by Alex Inskip
2005 Sense of Mischief winner
18 - 40 age group
Emily gazed glumly out of the window at the rain sloshing down in the garden.
"Huh!" she said.
Her mum had told Emily she could have her birthday party out in the garden, but with only a short time until her friends were due to arrive, it had started to rain heavily (and no one likes soggy sandwiches).
Whilst she sat and sulked about how unfair it was that the weather should be so terrible for her birthday, a thought occurred to her: she could help her mum prepare for the party. Maybe she could make some of her legendary peanut butter, apple and marmalade sandwiches.
"Hello mum," she said, walking into the kitchen. "Shall I do some of my special sandwiches?"
"Er, not now, dear," replied her mum, who seemed distracted. "Emily, you haven't been messing about in the cupboards have you? Everything seems to be in the wrong place."
Emily assured her mum that she had not been messing around with any cupboards and went up to her bedroom.
She took out her pencils. Drawing a picture might take her mind off all the puddles in the garden. As she was about to start drawing, she noticed the point of the pencil was snapped, so she looked for her pencil sharpener.
It wasn't in her pencil box, it wasn't on her table, it wasn't anywhere Emily thought it might be. Then she noticed it was on her bed - and with it was the longest pencil shaving she had ever seen! It started at the pencil sharpener and went round and round and round, and made Emily quite dizzy just looking at it.
Beside the very big pencil shaving was a very small pencil.
"Who's sharpened my pencil all the way down and made this mess?" said Emily to herself, "and why have they done it?"
Emily went to see her dad who was looking after her little sister Gemma downstairs. He was sitting by the television with a pile of videos around him. "Emily?" he said, "Have you been messing with these videos? I was going to put one on for Gemma, but they're all in the wrong boxes."
Emily said she hadn't touched the videos.
"Well, it's not only that," said her dad. "The TV channels have all been swapped around, so if you press '1' you get '2' and if you press '2' you get '3'. They're all like that. Are you sure you haven't done anything to the television?"
Emily assured him that she had not, but her dad still looked suspicious. "We'll talk about this later," he said.
Emily wandered back to see how wet the garden was. Unsurprisingly, it still looked very wet.
Emily realised she had not asked about the giant pencil shaving, but the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. She couldn't imagine her mum or dad making such mess, and Gemma was too young to use pencil sharpeners. Who could have done it?
As Emily stared out at the rain, she heard a noise that seemed to be coming from the cupboard behind her. She listened carefully and... there it was again! A bumping, grumbly sort of noise, definitely coming from the cupboard.
Emily crept across and opened the door wide.
Out fell four little robots, not quite as tall as Emily, each with brightly coloured hair and long white coats.
"Who are you and why were you in the cupboard?" asked Emily, surprised.
"We," said one with red hair, "are the Mischief Control Team. I'm Sprocket."
"I'm Widget," said the blue-haired one.
"I'm Gadget," said the yellow-haired one.
"And I'm Alan," said the green-haired one.
"However," said Sprocket, "we cannot tell you what we were doing in the cupboard, because it's top secret."
"Is it to do with controlling mischief?" asked Emily.
"Oh!" exclaimed Widget.
"How did you know that?" said Sprocket, accusingly. "That's top secret information."
"You said that's what you were - the Mischief Control Team," replied Emily. "Besides, it's not your cupboard, it's ours, so I think we ought to know what you were doing in it."
"Hmm," said Sprocket. "I suppose we can trust you. You're not helping any mischiefs are you?"
"I don't know what you mean," said Emily. "Mischief is something that's done, not things you could help."
"Oh, no, no, no. Quite the reverse," said Gadget, shaking his head. "You see, most mischief is not done by humans, it's done by creatures called mischiefs. Humans just cause trouble or make mistakes or play tricks, but real mischief is always done by mischiefs."
Emily didn't believe this. "That's nonsense. What do they look like?"
"Well," said Sprocket, "they're very grey-"
"-and very orange-" said Widget.
"-and very stripy-" said Gadget.
"-and very spotty-" said Alan.
"-and very furry-" said Sprocket.
"-and very spiky-" said Widget.
"-and very sneaky-" said Gadget.
"-and very bouncy-" said Alan, "-and they do a dance like this!" He began to jump about, waving his arms and stomping his feet. He rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out and shook his head all over the place. Emily thought it looked very silly.
"Alan!" shouted Sprocket. "Don't be so silly."
Emily was pleased to see someone else seemed to agree with her opinion of the dance.
"I'm sorry," said Sprocket, "Alan's a bit new to the job. No, the dance isn't like that. It's like this!"
With that, Sprocket started doing an even sillier dance. He somersaulted around, snorting and slapping himself in the face, then belched loudly and span around on his head whilst picking his nose. Emily had never seen anything so silly in her whole life.
"I've never seen anything so silly in my whole life," she said. "Even though it's very strange to find you in the cupboard, I can't believe your story. There's no such creatures."
"Oh really?" said Sprocket. "Well it just so happens we're on the trail of the most mischievous mischief of them all, and we think he's around here somewhere. If you get a visit from him, you'll believe in them alright!"
"Mischiefs are tribal," explained Widget, "They live in small tribes and each tribe is led by a chieftain - a mischief chieftain."
"So that's who you're after?" asked Emily.
"Oh, no," said Widget. "You see, the boss of all the mischief chieftains, the biggest boss of all, is the Chief Mischief Chieftain!"
"And he's the one you're after?"
"Well sort of," said Widget. "We think the most dangerous mischief is the boss's cook: the Chief Mischief Chieftain's Chef!"
"They cook?"
"Do you have any idea how much mischief can be caused with food?"
Emily had seen the mess little Gemma could create with just a small amount of mashed potato, so she nodded in agreement.
"And it's special mischief food. Can you imagine bouncing peas? Exploding chocolate cake that pops just before you're about to eat it? Floating pies that hover just over your head so you have jump to take bites? The Chief Mischief Chieftain's Chef is top of our 'Dangerous List', especially since he is never far from the Chief Mischief Chieftain himself."
Emily shook her head. This was all too much to believe.
"Look," said Gadget, seeing Emily's difficulty believing their story, "have you noticed anything strange happening around the house recently? Any unexplained mischief?"
"Well," said Emily, thinking for a moment, "stuff in the kitchen cupboards was all switched about."
"Mm-hmm," said Gadget, nodding his head.
"And all the videos were in the wrong boxes, and the TV channels were all the wrong way round."
"Mm-hmm," said Gadget again, nodding more.
"And in my room, someone's sharpened a whole pencil down until it's almost disappeared, making an enormous pencil shaving which they left on my bed."
"Aha!" said Gadget excitedly, "this is just the kind of thing mischiefs like doing. They are experts at really long pencil shavings."
Whilst that little discussion had been going on, Alan had produced a small machine from one of his coat pockets and pointed it round the room while it made quiet 'boop' noises. Suddenly, with it pointed somewhere up above Emily's head, the machine started going 'BOOP-BOOP-BOOP' very loudly. Alan pointed dramatically in the direction he was holding the machine, Sprocket shouted "Mischiefs!" and they all ran out of the room.
Emily followed them as they ran up the stairs, following Alan who was waving the BOOPing machine around. "This way!" yelled Sprocket and they ran into Emily's room.
"Where are they?" said Widget looking around.
Alan's machine was BOOPing like crazy and it was pointed at Emily's wardrobe. The Mischief Control Team looked at Emily.
"Now hold on," said Emily crossly. "If anyone's going to look in my wardrobe, it'll be me. I don't even believe there's anything there." She tried to sound confident, but as she slowly moved her hand toward the doorknob she felt her heart beat a little faster and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end...
She flung the door open and out fell ten bizarre looking creatures, which Emily knew must be mischiefs, since they actually matched the descriptions the Mischief Control Team had given. They were very grey, very orange, very stripy, very spotty, very spiky, very furry, and although they weren't sneaking or bouncing, they certainly looked like they could be very sneaky and very bouncy if they hadn't just fallen out of a cupboard.
"Ha!" said Sprocket. "At last, we've caught up with you!"
The mischiefs dusted themselves down and stood up. The biggest (and most grey, most orange, most stripy, most spotty, most spiky, most furry, most sneaky-looking and most bouncy-looking) stepped forward to speak.
"I am the great Chief Mischief Chieftain, most magnificent mischievous mischief there is," he said, "and these," he added "are some of my top mischiefs, and my chef." He pointed to a small mischief with a huge chef hat.
"We," said Sprocket in an equally grand manner, "are the Mischief Control Team. We are here to stop your mischief!"
"But sir," said the Chief Mischief Chieftain, "making mischief is what we do."
"But stopping mischief is what we do," replied Sprocket.
They stared at each other for a moment.
"Now hold on," said Emily. "I don't want any trouble here."
Sprocket pointed at the Chief Mischief Chieftain. "He's already caused mischief! We can't allow him to carry on."
The Chief Mischief Chieftain looked at the giant pencil shaving and shrugged at Emily. "Sorry. It's what we do."
"How about if the mischiefs promise to limit themselves to just a little bit of mischief?" asked Emily.
"Hmm," said Sprocket and the Chief Mischief Chieftain together. "I'm about to have my birthday party soon," said Emily. "Maybe we could have just a little bit of mischief at the party? That way, the mischiefs get to do some mischief but the Mischief Control Team get to keep it under control?"
"Well, I suppose..." began Sprocket, and that was that.
The Mischief Control Team produced a large tent and an amazing device that sucked up all the puddles. Then all Emily's friends arrived and Emily's mum and dad brought out the party food, but as well as the normal food, the Chief Mischief Chieftain's chef made his special bouncing peas, exploding cake and floating pies, which baffled Emily's parents but thoroughly entertained her friends.
After the food, the Chief Mischief Chieftain and his mischief troop demonstrated their incredible dancing technique, which was a bit like the dance Alan had done, a bit like the dance Sprocket had done, and a bit even sillier than that. Everyone tried (unsuccessfully) to copy it and kept falling over laughing. The mischiefs and the Mischief Control Team were both happy - Sprocket and the Chief Mischief Chieftain even shook hands.
"What a great birthday party," said Emily. Then a floating pie that had been hovering above her fell on her head. She didn't really mind.
Sensing Mischief © Alex Inskip 2005