BIG

Apparently I've been pretending to be an adult for 7,000 days. That seems like a lot. I'm amazed I've kept up the effort this long, to be honest.

Sometimes I feel like blowing my cover and running round the park, whirling my jumper about over my head. It seems though, as soon as I think of that, someone asks me a grown-up question like "Should we initiate a meeting?" or "Did you cancel that loan?" or "How do you feel about bla bla bla?"... and I've got really good at coming up with grown-up sounding answers; really good.

I do wonder whether the other adults suspect. I mean sometimes, I see them looking at me a bit suspiciously, especially when I get a good idea and my eyes light up. They're on to me, I think and I add a reason to dampen my enthusiasm a bit, you know, so as not to appear too naive.

Then there's the day-dreaming. I peer out of the window, watching the clouds and wondering what it would be like to fly like Superman. I think of something silly, like knitted scarves for birds or foldable cars that you can put in your pocket, and I chuckle to myself.

"And what are you so happy about?" says someone, dragging my mind back to the office.

"Oh, nothing in particular," I say, which is only sort-of true. Then they go back to their grown-up coffee and tap away at their grown-up keyboards like red-faced woodpeckers.

7,000 days is a long time: thousands of nights and thousands of mornings, hundreds and hundreds of sunsets, moonlit nights and rainy afternoons, writing proper words and acting down the telephone, playing the piano and telling people about how to sing.

You know what, sometimes I look around and I wonder whether everyone else is pretending too - even the cross ones, the grumpy ones, the loud ones and the clever ones; the pretty ones, the scheming ones and the kind ones and the nice ones, all pretending to be grown ups, just like I am.

Some of them are really good at it; really good.