What's the Time Mister Wolf?

I had a dream last night that’s going to be the premise for my next short film.

There’s a game with a few variations that’s played across the English speaking world. It can be known as, What’s the Time Mr Wolf?, Statues or Dead Lions… whatever. It involves sneaking up on a kid as a group, anticipating when he'll turn around. When he does, you are all supposed to freeze. Whoever he sees still moving is ‘out’. The object is to touch him without being caught moving.

Anyway, my dream involved me being the turner/spotter. The game starts, I turn around once, no one is moving, I turn back and wait a little. I turn quickly, and spot one of the girls. I go back to my position, wait… and turn, spot one of the boys... and then notice that one of the other boys has gone. Tony has totally disappeared in a wide open playground. I hadn’t had my back turned long enough for him to have made it out of sight. Gone. Continue with the game and don’t remember how it ends.

Cut to 18 years later and I am woken at 2.30 in the morning by my front doorbell. I go down to see who it is and as I open the door, Tony leans in, touches me on the arm and says

“You’re it.”

I’m dumbfounded but impressed. Tony is willing to go a long way for a gag. I did have to mention to him though that his parents had ceased their search for his little murdered body, and the family had managed to move on. For years his face was on the side of milk cartons...