Maggie was sitting in the garden, trying to come up with a new imaginary friend. The last one, Evil Kyle, vanished without a trace. She considered hiring a detective to look for him, but six year olds rarely have proper funds for that kind of thing, and detectives rarely did work for free. Anyway, Maggie was trying her hardest to come up with a new imaginary friend, when she heard a voice say, “Hello little girl.”

The voice startled Maggie, because it came from somewhere in the ground. She looked down and saw in the ground, barely protruding from the soil, the face of a grown man smiling up at her.

“Someone has buried you! Maggie shrieked. “I’ll go get a shovel.”
“No No No!” laughed the face in the dirt. “I am growing here, just like all of the plants and flowers in your garden.”

Maggie looked confused. “People don’t grow in gardens. They grow in other people. My mother told me that.”

“Who said I was a person?” the face said. “I could use a drink of water if you don’t mind.”