Once Upon a Time....

Once upon a time in which temporal perimeters vary, in a place of both magical privelage and oblivious hypocracy, there lived a near-grown-up who had not yet actually... grown up.

Oh, physically, she seemed her age, and though she was wise beyond her years, the rest of her had chosen to remain much the same as it always had: as an imaginative, awe-inspired child.

This non-grown-up near-adult lived still with her parents (one fact of which she was secretly ashamed), in a small village filled with angry old people and kindly raccoons, nestled between a great, hilly forest and a gungy river of fluctuating size.

Besides her parents, the young woman lived with her invisible friend. True, most people would have abandoned their invisible friends long before this point in their lives. However, he loved her, no matter her age, and did not wish to leave. And by the same token, she had never found a friend so loyal and true as he, and she hoped that he would always stay with her.

Now, there is something not many know about the nature of Invisible Friends -- though very few last for any real ammount of time, the older they get, the more real they become. The adult who refused to grow up had believed in her friend so deeply, and for such a very long time, that he had become near-sentient. He thought for himself, had emotions, and even existed when his girl was not in the room. Sometimes, as a very rare treat, other people could hear, feel, and even see him (although, these strange circumstances are later explained away by these people as the effects of stress or bad curry).

Together, the two unconventional friends had many grand adventures -- though, for Franki Button Shoeshine and her invisible friend, Chuck, some of the greatest (and, on some occasions, most frightening) adventures were still to come, all under the lable of "Adulthood."