Doctor Who: Imaginary Friends by Jacqueline Rayner

Author:Jacqueline Rayner [Rayner, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Space Exploration, Holidays & Celebrations, Christmas & Advent, Historical, Europe, General
ISBN: 9781405956956
Google: 8PmyEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 123215573
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2023-10-25T23:00:00+00:00

1967

Claire thought it would cheer up the family to have a really good FebruBEARy celebration this year. So on Saturday the twenty-fifth she made a proper party tea with jam sandwiches, crisps, cheese-and-pineapple and little sausages on sticks, jelly and raspberry ripple ice cream, and even Coca-Cola to drink. Ray said they couldn’t afford it – what if he lost his job? But she just wanted to see her children smile.

She’d made a sponge cake with buttercream and vermicelli on top. ‘Can you put candles on it?’ Gerry asked, and Claire said that she wasn’t sure how many candles to put on it. ‘Three, because I’ve had Doctor Bear for three years, even if he’s not had his proper birthday again, just FebruBEARy,’ he said, and added, ‘It’ll be a leap year next year so that will be extra special, won’t it?’

And Claire agreed it would, and put the candles on the cake, and Gerry blew them out. ‘Did you make a wish?’ asked Grandma Campbell.

Gerry nodded. ‘That’s why I wanted the candles,’ he said.

‘You don’t get to make a wish! They’re Doctor Bear’s candles!’ said Anne, but Gerry said it was the same thing – he knew Doctor Bear was wishing exactly the same as him. He wouldn’t tell anyone what the wish was, though. Because then it wouldn’t come true.

Back in the kitchen, Claire looked at the box of birthday candles. For a moment, she was almost tempted to make a wish herself. But birthday candles weren’t powerful enough to grant the thousand wishes that jostled for room in her heart.

‘Mum,’ said Gerry one morning near the end of the summer term – Claire had stopped being ‘Mummy’ a month or two earlier, a change that she found painful. Her elder son was distancing himself from childhood, but thank goodness he still carried Doctor Bear everywhere – when that stopped she’d really have cause to worry. ‘Mum, I need to tell you something and I don’t want you to be cross.’

That was an ominous opening for any parent, but Claire took it in her stride. ‘I hope I won’t need to be cross, darling,’ she said, and sat down with him.

‘Mum,’ he said again, ‘you know my dreams? The Doctor and everything?’

She nodded. Was it likely that she’d have forgotten?

‘The thing is … the thing is … the Doctor’s back on Earth again. He really, honestly is. He’s at Gatwick Airport with Ben and Polly and Jamie because there are people that look like other people but they’re aliens, and there are boys and girls writing postcards home and then vanishing. Honestly, Mummy –’ in his excitement, he’d slipped back to the familiar term – ‘I promise it’s true, I promise. And the thing is, I’ve got to go and see him, this time. It’s really, really important.’

She was torn. Of course there was no ‘Doctor’ – but might this be a way she could get her son back again? A way of making him smile, not because

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