author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

There was one family on the block where I grew up whose rule for their son was, “When the street lights come on, you have to come in.” In retrospect, it was kind of genius. If the rule had been “When it gets dark,” he could have argued over the exact moment, but there’s no wiggle room with a street light. It’s either on or it’s off.

We totally made fun of him for it, of course. And when our parents set off New Years fireworks, we cheered when a well-aimed bottle rocket triggered the light sensor and turned the streetlights off again. Now our friend would never have to go in!

Uncle Garrick woke Harold up one Saturday morning when he was eight. It was just before dawn. The sun had not yet arrived, but it had sent its fastest rays of light ahead of itself to let everyone know it was on its way.

Harold usually hated waking up early. Harold’s mother often called it her Great Despair, the way he resisted every attempt to get him out of bed in time for school. But because it was Uncle Garrick, Harold leapt out of bed like a salmon, wriggling all over with excitement. Uncle Garrick was the most fun. Uncle Garrick meant adventure.

“Where are we going today, Uncle Garrick?” Harold whispered as they crept out of the house—silently, so as not to wake Harold’s mother. “Are we going back to the merry-go-round with the dragons that really breathe fire? Are we going to visit the mermaids again at Sugar Sand Beach?”

Uncle Garrick laughed a silent laugh, shoulders jiggling and mouth wide open in a smile. “Someplace even better than that,” he assured Harold softly. “You’ll see.”

Harold only saw Uncle Garrick every few months, maybe only twice a year. This hardly seemed fair, given that Harold’s mother insisted on their visiting Harold’s grandfather in the retirement home almost every week. Harold’s grandfather wasn’t anywhere near as fun as Uncle Garrick. Sometimes Harold would ask his mother if they could visit Uncle Garrick, and his mother would sigh, “Oh, Harold.” Once she said, “Finish your homework first” in a distracted sort of way. Harold did his homework in record time that afternoon, but then when he reminded his mother of her promise, she got angry, saying, “Harold, just stop.” So Harold had come to the conclusion that Uncle Garrick must live very far away.

They got in Uncle Garrick’s big green monster of a car. Harold never saw any cars like Uncle Garrick’s on the road. It looked big enough to comfortably fit Harold and three of his best friends across the back seat. But Uncle Garrick never took Harold’s friends with them on their adventures. He only ever took Harold.

The bottom of the car made its usual awful scraping noise at the bottom of Harold’s driveway. Harold waited for Uncle Garrick to issue the usual command. “Put your seat belt on,” Harold expected to hear. “Your mother would never forgive me if I didn’t tell you to.”

When Uncle Garrick still didn’t say it, Harold prompted him. Uncle Garrick replied, “Why? Do you want to put your seat belt on?” And he grinned so wickedly that Harold grinned back and said, “No way!” And that made Uncle Garrick’s grin even wider.

Harold watched out the window, as he always did, for the moment when things changed. Usually it happened near the corner store where they’d get on the interstate highway, sometimes a little before and sometimes a little after. Today it happened even before they made that first turn off Harold’s street. Mr. Hubert’s house looked normal, with its line of azalea bushes crowding the white picket fence, but the rooster weathervane on the roof was flapping its wings. Harold could hear it crowing even through the closed windows of Uncle Garrick’s car. When the next few houses were life-sized gingerbread cottages with stained-glass windows in the front made of thinly sliced gumdrops, Harold knew they were well and truly on their way.

The road turned and Uncle Garrick turned the car with it until they were driving straight into the sun. It was coming up at last, peeking golden and round and kind above the distant tips of the bird-of-paradise trees. Harold’s Uncle Cotton had a bird-of-paradise plant in a pot in his backyard, and it was bigger than Harold, but when Uncle Garrick was driving, birds-of-paradise grew taller than skyscrapers, and they sang.

They drove on and on. Harold kept his face glued to the window, and his eyes grew wider with every marvel they passed. He never got bored, but he did start to wonder. It felt like they’d been driving for hours. By now they should have arrived at whatever adventure Uncle Garrick had planned. Eventually he had to ask. “Uncle Garrick, where are we going? You never said.”

Uncle Garrick grinned that wicked grin again. “You ever had a perfect afternoon when you wished the street lights would never turn on, so you’d never have to stop playing and go inside?” Harold nodded. His mother’s rule about the street lights was his own Great Despair. “Well. Where I live, the sun never sets at all.” Uncle Garrick nodded ahead at the glorious golden globe that was still hanging just above the horizon. It hadn’t moved a bit. “The day goes on and on, so you never have to come in for dinner and you never have to go to bed. You can do whatever you want, as long as you want, forever. That’s where we’re going.”

Harold stared at Uncle Garrick. Uncle Garrick stared right back at him. Uncle Garrick’s car took this inattention in stride, driving itself quite capably. “Really?” Harold asked.

“Really.”

“Is it very far away? We’ve been driving for, like, infinity.”

“It’s very far and very close by.” Uncle Garrick said. “It’s just one word away, and that word is: Yes.”

Harold felt like he was a can of soda pop and Uncle Garrick had shaken him up. Millions of tiny excitement bubbles rose up inside him until he thought he might explode. But he remembered what Uncle Garrick had told him on many of their adventures: If anyone offers you something, don’t take it right away. Make them tell you what it costs first. Don’t accept unless you’re willing to pay. So Harold didn’t say Yes, not yet. “What’s the catch?”

Uncle Garrick nodded. “Smart boy. The catch is, it is forever. But that’s hardly a catch, is it? No more school, no more bedtimes, no more boring visits to Grandpa. Just you and me having adventures that never have to end. So how about it? Yes or no?”

Harold looked behind him at that big, wide back seat. “Can we bring my friends along, too? Maria and Richard and Rahul? They’re my best friends, they’d be great on adventures. Let’s go back and get them.” And then, with a pang of conscience, he said, “And Mom, too. I mean, we don’t have to bring her. But I should at least say goodbye.”

Uncle Garrick’s smile somehow drained a little out of his eyes even while it kept stretching his mouth wide. “Just you and me, Harold. Forever, if you say Yes.”

“But—”

“Or you can say No, and I’ll take you home. It’s up to you.”

Harold felt tears prickling his eyes. It was so unfair! But he couldn’t just go off on magical adventures forever and leave his friends behind. And even if his mother’s rules drove him nuts, the thought of never seeing her again was like a cold wind blowing through his ribs. “I guess you’d better take me home, then.”

Uncle Garrick didn’t answer Harold, but the road did. It turned itself right around, taking Uncle Garrick’s car with it. And the sun was still directly ahead of them, but now it was a sleepy red afternoon sun that was just about to set. The expression stretching Uncle Garrick’s mouth wasn’t a smile anymore, but Harold couldn’t say exactly what had changed. He felt awful. He wondered if this was what it was like to be a grown-up, always saying No when he had wanted to say Yes, making himself and everyone around him unhappy.

As they pulled into Harold’s driveway, all the streetlights up and down the block came on. “See you soon, Uncle Garrick,” said Harold as he got out of the car. He waited for Uncle Garrick to reply the way he always did—”Not if I see you first!”—but Uncle Garrick didn’t say anything, so Harold just went inside. What else could he do?

Harold’s mother couldn’t seem to decide between hugging him and yelling at him. “I was this close to calling the police, Harold! Where have you been all day?” When he told her that he’d spent the day with Uncle Garrick, that seemed to make up her mind. She held him out at arm’s length and said, “This is not the time for wild stories about your imaginary friend, Harold! I was really worried!” Then her expression froze. “But—no, Harold, tell me that you didn’t. You know not to get in strangers’ cars. Tell me you didn’t get in a stranger’s car. Oh, Harold, I could have lost you!”

Harold was grounded for a month, which didn’t seem fair. But when he remembered how terribly still his mother’s face had gone, he couldn’t help but think he’d made the right choice.

As for Uncle Garrick, Harold never saw him again. And as the years passed, he too came to believe Uncle Garrick had only been his imaginary friend.

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