A/N: Next chapter!
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A week passed. Mike and his mom finished getting all their things together inside their new house. His mom and Zoey's had officially met. Zoey's mom had made cookies for them, as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift. She brought Zoey along with her. Zoey hid behind her mother.
"Mike should come over sometime! It's been forever since Zoey had a friend to play with," Zoey's mom changed the topic of their conversation.
Mike's mother's faced went from smiling to a fearfully concerned frown. "Oh! Well, I suppose if you're keeping an eye on them..." Mike's mother looked wary. She let her gaze slide to Mike, who was sitting on the floor drawing, a smile on his face.
Zoey slowly walked around the adults, and went over to Mike. "Hi," she said quietly. "What are you drawing?"
"Hm?" Mike looked up at Zoey. He recognized her and smiled. "Hi!" he returned the greeting. "I'm drawing my friends." He held up his paper. On it were five people. The one on the far left was hunched over and only had one eye. Next to them was someone wearing a hat and smirking. One had red lips and twinkly eyes, and was posing like they were about to lift off the ground. One wasn't wearing a shirt, and was flexing his arms and smiling. The one on the end was a bit separate from the others. They had their arms crossed and were frowning, with their hair over most of their face, showing only one eye. All five of them resembled Mike.
"Are those people real? They all look like you." Zoey didn't want to sound mean, but having five friends look exactly like you? That was a bit hard to believe.
"They are to me," Mike replied, still smiling.
Zoey nodded. She didn't want to pry too much about his imaginary friends. "What are their names?"
"Chester, Manitoba, Svetlana, Vito, and Mal," he recited their names, pointing to each one in turn.
"Oh, okay." Those are weird names, Zoey thought. "You're good at art."
Mike blushed. "Thanks. I did it a lot at my old house."
"Ok." She didn't know what else to say.
"Do you wanna draw?" Mike asked. "I have some more things over here. We could draw together."
"Oh, sure! If that's okay with you, and your mom and everything..." Zoey blushed.
Mike smiled at her, stood up and walked over to his mom. He pulled on her pants leg. "Mom, can Zoey draw with me?"
His mother looked down at him. She smiled. "I guess she can."
Mike's face lit up as he walked back over to Zoey. "She said yes."
Zoey smiled. Mike handed her a blank piece of paper and a red crayon. She sat down next to him and began to draw. Mike also got a fresh piece of paper and started a new picture.
Halfway through, Mike let out a sigh of frustration. "Why can't I ever get this part right?!"
"What part?" Zoey asked, looking up from the flower she was drawing.
"I can never get the head to look right on the body. I'll never get it, I keep trying and I always mess up. It's so annoying-" Mike took a deep breath in and his eyes bugged out. When he regained his composure, one of his eyes was closed and his lips were curled in a bit. "Bah! Back in my day, we didn't have fancy wax things to color with or sheets of white to draw on! We had to use twigs in the dirt! And we could erase our mistakes if we felt like it!" His voice sounded like it belonged to an old man.
Zoey raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay, Mike?"
"Mike? The name's Chester, young lady."
"Oh." He must've been pretending to be one of his 'friends' to be funny. That's what Zoey thought, so out of politeness she laughed awkwardly.
"Laughing at the elderly, are ya?" 'Chester' asked, offended.
Zoey shut her mouth and shook her head. "No. I thought you were trying to be funny."
"I lost my sense of humor years ago." 'Chester' suddenly took a deep breath, his eyes bugged out, his other eye opened and his lips returned to normal.
Mike blinked. "What just happened?" He sounded confused.
"Chester decided to say hi."
"Oh. Was he okay? Did he say anything weird?" Mike asked her.
"No, he just thinks using crayons is fancy."
"I already knew that. Let's just keep drawing." Mike went back to focusing on his picture.
Zoey was a bit confused. It was Mike playing a character, wasn't it?
"Mike, I think Zoey should be going now." Mike's mother had seen what happened and looked worried.
"They look like they're having fun. She can stay for now, I'll pick her up in an hour," Zoey's mom said assuringly.
"Ok..." Mike's mom sighed, defeated.
"I'll come back later, ok, Zoey?"
Zoey nodded to her mom.
An hour passed. Chester came back every once in a while, complaining about the paper crinkling or the crayons breaking. Zoey laughed every time, but was still a bit confused.
"Bye, Zoey!" Mike waved enthusiastically to her when her mom came to take her back across the street.
"Bye, Mike," she waved back.
"Did you have fun?" her mom later asked.
"Yeah, I guess I did."
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