In Shirley Jackson’s Charles, the narrator is the mother of a mischievous child named Laurie, who has a significant impact on the story. Laurie is adjusting to kindergarten, where he has been behaving poorly. Instead of telling his parents that he is acting badly, Laurie creates an imaginary person named Charles. According to Laurie, Charles consistently has poor behavior at school, as the Laurie states, “‘Well, Charles was bad again today.’ He grinned enormously and said, ‘Today Charles hit the teacher.’” The narrator enjoys hearing about Charles’ misbehaviors in school but she does not know that they are a product of her son’s tall tales. A connection that can be made is the television show Phineas and Ferb. Every day, for example, Phineas
