have you.”

 

“Do you ever wonder if I’m real?” she asks me, surprised.

 

“Maybe I’m dreaming you. Maybe you’re dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other’s dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other.”

 

Clare frowns, and makes a motion with her hand as though to bat away this odd idea. “Pinch me,” she  requests. I lean over and pinch her lightly on the arm. “Harder!” I do it again, hard enough to leave a white and  red mark that lingers for some seconds and then vanishes. “Don’t you think I would wake up, if I was asleep? Anyway, I don’t feel asleep.” “Well, I don’t feel like a spirit. Or a fictional character.”

 

“How do you know? I mean, if I was making you up, and I didn’t want you to know you were made up, I just wouldn’t tell you, right?”

 

I wiggle my eyebrows at her. “Maybe God just made us up and He’s not telling us.”

 

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Clare exclaims. “Besides, you don’t even believe in

God. Do you?”

 

I shrug, and change the subject. “I’m more real than Paul McCartney.”

 

Clare looks worried.