Mum was Cranky

Mum was cranky. REALLY cranky.

I could tell. I’d seen it before, like when Neville drew on the walls with his new crayons. And that time Neville walked on the carpet with Muppet’s poop on his shoes. And that time we tried to fix Dad’s radio.

Her eyeballs were staring straight at me and her eyebrows did that thing where they slant down to her nose, which was all scrunched up. Her forehead was really wrinkly and even though she was talking to me, her teeth didn’t seem to be moving.

She looked at me then looked at Muppet. “So tell me Billy, just what happened here?”.

Muppet looked at Mum. I’m sure even he was worried. I looked at my sneakers. She was scary.

“For goodness sake Billy, JUST TELL ME WHY MUPPET IS COVERED IN WET PAINT!”.

I gulped, took a deep breath and told her. “Neville did it”.

I put my hands in my pockets and kept looking down. There were bits of red and blue paint on my sneakers.

“And just where is Neville?” she asked.

“He had to go home”.

“So tell me then, why on Earth did Neville decide to paint Muppet?”.

“I think it was because he wanted to see what he looked like with stripes”.

She shook her head and then stared at me with her super-wide eyes for what seemed like a full minute. She shook her head again, then turned and walked away.

“We’ll wait till your father gets home”, she said “and then we’ll talk about just why we need to say goodbye to Neville. Eight years old is just too old to have an imaginary friend.”

Dammit. I’ll miss Neville. We get up to all sorts of good things together.