How on earth do you break to your best friend the absolute unthinkable?

Such was the terrible question the little imaginary friend had been battling with for hours now, with no answer whatsoever in sight despite all his best efforts. He was no closer to coming up with a single thing than when he first started agonizing over the problem, and to make matters even worse, time was not on his side at all.

Bloo glanced up at the clock, elicited a long, pained sigh, and then continued pacing about the expansive foyer. Any minute, his creator would return from school, and would he say then? He had to tell Mac somehow; to the little blob, lying was completely out of the question, no matter how badly he wanted to shield the boy from the horrifically ugly truth. No, that just wouldn't be right to keep him ignorant and in the dark like that. Mac was bound to find out somehow, so who better to tell him than his own imaginary friend?

Resigned to his dark duty, Bloo somberly paced back and forth, back and forth, with little stubs clutched tightly behind his back and his head bowed low as he nearly wore a deep groove into the tile. Suddenly, the ornate grandfather clock nearby suddenly chimed loudly as it stuck three, and as if one cue…

"I'm home!" a chestnut-haired nine-year-old announced as he bounced through the front doors. The instant he spotted his imaginary friend, Mac immediately broke out into a toothy smile than spanned from ear to ear as he darted over. "Hey, Bloo! How are…you?"

He quickly trailed off as soon as he read the deep sorrow lining his creation's expression. As he was rapidly beset with befuddlement, Mac tilted his head a little to one side and queried softly, "Um….Bloo? What's wrong?"

Bloo paused to take a deep breath as he prepared himself. Well, this was it; Mac simply had to know.

"M-Mac…" he began. "It's…it's about…it's…"

It was still just too terrible to even try and comprehend for him, and he actually had to pause to try and recompose himself before he managed to croak morosely, "It's about…Frankie…"

"Huh?" the child grunted confusedly, still not having so much as a vague idea what the little imaginary friend was so torn up over. "Wait…what are you talking about?"

"I…well, you see…there comes a time when…when…" As Bloo fumbled hopelessly over his words, Mac suddenly felt a cold chill race down the length of his spine.

At first, all he wanted to believe was that this was just some lame prank his creation was trying to pull on him. However, as much as he absolutely despised to admit it, he couldn't even remember the last time he had seen his imaginary friend speak so seriously, or appear so undeniably gloomy. Sensing that something was terribly wrong, Mac took a hard swallow and asked gently, "Is…is there something wrong with Frankie?"

Bloo nodded grimly with a heavy sigh. "See Mac, I…I-I don't I d-don't....I don't know exactly know...h-how much time...y'know...she has left with us…"

"….What?" Mac whimpered in profound disbelief. "Wait, wait…Bloo, are you telling me…hold on, is she sick or something? Wait…no, no that...that can't-"

As much as he wanted to pass all of this off as some kind of morbid joke, he couldn't deny the fact that he had never seen his imaginary friend look so genuinely grim in all his life. While Mac stammered uncontrollably while he strove to absorb this very sudden and extremely shocking revelation, Bloo frowned as he rested a blobbish stub on the boy's shoulder.

"She…she hasn't told y-you yet, but…but see, I…I heard her talking on the phone to Kathy this morning, and…and I heard her mention her medical condition…I don't know h-how serious it is, but…see, I-"

"What?" Mac begged, as he could even feel the color drain from his face. "Bloo, what's going on? What's wrong with Frankie?"

While his on-edge creator's wide-eyed incredulous glare nearly bore a hole right through him, Bloo shuddered a little, took another deep breath, and started explaining as he leaned in close.

"She has...sh-she has…she's…" he stuttered until he finally cupped his hands around his mouth to whisper the horrible truth into his frantic friend's ear.

"Mac? Is that you?" a familiar voice cried out. A moment later, the very same redhead in question excitedly jogged from the direction of the kitchen to welcome her charge home from school.

"Hey, pal!" Frances "Frankie" Foster greeted warmly with a at smile. "How-"

"What's wrong?" Mac demanded hoarsely the instant he laid eyes on her.

Horribly confused, the young woman halted dead in her tracks and gave the distraught little boy a puzzled stare as the the grin vanished clean from her face. "Huh? What're you-"

"Frankie, why didn't you tell me?" the little boy persisted, sending her befuddlement skyrocketing.

"Tell you what? Mac, what's going on? Why are-"

"Oh, stop lying, Frankie!" Bloo snapped tearfully. "Just stop it, all right? Can't you please just look him in the eye and tell him you're sick? He's going to find out eventually, and-"

The redhead's expression distorted with severe alarm. "Wait, what? I'm sick?"

"What'd I just say?" Bloo growled. "Stop trying to hide it, and please just tell Mac that you have Irish!"

Almost instantly, Frankie's concern transformed into an overwhelming wave of exasperation that rapidly overtook her completely. "Oh…for Pete's sake, Bloo…"

The instant he finally knew, Mac didn't know whether to be relieved beyond belief, or exasperated beyond description with his creation. After staring unblinkingly into empty space for a few seconds in his shock, Mac finally opted for the latter, and slowly turned his head with an irritated grimace."…Bloo?"

"Look, I know this isn't easy to deal with, but maybe if-" his imaginary friend immediately started to console with a sympathetic frown before Mac cut him off with a frustrated growl.

"Bloo…being Irish is not a life-threatening medical condition." Frankie bluntly enlightened the little figment.

"Oh great! First you lie, now you try and sugarcoat it?" the little blob snapped at her. "Oh c'mon, now you're-"

"But she's right, she's not-" Mac tried to chime in.

Without missing a beat, Bloo just shook his head and continued on as his heart wrenched for what he assumed was an overly naive child. "Mac, I know this isn't easy to deal with, but denial isn't going to make her any better any sooner-"

"She doesn't need to get any better because she's not sick at all!" the boy objected fiercely. "Being Irish isn't like having a disease!"

"But she said she's three-quarters Irish! It's almost completely taken over-"

"You have no idea what you're talking about! Bloo, when you're Irish, it only means that your ancestors came from Ireland!" Frankie clarified bluntly. "It doesn't being you're diseased or anything like that!"

The little imaginary friend immediately went dumbstruck as he took a few seconds to try and process this newsflash in his mind.

"Wait….huh?" he murmured stupidly, wide-eyed in total astonishment. "Hold on…wait, wait, wait, lemme get this straight…you mean Irish is like when someone's German or Spanish, or…wait-"

"YES!" Mac involuntarily shouted. "Yes, that's exactly what it means!"

"What did you think that you called someone from Ireland?" Frankie demanded, unable to believe that she was even having this very conversation to begin with.

Almost immediately she wished he hadn't asked the question, for Bloo gawked at her for several moments before answering truthfully, "Uh…Irelanderer?"

"Augh!" Frankie threw his arms up in the air and groaned in intense frustration. "Just when I think you can't possibly do anything else to surprise me, you just have to pull of something like this!"

"I…I-I…" the flummoxed figment stammered uncontrollably, unsure of what to think at that point.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself now?" Mac snapped.

As the child fumed wordlessly at his bemused creation, Bloo scratched his head and thought hard for a few seconds before he suddenly realized with a whimper, "Uh oh…I-I guess that this means Kathy's not sick either…"

Both his creator and Foster's resident caretaker just stared blankly at him for a few moments. Frankie finally asked warily,"….What do you mean by that?"

At first, Kathy could do little more than gawk curiously at the brightly colored handmade card that she had found in her mailbox. It seemed like quite the thoughtfully unexpected surprise, but then again, who would send her such a thing to begin with? Finally, the puzzled young woman opened it up and read the message out loud.

"'So sorry to hear that you're Polish, please get well soon'…HEY! What the…?!"

The End