Friends from a different dimension

Today I was playing hide and seek with my six year old cousin and his imaginary friend "yaya". Needless to say I never managed to catch "yaya" and ended up playing "it" all through.It was quite amusing to see my little cousin chatting with his friend. In my family our tryst with fairyland and imaginary things were always encouraged, having a mother and aunt who thrived on anne books and other classics we were all encouraged to imagine and our fancies were never laughed at, nor were we admonished for telling lies as some people were.
Growing up as an only child in a neighbourhood filled with old people and no youngsters, most of my time was spent playing in the garden with all my imaginary friends. There was a green elf by the name of elvin who used to tell me stories about caterpillares and butterflies, my friendly sparrow Chirp from whom I learnt to find the best worms and who also taught me the early bird poem, and the milk lady who used to drink up all my unwanted milk. My mother never bought that story when she caught me spilling the milk out of the window. Many a spanking did I get for that.
Ours was not the only family who had such friends, my friend had an imaginary friend of her own who she christened 2-Papa, which was a miniature version of herself with supernatural powers. She had the ability to fly, disappear and had as ready a tongue as my friend. As I grew older I forgot about my imaginary friends and now they are just a pleasant memory. But they were my very first experience of friendship and showed me how important friends are and how necessary it is to make friends with different people so that you become more broad minded