"The Scarecrow Game"

**"The Scarecrow Game"** is the fourth tale in the eleventh episode of the second season of the Nolseep Podcast. In it, a girl and her friend play a strange game. Written by Rachel Martin, it has a runtime of 25:55 and was performed by Stephanie Dohrs. It is the 117th tale overall on the podcast.

## Summary

A girl lives in a small Virginian town with her father and mother. She has an unusual amount of imaginary friends, from a strange boy that appears in her room wearing a nightgown to an older boy she walks with in the fields to the voice of a girl she can hear in her house to another girl she can see sitting on a wall near her school. She talks of these friends constantly, much to her parent's chagrin.

The girl's best friend is a boy named Marcus. Her and Marcus play nearly every day after school. Sometimes the pair go to his house and try to enter the old, rusty silo that his parents own, but are stopped by the boarded-up entrance. Their favorite game to play is called "the scarecrow game", where one person stands with their arms outstretched and head down while the other does whatever they can to get a reaction, from telling jokes to making funny faces to attempting to scare them.

Marcus is the champion of this game, able to hold the position without moving a muscle for upwards of ten minutes while the girl always loses almost instantly. The pair are partnered up at school and it is their job to put the blocks in the toy chest away at the end of indoor playtime.

One day, Marcus doesn't show up to school, much to the girl's annoyance because his parents didn't answer the phone when she called them the previous weekend. She has to put all the blocks away herself. Going out for recess, she spots Marcus standing in the field behind the playground in the scarecrow position. There appears to be cuts on his right hand and head, with small drops of blood dribbling out of the wounds.

She gets mad at him for not helping clean up the blocks and attempts to get him to move, but is unsuccessful. On the way back inside, she complains to her teacher for Marcus not helping. The teacher looks concerned and suggests she get a new partner. The girl throws a tantrum and is taken home early by her mother.

The next day, Marcus fails to show up as well but is still in the field behind the playground. The girl tries to best him and stands next to him in the position, but has to go in when the bell rings. She complains to the teacher once again, who looks shocked and goes inside. She throws another tantrum and is taken home again.

A week later, the girl's father gets a promotion and the family moves to South Carolina. She never gets to say goodbye to any of her imaginary friends. Her mother becomes pregnant with her little brother and they get a dog. Years pass and the girl gradually forgets about her short time in Virginia.

While on Facebook one day, one of her classmates from way back when friends her and she is reminded of Marcus. She tries searching for him, but is unable to find his profile. She brings up the issue with her parents the next time she visits.

Her mother tells her that Marcus caught tetanus after cutting himself on the rusty iron of his parent's silo and died. The family moved shortly after. They assumed the girl had gone into shock at the news of his death. The girl tries to rationalize her memories by thinking that Marcus must have died after they moved, but concludes that that is impossible.

The girl wonders that if she were to travel back to that town, if she would see all her "imaginary friends", which she now recognizes as ghosts. She also wonders if she would still see Marcus, in the scarecrow position, and tries think of what could get him to look up.