When she says jump, you ask how high.

When she says frown, you ask: “how much?”

Oh, about like this, she says, be­fore grab­bing the cor­ners of your mouth with her hands, and pulling them way, way far­ther down than they were ever meant to go.

You’re sure they must have torn off.

She stares at you with an un­nat­u­rally deep scowl of her own, and scrib­bles in her tiny lit­tle om­nipresent notepad.

She used to have an om­nipresent binder. You won­der where it went. Per­haps it was too un­weildy.

You try to dis­cern what she wrote with your metic­u­lously honed de­tec­tive skills.

All you see is a draw­ing of a frowny-face.

She must have a rea­son.

“I should fire you,” she says.

That’s not what you ex­pected.

“But you seem so very de­pressed, frown­ing so much, so I’ll let your lack of bum­ble slide by for now.”

She glares at you sternly.

You try to deepen your frown, just in case. You pull a mus­cle or two. You man­age any­way.

“But I ex­pect you to be twice the bum­bling fool de­tec­tive when you come in to­mor­row than you are to­day, am I clear? I don’t care how many trash bins you have to trip over, or how much donut frost­ing you must get stuck in your mus­tache!”

You try to main­tain your frown. Tears–from the strain, of course–be­gin to drip from your eyes.

You don’t have a mus­tache.

You’ll have to grow one.