“I’ll be back in a couple of hours”, Helena said resting her little hand in the flashing red door of her wardrobe. “Don’t be too scared, it’s okay”.

School today was going to be even more boring than yesterday, and definitely more than the day before. School already couldn’t teach her anything that she hadn’t read in some random book before. Really impressive for a seven year-old girl, although she wasn’t a normal seven year-old. She was way more intelligent and mature than any other kid her age, but that wasn’t the only thing that made her stand out.

She had tried to convince her mother to homeschool her. Helena said that she preferred to discover the world on her own over someone telling her what she should or shouldn’t do. Also, being at home would give her more time to be with her dear friend, but only her could know that.

The day passed really slow for her. Another boring day at school wishing to get home to her only real friend. She was too good for the other kids anyway.

During the break, she grabbed her lunch and went straight to her spot. The bench under the tree where no one ever wanted to sit. They said some kid threw up in there so you must not sit there in case it’s contagious. Helena wasn’t that dumb to believe that.

As she ate her homemade muffin, she looked at the other kids playing hide and seek, wondering how it would be to be normal and able to play hide and seek like every other kid her age, without worrying about what they would think if they discovered that she does what she does. She wouldn’t want to end up in a kids mental hospital like that boy in 1976.

“Don’t you ever play with the other kids? It would surely make you less suspicious”. Helena freaked out when she heard the voice of her friend Walter. There’s no way he was actually there and not behind the flashing red door of her wardrobe.

“Are you stupid?”, she whispered. “People are going to see you”.

“May I remind you that you’re the only one that can see me?”.

“That’s why! People are going to see me talking to you and they’ll ask me questions and I’ll end up in a mental hospital. And it would be your fault, like in 1976”.

You may think that she didn’t want to be in a mental hospital because she didn’t want to leave her mother behind, or because of what people would think about her afterwards. And she worried about that too, believe me. But her real worry was being away from Walter. And all of that happened because she had the unusual fate of having a ghost as her only friend.