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"Virgil, please?" said Roman.
"No! I'm not going to!" insisted Virgil.
"I'm not asking you to stop doing your job! I'm just asking you to, you know, go easy on him. Really easy. Just for the day?"
" No , Roman."
"Come on! Just one day! Just— look, how about this: If he leaves his street, then you can interfere. If not, just let us handle it. Okay?"
"What exactly are you going to do?"
"I'm just going to try and make things a little more interesting."
"Nope, absolutely not!"
"Please, Virge! Logan and Patton and I can keep Thomas safe, and if anything too dangerous happens, we'll let you do something about it."
"Do you honestly think I'll be able to hold back if Thomas does anything remotely risky?"
"You don't have to watch, then! You can just hide in your room the whole day. Please, please, please, just let me do this!"
Virgil hesitated. "Do you promise you'll come get me if Thomas is in danger?"
"Yes, of course, Virgil!"
"And you promise you'll listen to Logan?"
"You trust Logan more than me?” Roman put a hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
"Go ahead and be wounded then. He doesn't think he can jump into situations with no preparation. If you're not going to listen to the one willing to make sense, there's no way I'm agreeing to this."
"Okay, okay!” said Roman, quickly dropping the playfulness. “I promise I'll listen to Logan, if that's the only way you'll let this happen."
"Fine, you can have your day of 'a little more interesting'." With that, Virgil walked off.
Roman called after him, "Thank you so much, Virge! I truly do appreciate it!" He smiled to himself, excited to finally do this.
Patton came downstairs and said, "Roman, Virgil just walked into his room looking grumpy and shut the door kind of hard. Did he say no?"
"Patton, Virgil almost always looks grumpy," said Roman.
"He looked grumpier than on avid."
"You mean average?"
"Virgil is no t average."
"Fair enough. Also, no."
"No, Virgil said no?"
"No, Virgil didn't say no."
"He agreed to it?!"
"He agreed to it!"
"Tomorrow, then?"
"Yup. Tomorrow."
The next day, Roman was ready. He had one of those voice-changing microphones (Patton had said it would be more fun that way) all set up and a list of ideas for what to make happen, and now he was just waiting eagerly for Thomas to wake up.
He spoke into the microphone, saying, " Every morning, consciousness would hand-deliver another unremarkable experience to Thomas. This morning seemed like any other morning— ordinary. Thomas would wake up the same way he always did: 8:00 on the dot. " Roman paused as Thomas's alarm went off. As Thomas sat up, he said, " But today would be extra ordinary. " And then Thomas went back to sleep. Roman was surprised, but he took it in stride. " Okay, well, he would wake up a little later, which is chill. " Roman waited until Thomas awoke again to continue. " Today's extraordinary, which means it's not going to be super routine. This day was going to be different, because today… he… would… sleep even later. " Roman turned off the microphone. "Wait, what's happening? This can't be because Virgil's not interfering, he usually sleeps late anyway, so why isn't Thomas getting up?"
Demonstrating commendable patience, Roman waited until Thomas had woken up and gone back to sleep four more times to say, " All right, let's… speed things along here. Thomas's day would begin with a mysterious phone call. " He sat on the edge of his seat, anticipating the next event, only to be disappointed when Thomas didn't answer. " O…kay? Well, it didn't matter, because now he was up and moving. "
Just then, Patton came downstairs, bringing Logan with him. "Oh, hey, kiddo!" said Patton. "We really slept in today!"
Roman gestured at the microphone as he said, " But just behind the shower curtain waits the fright of Thomas's life— " only to cut himself off when Thomas used soap as deodorant and left it at that.
" All right, well, that's fine, because Thomas was one of those shower-at-night people, " he said, now slightly disgruntled. " Anyways, so, um… just scratch the danger behind the curtain. Just don't worry about it, all right? You know what, let's go with a different take here, " he added, glancing quickly to the stairs to make sure Virgil hadn't come running at the word "danger".
" Thomas sat down and checked his emails like he did every day. But today, one email was special. It was his crush from tenth grade, Enrique. His first real crush and it looked like romance was just around the corner again— ENRIQUE NO! " exclaimed Roman as Thomas deleted the email.
"Enrique?" asked Logan. "That was about half of Thomas's lifetime ago."
" Ugh ," said Roman, accidentally speaking into the microphone. "Oops. Anyway, once again, that mysterious caller calls. " Thomas picked up the phone this time, thrilling Roman only to disappoint him again. "No! He's not a telemarketer!"
"Everything not going according to plan, kiddo?" asked Patton sympathetically.
Roman nodded, sighing into the microphone. " Okay, but that call would haunt Thomas the rest of— "
He was then cut off by Thomas saying "I'm hungry."
" The two seconds it took me to utter those words, apparently. …And now he's going for a pizza. " Roman sat up straight as a new idea occurred to him. " But instead of a pizza, Thomas would be in for something a little harder to digest. "
"Ooh, sounds exciting," said Patton.
"Why is that exciting?" asked Logan. "They messed up his order and that somehow counts as 'adventure'?"
"No, it's not food, and it's not from the pizza place," said Roman, trying to explain quickly before it happened.
"What—"
"Just watch," Roman interrupted as Thomas opened his door. There were few interjections from the other sides (Logan saying "Wait, jelly beans?" and Patton saying "Ooh, jelly beans!") and Roman was starting to hope this one might work.
That is, until Thomas shut the door, saying, "No, I don't— I'm not interested. I don't want to buy anything."
" Well, okay ," said Roman, looking back at his list of ideas. " Ah! " he exclaimed, finding a good one. " But, as he made this mundane phone call, Thomas didn't realize his life would change forever, for in that instant, opportunity… came a-knocking. "
Roman watched eagerly as the conversation began, but his face fell when the girl said, "Oh, maybe it was a friend-connection!"
" Oh. Okay. Well, " said Roman, trying not to be frustrated, " as all this was taking place, in crept the source of that mysterious caller from earlier. And now, they… meant… BUISINES— " And then the fridge door hit the intruder. Of course. " Wow, that's like some Mr. Magoo Type Ish right there. "
"What, exactly, is 'Mr. Magoo Type Ish'?" asked Logan, but Roman was already moving on.
" But oh! What does Thomas find in his sugary beverage? Why, it was a golden ticket! "
"Roald Dahl!" exclaimed Patton. "Great idea, Roman!"
Roman nodded gleefully as Thomas read the ticket, but stopped abruptly at the words, "Okay. This is— this is a lot of instructions. I don't think I'm gonna go through all this prep. And there's probably going to be cameras there."
" Seriously ?" asked Roman. "Is this not why we excluded Virgil? I thought this wasn’t going to be a problem today! Well, that was… all fine, because Thomas would soon discover that he was in for a saucy surprise. "
"Saucy?" Logan said. "What's sauce got to do with this?"
"The pizza!" said Patton.
"Sort of," said Roman.
Roman facepalmed as Thomas said, "Refund my order. Thank you!", which confused Logan.
"Was that not part of your plan?" Logan asked Roman. "How else could you have intended Thomas to reply?"
" Grr. Okay, but then, as Thomas was walking back, he heard a mysterious noise coming from his closet… " said Roman, ignoring Logan.
Thomas lingered suspensefully by the closet, building on Roman's hopes, before shutting it, pulling out his phone, and saying, "Hello, landlord, my door's broken."
" Oh, geez. Okay. Well— but as he sits down, he spots a curious-looking white rabbit out the window in his front yard. Why, it was wearing a waistcoat and a pocket watch! This white rabbit could possibly take him to some sort of, I don't know, wondrous land! "
After that attempt crashed and burned, Roman tried reverse psychology, alien invasion, and heartbreak-inspired murder, all of which Thomas easily and unknowingly evaded, making Roman say, " What the f —" only to be interrupted by Patton making a beeping noise no human should be able to make, but Roman continued, "— ck just happened ?!"
"Okay, bedtime!" said Thomas cheerfully.
" Are you kidding me? Bedtime already? Nothing even happened today! " exclaimed Roman in extreme frustration.
"What a lovely day of relaxation," said Thomas, startling Roman.
Roman sighed. " Well, I suppose Thomas did indeed have a good day ." Logan seemed to want to say something, and Roman had promised Virgil to listen to him (a promise he now realized he could have paid more attention to keeping), so he passed over the microphone.
" Because it's good to have days where relaxation and recuperation can take place. One shouldn't feel guilty for having these days from time to time. " Logan was content to leave it at that, so he returned the microphone to Roman.
Roman simply said, " It gives way to days of great action when the person is ready for it. Thomas would sleep soundly tonight… and wake refreshed ready for adventure! "
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. Mhm," Thomas interrupted.
Roman began to put away the setup he'd assembled that morning.
"Well, are you satisfied, kiddo?" asked Patton.
Roman sighed. "I mean, not really. I thought today was going to be awesome. But instead it was just… blah."
"You know, that might be because we left out Virgil," said Patton.
"What? How?" Roman asked.
"Well," Logan said, "Thomas certainly wouldn't have made all those phone calls if Virgil had been involved."
"Well, yeah," said Patton. "But also, Thomas would've probably been more reluctant about passing up opportunities."
"So you're saying we should have included Virgil in this?" Roman asked, a bit incredulous.
"No, that wouldn't have worked at all," said Logan. "While some of his tendencies would increase the chances of your plans succeeding, others would prevent them entirely, so this wouldn't work either way."
"So you're saying it's impossible," said Roman.
"Essentially, yes," Logan said. Roman scowled at him.
"But you know what? That's what you're here for!" Patton was quick to say. "You let Thomas do things that aren't possible, even if it's only pretend."
"I guess so," said Roman.
"You guess so? Ro, that's a superpower !" Patton exclaimed. "Logan's here to make sense of the world, I'm here to not make sense in the world, Virgil's here to see the dangers of the world, and you're here to get us out of this world. Doesn't that seem amazing to you?"
Roman broke into a smile. "Thanks, Pat in the Hat."
"Of course!" Patton stifled a yawn. "Now then, kiddos, it's about time we got to bed."
"You aren't our father, Patton," pointed out Logan. "You have no authority to enforce any specific bedtime." Raising a hand to stop Patton from protesting, he added, "However, this is a reasonable time to 'call it a day', so to speak, so I will consent to retire for the evening. Good night."
"Good night!" said Patton.
"Good night," Roman echoed. If Thomas woke ready for adventure, Roman would wake ready to accompany him into it.