Innocent Mischief

The day I graduated I was excited and full of hope.  Four years of my life at the Devil's School for Innocent Mischief had finally come to a close and I was as eager as a beaver that had put his Christmas tree up mid-July to make a start in the career that my parents had always dreamed of for me.  Finally I had my placement, all I had left to do was wait.

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months without a thing.  I decided it had to me to make the approach.  So I closed my eyes and when I opened them again I was in a two-storey maisonette staring at a young boy no more than forty-two moons old.  He was sat on a striped sofa staring at the television screen.

"Hello," I said, unable to hide my grin.  The boy's eyes didn't move for a second.  I coughed loudly.  Nothing.  The only thing I could do was use my training.  "I know something, you don't know..."  He stirred in his seat, rustling his pyjama bottoms in the process.

"What?" he asked in a bored voice.

"Your Mum is on the phone upstairs.  She'd really like you to grab your felt tip pens and draw a picture on that wall."  There was no way he could resist the opportunity to become a kindergarten Bob Ross.  It was surely a matter of time before he jumped off of the sofa.  Alas, he didn't budge an inch.  I felt the desperation rise inside of me.  "So?"

"I don't want to." he replied as he picked up a tablet from beside him and started playing some sort of game involving particularly unhappy avians.

"Let's go outside."

"I don't want to."

"Well what do you want?" I asked, the irritation clear in my voice.  I pulled my best faces including the constipated owl, the drooling bloodhound and even the cross-eyed hedgehog and he didn't even look up from his screen.  "Let's play a game."  Finally he made eye contact.

"What game?"  He asked curiously.

"Let's play how many boogers can you stick to the remote control."  I knew I had his attention, this was it.  All my years of training had paid off.  I was going to become a truly mischievous imaginary friend.

"Is it in the App Store?

And that was both the first and last day in my career as an imaginary friend.