Glancing down at my notebook, pages full of suggestions and a dozen or so failed attempts at drawing a house without taking the pen off the page, a cold sense of dread gripped me in my seat. I could not lose this job, I just could not.

‘Ros?’ Ted’s voice cut through the tension like a rusty bread knife.

‘What if he just sat around and talked to his mates while they play video games and we call it Snazzlechuff Says?’ I blurted out.

Ted gasped with either joy or despair, it was far too difficult to tell.

‘CHUFF,’ Veronica barked.

The panda snapped to attention.

‘Snazzlechuff Says,’ she repeated. ‘Yay or nay?’

His narrow shoulders pinched together in what seemed to be a shrug.

‘He’ll do it,’ Veronica declared, snapping her fingers twice.

‘We could record live at WESC,’ Ted suggested, popping up and down inside his too-big hoodie like a designer meerkat. ‘Make a big noise for the first episode.’

‘Love it, two birds one cheque,’ she replied, standing up and clapping in the sad man’s face. ‘Let’s go.’

While Ted saw them all out, I loitered in the staff kitchen, admiring the big pink fridge and reading all the different kind of coffee pods. The longer I could stay upstairs, the better.

‘Good work in there,’ he said, striding back into the office, his chest puffed out like a peacock. ‘Snazzlechuff Says, it’s got a good ring to it.’

‘Why did you tell them you’d brought me in from America to do this job?’ I asked, pocketing a bag of Mini Cheddars to take back down to my lair.

‘It’s more or less true,’ he muttered.

‘No, it isn’t,’ I countered with a laugh. ‘What’s the matter, could you not get anyone else to do the show or something?’

Ted continued to show a very peculiar interest in his shoes and I realized I’d accidentally worked out the truth.

‘I thought this was a dream job anyone would kill for?’ I said, turning my accusatory glare on the rest of the producers in the open-plan office, all of who suddenly seemed very interested in their computer screens. ‘Wait, what did Veronica mean when she said she’d heard ideas before?’

‘Thing is,’ Ted said before clearing his throat. ‘Everyone else here and half a dozen freelancers have already had a crack at it. We were on our last chance with Veronica today.’

My eyes widened and I felt an ever so slightly smug smile growing on my face.

‘Oh,’ I said, possibly a little too pleased with myself. ‘So what you’re saying is, I sort of saved the day today.’

‘You could say that,’ Ted agreed. ‘Sort of.’

‘Well,’ I sucked the air in through my grin and reached for a shiny green apple from the fruit bowl, tossing it up in the air and just about managing to catch it. ‘Well, well, well.’