*Bell rings*
"Alright kids, class dismissed" announced Tim.
The class put away their various materials into their backpacks and commuted out of Mister Sherman's room like
a school of salmon swimming upstream, including Eve. But just before she reached the threshold of the door,
she got one last look at Mister Sherman, the almost doppelganger for her imaginary friend Tim.
All through English class Eve daydreamed, wondering exactly why Mister Sherman could be so relevant to all the
strange things that happened to her over the years. It was almost as if Eve had been waiting for this one
exact moment her entire life. The moment when she felt most down, most out of place, most lonely, and then
just out of the blue walked in her imaginary pal that she made up a long time ago suddenly just walking
through the door in physical form. But she couldn't just ask Mister Sherman what he knew...could she? She
tried being direct with people before, and all it got her was odd looks and gossip behind her back about how
"weird" she was, or, more gently, how "troubled" she was.
"Having any trouble with quantifiers, Ms. Jones?"
Eve's daydream suddenly deflated. Her English teacher, who had been walking up and down the rows of desks,
suddenly stopped in front of hers.
"N-no. Sorry, I just got distracted."
The teacher nodded knowingly, worried at Eve's empty notebook. Usually she was a straight A student in his
class, and took lots of notes.
He then walked past, allowing an embarrassed Eve to pick up her pen and start copying the board. She could
think about the significance of Mister Sherman during lunchtime.
***
"Pete."
Pete looked up from his lunch to see his best friend Eve staring at him. Oh, why did he have to pick her as a
buddy? Normally, Pete was relatively popular in school. In fact, he was somewhat of a cool, charming ladies
man. He saw Eve one day, decided she was hot enough to be payed attention to, and then was slowly dragged into
her net of weirdness. He initially wanted to hook up with her, but after too many failed attempts at it
because of Eve's mental baggage, he decided to just stay friends with her. Who knows, maybe he could even help
her through some of her problems.
"Yes, Eve? What's it this time?"
m
"Mister Sherman. Remember my imaginary friend, Timmy? The two are completely identical. Mister Sherman is like
the grown up version of Tim."
"That wouldn't make them identical then, Eve."
"You know what I mean, Pete."
"Yeah, I suppose I do. So what makes you say that?"
"Everything. His mannerisms, his speech patterns, his glasses. Everything. I think he's somehow related to
Paul Hodgson(just then, you could hear Pete moan at the mention of Paul's name. He's heard it WAY too many
times). Do you think I should approach him somehow and tell him about it?"