Imaginary fiends

There are some parts of childhood that just beg to be honoured in a blog post.  

This week I read Manana Mama's beautiful account of her daughter's imaginary friend Kid, and then viewed Mid 30s Life's rather special gallery of her son's toys and his names for them, including Rock Star Dinosaur. It's prompted me to finish this post I started a while back honouring my daughter's imaginary creature.  He's not as vocal as Charlie and Lola's Soren Laurenson, but he is one of a kind.

Miss L's companion is more of an imaginary fiend than a friend. He is known as 'that rat'. He steals and breaks things while she is asleep. If she is ever ill, then that rat gave her the germs. If she has an unexplained scratch, that rat did it.

Once Miss L told me his story, I love it. That rat is no ordinary rat, he is a robot rat.  This teenage mutant rat has a backstory too.  You see when he was a helpless baby rat, his mother, who Miss L tells me is called Isobel, put bad batteries in him.

It's all been downhill from there for that rat. A life of committing petty crime for his mistress, living on the run and being hunted down by Mr A each night at bedtime.  It's perhaps no wonder, after his neglectful treatment by his own mother, that that rat hates grown ups.  He lives in a hole in Miss L's bedroom and can cover the entrance so it's invisible to parents.

I'm glad my reading this week prompted me to immortalise that rat, in fact I had already forgotten his crazy history.

Does/did your child have an imaginary friend or a toy with special powers?  Do share.