Nick? Ya there? I didn't mean to imply anything unpleasant with my Joey/Tommy question above - I know how easy it is to get kids' names mixed up, especially with 5 of them. You even hear their own mothers doing it, particularly when trying to call one ("Kath-Lin-Chri-Kev-MIIIIIIIIIIchaaaallllll...").

I'm a bit like a dog with a bone on this one, bothered because children often express things in play or artistic creations that they can't communicate in any other way. It's common for child psychologists to ask kids to draw or dance or make up a song about whatever it is they want to find out more about, and stories certainly fall into the same category. Even if there is no school friend Dave, with his unusual appearance and his affliction, is it possible the boy may be trying to work through something else with this fiction? Some other loss harder to define?

I know kids make up things all the time and are little masters at Let's Pretend, but that excessive grief-reaction seems very strange and troubling. The aftermath to the "death" of someone he created in his mind should be completely within his control - but it seems to have got beyond it somehow (I would say "escaped" if it didn't sound so Forbidden Planet-ish) and is now controlling him. Even if the mourning and the guilt are themselves an act, it still makes you want to know why. And how many real-life boys this child socialises with. (Anyone at his school have any perspective on this?)

Normally kids aren't that skilled at acting. And is emotional guilt something an eight-year-old would know enough about to make up? Of course I'm not expecting you to answer all these questions - you probably can't - but I do believe they should be asked.