CAPTAIN CHARLIE AND MACINTOSH THE MECHANICAL FLEA

(first published 22 January 2013)

PART I – Captain Charlie

Everyone knows Captain Charlie, he is captain of one of the most famous Picsee ships ever to sail the seas: the HMS Bottlecap. As you can probably guess from its name the HMS Bottlecap is not a very big ship...in fact, it’s probably one of the smallest. There is a wee bit of space for Captain Charlie and his little chair and there’s also a small compartment for beans and biscuits to eat en route and that’s it, that’s the ship fully loaded. Usually you would expect there to be at least a little bit of space left after the captain got on board so that you could ship some packets and parcels (especially since the HMS Bottlecap was famous for the cargo it carried) but not on this ship...this is because Captain Charlie carried a shipment of a different kind....Captain Charlie shipped stories.

You see...he sailed the seven seas and all their estuaries, he sailed the rivers and lochs...sometimes, on rainy days he would even sail on a puddle or two...but that’s a story for another day. Today’s story is about all the wee fairy harbours where he would cast anchor and go ashore so he could tell his stories to all the folk around with an ear to lend and a minute to spare. At first he only told stories about his own adventures....he had stories about pirates and piranhas, some about sea monsters and selkies, krakens and calamaries or sometimes he would just tell a story he made up along the way...but the stories that made him so famous were the ones he brought with from friends and family that lived far far away...

If you had an amazing adventure and you wanted to share it with everyone that’s close to your heart but far on the map then you just had to tell Captain Charlie and he would make sure everyone heard the story in all its glory before the week is through. It didn’t even need to be a story about a big adventure; maybe you’ve just been a very good picsee and haven’t been in trouble for a good few days now...you would definitely want grandma & grandpa to know about this...specially if it’s just before Christmas! No problems, just tell Captain Charlie and he would take care of the rest. And if you just wanted to send some regards to your best friend Captain Charlie would be happy to take it on board...and what’s best is he would make sure it’s the most riveting regards your friend ever received. As you can imagine it didn’t take long before everyone knew about Captain Charlie and his stories and soon he shipped stories for every picsees and every fairy that lived anywhere near the sea.

But the more stories he transported the more he would forget little details...usually this didn’t matter, he would just make something up to fill the gaps and everyone still enjoyed the stories. But sometimes this could cause a bit of confusion...and this is where Macintosh comes in.

PART II: Macintosh

One day Captain Charlie was sitting under a tree contemplating his dilemma. What could he do? There was just not enough space in his head to remember all the little details of every story and there was certainly not enough space on his wee boat to fit another chair for someone who could. He thought and thought but the only thing he could come up with was to shake his head and sigh...which in this case, turned out to be exactly the right thing to do because someone heard the sigh, someone special.
“Hello Mister” said that someone.
Captain Charlie looked around to see who it was but not a soul was in sight...and as the thought of very polite ghosts crept into his head he heard the voice again.
“Down here” it said.
This time Captain Charlie followed the sound of the voice and the advice it gave and looked down where he saw a wee little worm sitting by his feet.
“Hello Mister” said the little worm again, “I’m Macintosh...I saw you sitting here and you looked like you could do with a little company...What’s wrong?”
“Well...”said Captain Charlie and told him the story we just told you...only his version had the addition of a unicorn and a totally unbelievable amount of pirates in.

Macintosh loved stories and listened to every word, from the very beginning all the way through to the end which Captain Charlie concluded once more with a big old sigh...but this time Macintosh sighed with him. This made Captain Charlie feel quite a bit better, if you sigh by yourself it leaves you in despair but if you share a sigh with someone it leaves a wee whirl of hope in the air.

That is indeed a big problem said Macintosh and sat down next to Captain Charlie.
I never knew little things could be so important he said.
They sure are said Captain Charlie, and not just when you are telling stories.
I’m little said Macintosh, Do you think maybe one day I could also be important?
Of course! said Captain Charlie and smiled. I don’t doubt it for a second!
They gave this moment some quiet time to settle down and form a friendship and with their new found friendship they contemplated the problem together. It wasn’t long before they realised that wee little Macintosh was the solution...see...Captain Charlie needed an assistant story teller and shipmate but there was just no space on the HMS Bottlecap...unless of course this assistant story teller and shipmate was a teeny tiny one just like Macintosh! This was perfect! Well...almost perfect except for one thing that they didn’t foresee..a tiny little detail.

Actually Captain Charlie should have seen this problem coming, He was after all one of the very best sailboat captains and if you asked any sailboat captain to name the three most important things you need when you go out to sea, they would all name the same three: Firstly you will need a boat, this is crucial for staying afloat. Next you need a rope for making knots (this is for safety and also to determine how fast you are going) and last but not least you need a good pair of sea legs so you don’t fall overboard.
They had a boat, a good boat...the HMS Bottlecap! Also, Captain Charlie always carried a rope (he used it as his belt to save space) and he was born with a good pair of sea legs...but Macintosh was a worm...he didn’t have any legs of any kind so when they set sail and the boat hit the first wave he just rolled off the ship like a lazy log! Captain Charlie jumped in and got Macintosh back to the safety of the shore in no time but it looked like that would be as far as his sailing career would take him.

PART III: The Watchmaker

Our two new friends were back on dry land. They were safe but they made no sound, they just sat quietly watching the waves. They considered contemplating their new complications but they were both too sad to do that. Just moments earlier they were filled with excitement, expectations and purpose...and that is what made Macintosh sadder than anything...he thought he found something important he could do.

I should have known a wee little worm could never do a big job like that he said. I wish I was a bug instead! Then I’d have 6 legs! Steady as a rock! No one’s going to roll overboard if they have six legs!
This gave Captain Charlie an idea...an idea that would solve their problem and give Macintosh a new nickname. You don’t have to be a bug he said...we just need to be clever.

This didn’t make much sense to Macintosh...if being clever made you grow legs then surely all mathematicians and philosophers would have so many legs they’d all look like a bunch of spiders! But then Captain Charlie told him a story that made everything fall in place. He told him the story of a famous watchmaker who made the most beautiful clocks in the whole world, and not only were they beautiful they were also the best clocks ever made. If he made it, it will run for a hundred years...and if you had a broken watch or a clock that’s ticking a bit slow he would have it running on time in no time...so...when you think about it...if the watch maker can make a clock run, surely he can make a little worm walk!
It was the perfect plan and as luck would have it the watchmaker didn’t live too far from where they were, so they set off and were at his shop before sunset. They told the watchmaker about their problem and their genius plan and he loved it! He got straight to work, he took some measurements, made some drawings and told them to come back first thing in the morning...then he looked at Macintosh and said: better make that noon...don’t want you running into those early birds.

When they arrived the next day they found the workshop in quite a mess, there were tools everywhere and the floor was covered in more bits and bobs than you would find in the world’s biggest bits and bob shop...but in the middle of all this chaos stood a very tidy table. There was nothing on it other than a teeny tiny set of mechanical legs. It was the most wonderful thing that they ever saw! No doubt it was the watchmaker’s most excellent creation ever. It had 6 legs in total, just like a bug, all made with the finest and shiniest brass bits. Each leg had its own special arrangement of gears and cogs that were all connected to a special clockwork contraption that converted wriggles to walks...but Macintoshes’ favourite bit was definitely the pulleys and springs built into the back legs because these would allow him to jump up high in the air just like a flea (This was in no way a requirement for a story teller or a shipmate but it sure was fun!)
It didn’t take Macintosh long to work out how everything worked and he was literally up and running in no time at all. This would make a good story said Macintosh as they both walked back to the harbour. Captain Charlie agreed.

From this day on Macintosh was known as the mechanical flea. He secretly liked this name cause fleas are pretty amazing but whenever someone called him this he would always correct them; I’m not a flea he would say with a big smile...I’m a worm who found a purpose. He could not believe it...if someone told him a week ago that he could be anything he wanted to be he would have thought they were telling tall tales...but in just a couple of days he became a shipmate, an assistant storyteller, half a robot and most important of all...a best friend! Not bad for a wee little worm he though...not at all bad!

You will be happy to hear that Captain Charlie and Macintosh still sail the seven seas (they probably even found one or two more to sail by now) and they still collect stories. They even opened a wee little story depot to store all the old stories. They are written down in books by Macintosh’s family...you might have heard of them, they are called the book worms. And the best part is the wee little story depot is right here in the village where we live. So now you know where stories come from...some people call it a place far far away, but we call it home.

you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

THE GHOST AND THE GALE

(first published Halloween 2013)

You might have heard many a tale of ghosts and ghouls before, and chances are you've heard one or more on this, the day of Halloween. But mark these very words...for when you look back upon them you will see it foretold that you've never heard a tale quite like this before...

It happened one night not too long ago. The moon was new and the thin slice of light visible on its face only moments earlier was now masked by a thick veil of fog drifting over the cold north sea into the heart of Scotland where a wee little village lay sleeping. Not a soul was awake...or so it seemed, as it would have been near impossible for a mortal eye to see the three figures walking in the shadows of the only road cutting through this wee village...but this is not the scary part cause wee little villages are quite nice, especially in Scotland and the three mysterious figures were only us!

We were on our way home and when it’s dark we always walk in the shadows cause shadows are too scary not to walk in them. You are now probably thinking “Oh no! The Picsees stayed out in the cold too long and now their brains turned into jellybeans” but actually this makes perfect sense if you know about philosophy like my brother does. He said shadows are only scary cause you can’t see who’s lurking inside them...but if it’s you who’s inside, you do know who it is and you know they are friendly, so there is absolutely no reason to be afraid. But as we were soon to realise, not all things are scary cause you can’t see them...actually some things are scary only because you do see them...like a ghost!

We were almost home when a sudden gust of wind came rushing down the road. Now a breeze or two is nothing new to this wee road of ours but this one seemed to be in a particular hurry, and it didn't take long to see why...it was being chased by a GHOST! There are lots and lots of people all over the world who knows lots and lots about ghosts, but unfortunately none of them were there with us. This meant we didn't have a lot of guidelines about what to do in a situation like this...but we were pretty sure that when you see a furious white blur chasing up a storm the best thing to do is run like the wind!

We ran and ran and usually we would run some more but we were concentrating so hard on the previous bit of running that we never saw the turn in the road or the very big wall making this turn quite necessary, and with four big thuds three little Picsees were flat on their backs! Now wait just a minute you say...The symptoms of running into a wall is usually a dizzy head and seeing double but the double of 3 has never been 4, and even though Eric is usually double troubles he still only makes one thud noise when he runs into a wall...so how could 3 little Picsees make 4 thud sounds? At first this made very little sense to us also. We quickly counted ourselves to confirm this mathematical and physical impossibility when we found the source of thud number four! It was the ghost! He was laying right there between us. Now 3 wee Picsees making 4 thuds is a strange phenomenon...but a ghost running into a wall is just completely nonsensical! Everyone knows ghosts go through walls, not into them! Our first thought was that we must be dreaming, but a quick pinch proved that this was not the case. Our second thought was to get running again! This time there were only three thuds.

This proved two new interesting things...firstly, you don’t always learn from your mistakes and secondly this time the ghost didn’t chase us. Actually he was not moving at all. It made him look much less ferocious and much less blurry...in fact; upon closer inspection he looked quite crumply.

That was when we realised what the moral of the story is. Just like you should never judge a book by its cover, you should also never judge a ghost by his sheet, cause it turned out our ghost was indeed nothing more than a wee sheet of paper crumpled up by a nasty litterbug and blown down the street by a wind in a rush.

We took the wee little litterghost home to put in the bin and agreed never to talk about it ever again, cause that’s how all proper scary stories end...also we did feel quite silly about it. Who’s ever heard of someone mistaking a wee piece of paper for a scary ghost?

Well...there was this one time my brother told us that toilet rolls are actually very neatly dressed mummies, but that’s a story for some other time...

you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

THE MONSTERS OF LOCH NESS

(first published 20 September 2013)

A wee while ago we went to visit Mika’s big sister for our holiday. She is called Nhala and she is a famous Picsee warrior of the Highlands (Mika is also a warrior but you spell his type of warrior with an ‘o’ instead of an ‘a’). Nhala is very brave...she lives under a root of a big tree in the forest and she doesn't even have a bedside lamp for when it gets dark at night and that is quite brave cause it get very very dark at night in that forest! But our story is not about the fact that the forest gets very dark at night, it’s about the fact that the forest is right next to Loch Ness!

When you go to Loch Ness for your holiday the first thing you will probably see is people doing monster investigations. There are lots and lots of them. They are all looking for the world famous lady Nessabeth - grand monster of the Loch of Ness...or as most people call her, Nessie - the Loch Ness monster. The big problem is no one ever finds her and all the people who is not looking for her has theories about why no one ever finds her, and as you can imagine there is lots and lots of these theories but actually there is only two true reasons why no one is finding her and we know both those reasons cause Nhala told us and she is very good friends with Nessie.

Reason number one is they don’t know how to do the secret whistle to call her and reason number two is cause she is not actually in Loch Ness at moment. She is in Loch Oich, it’s the loch right next to Loch Ness only it's much smaller and not as deep. This sounds like a strange thing to do if you are a big monster but once again there was a very good reason for this but Nhala said we have to wait until we get to the loch before we can get the answers to this mystery cause the answer is a surprise.

Nhala showed us a secret short cut through the forest and we got to loch Oich in almost no time and as you can imagine we thought we saw Nessie monsters all along the way but each time it was just rocks and big sticks and once when we were almost at the water we thought we saw her on the far end of the loch but it turned out to be a little ducky that was much closer than we thought.

When we were all at the water’s edge NhHala told us to hold hands and close our eyes. She did the whistle call. It wasn't very loud, it almost sounded like the wind. If you were walking past you probably wouldn't even hear it but when you do, you know it's a magic whistle. You know that when you open your eyes she will be there.
And she was, she slowly rose from the water and looked at us all and smiled. First with her eyes and then with her mouth and then she disappeared again. Nhala looked at us and winked. We didn't move cause we were afraid we might scare the moment away...and then she rose again but this time it was not just her...and then we all understood why she moved to the smaller shallow loch...it’s cause it’s the perfect size for a wee baby Monster! And there he was...a little baby Loch Ness monster! His name is Eoganan – Great Monster of Loch Oich and soon Loch Ness but that quite tricky to pronounce, specially while you’re playing so we just called him Noodle. He moved to this loch with his Mamma Monster just after he was born almost a hundred years ago. That sounds like alot...it’s more than we can count on all our fingers and all out toes together but in monster years it’s not that much. In monster years he’s about 7 and a half years old. Nessie said when he’s 8 monster years old they will both go back to Loch Ness where she will introduce him to everyone but we were quite glad they were still in Loch Oich cause there is lots of shallow bits where we could all play together. We had so much fun...we played games until the sun went down. It was mostly swimming games and he usually won cause he’s a very good swimmer. He didn't even have to cheat once unlike Eric.

Later that day when we were too tired to play we told stories about where we live, about our big adventures and of course about all of you, our wonderful friends. She said we should make a picture of her and Noodle so we can show you when we get home and tell you stories about them just like we told them stories about you, and here they are...the most loveliest monsters of Loch Ness.

you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

ERIC AND THE TIME MACHINE (Part 2)

(first published 12 July 2013)

PART 2: a part with dinosaurs and kelangedangs

It’s not every day that you discover a time machine in the hallway cupboard. Usually this would mean you could travel to any time you want...but not today. Today we had to go look for Eric cause Eric found the time machine before we did. Lucky for us we knew that he went to a long long time ago, we could tell cause the box is covered in dust and all the letters on the side is faded away...like all things that’s from a long long time ago. We decided that we should probably paint new letters on the sides before we go. It won’t go very far with letters that’s already faded. Oh...and maybe we could also make one or two other adjustments while we are busy...

We've built our own time machines before but none of them worked very well. They couldn't go back in time, they could only go to the future and they weren't even very good at that. They were much too slow...usually you arrived in the future at the same time as everyone else that wasn't on board. This didn't help us very much back then but at last it became useful cause this is called experience and also we kept all the ingredients we used to make them. We had some strings and wires for making connections and antennas, some tin foil for hats, and an calendar to use as a time map, we had some flies and confetti (cause time flies when you’re having fun) and a big green button for starting the time machine..and of course a little square thing on a key-ring that goes ‘beep boop beep boop’. This is a very important ingredient for building any type of machine cause for a machine to work it needs to either make a ‘beep boop beep boop’, a ‘vroom vroom’ or a ‘tick tock’ noise. We already had the clock that goes tick tock but when you are planning to go travelling it’s always good to take a spare.

We quickly went to get all these ingredients and started working straight away. My brother painted new words on the one side that said ‘DO NOT DISTURB ~ TIME TRAVELS IN PROGRESS’ and on the other side it said ‘DESTINATION: LONG LONG AGO (ON A WEEKEND)’. Mika painted some red stripes and lightnings all over so that it could go extra fast while Liloo and I made antennas and sticky taped them to the top of the machine. We tried to put the rest of our improvements inside the box but they couldn't all fit so we took out the tick tock clock and fixed it to the outside of the box with some string and sticky tape. This actually looked quite snazzy cause the hands of the clock looked almost like propellers. This time everyone and everything fitted snug as a bug.
We closed the lid and pressed the green button.
The thing on the key-ring went beep boop and off we went!

The funny thing about time travel is it takes quite a long time. For a while it felt like we were all just sitting inside a box wasting time instead of travelling through it but then all of a sudden Mika did a big sneeze. To the inexperienced time traveller this won’t mean a thing but we are new experts and we know Mika’s nose. He always does big sneezes like that when it’s getting cold outside, and given our current situation and location this could only mean one thing...we must be travelling through the ice age! Suddenly this adventure got very very exiting! And not just for us...it must have been just as exciting for everyone living in the ice age! Imagine how surprised they must have been to see our wee little time machine whoosh past them at top speed! It’s probably this jaw dropping event that made the sable tooth tigers end up with such long teeth. We don’t think the big woolly mammoths saw us though cause they are almost too big to imagine...so that would probably make us too small for them to imagine. The abominomnomnomable snowmen would have seen us for sure. They probably took some lovely polar-roid picture of us with their ice cameras. Some people think that the abominomnomnomable snowmen would be scary but the way we picture them would make this impossible. They would be way too fluffy to ever be scary. All the birds and bumble bees would be fluffy also. We should definitely stop here on the way back to see if these bumble bees make ice-cream instead of honey. If they do we would probably stay for a while. Ooh! Ooh! The bugs! Imagine all the bugs! They must be as big as breadbins. There would probably even be some of them that are made completely from ice so that you can see right through them! Can you picture that! Oh...and they probably have much more than just 6 legs cause if you run around on ice all day you want as many feet as possible...cause some of them would be slipping all the time

We were still dreaming up all kinds of potential ice crawlers when we suddenly heard a cacophony of kelangedangs outside the time machine...At first we thought it might be an ancient earthquake or an prehistoric avalanche but on second thought it sounded a bit more like the tick tock clock that fell off the box and maybe one or two other things that got knocked over inside the cupboard also...that is if it was still a cupboard! We might have gone back so far in time that it's a dinosaur cave by now... There were another few sounds, a click and then we heard the roar! There was no doubt anymore...There was definitely a T-Rex right outside the cupboard (which is now a dinosaur cave). It was a terrible sound...it sounded almost like a vacuum cleaner sounds but only much scarier! We didn’t move or make a single sound...we were all as quite as a sleepy mouse.

Lucky for us after a minute or two we could hear the roar moving further and further away from us... Wow...that was a close one whispered my brother.
Yep Yep we all agreed.
It was such a very scary monster said Liloo.
It was a dinosaur I said, a T-Rex.
Dinosaurs sounds allot like Hoovers said Mika.
Only scarier we all agreed!
We sat quietly for another while.
What happens now asked Liloo.

Luckily my brother is very smart and knows almost everything about everything. He explained that because the clock fell off we probably stopped travelling back in time. This means we will start moving towards the present time with everything else. For everything else this would usually take about one hundred million billion years but cause we are from the future we know the way back and all the best shortcuts so we should be home in just a little while but we better just stay in the box and be very quite till we are back home...there might be other scary things outside with even bigger teeth.

We sat quietly for at least five minutes but nothing happened other than five more minutes passing by. Are we there yet whispered Mika. Nope said my brother, we are probably in the Stone Age now. That’s good said Liloo. Stones are much less scary than real life dinosaurs. Yep yep said quite a few little voices in a box followed by a little giggle from Mika. Hehe...do you remember that time Eric ate all the crayons... he thought if you ate enough green ones you will turn into a dinosaur... but all he got was a tummysaurus. Now we were all making giggles.

And can you remember when Eric said he saw a magic berry in the old tall tree by the river. He climbed all the way to the top and took a big bite of it before he realised it was not a magic berry but a wasp nest. Yep yep! And lucky for him I was there to catch him said Mika. We didn't remember the bit where Mika caught him. We remembered Eric falling out of the tree and landing on top of Mika...but it’s probably better that he caught him so we will remember the story like that from now on.

Oh! And do you remember when we made that big hole in the garden and found the middle of the world...
...And that one time...
...and can you remember that day we...
...Oh Oh! And the time when...

We were having so much fun making giggles and memory trips. The box was filled with laughs and adventures. It was like we were back there having those adventures all over again...we almost completely forgot that we were stuck inside a time machine. We also completely forgot about that one time when we were almost eaten by the T-Rex...or at least until we heard another noise outside!

We were not sure what is was but it was definitely getting closer and closer very quickly until it was right next to the box! It was so close we could hear it breath! The lid swung open! Bright light poured into the box followed by sticky little jam fingers and a massive big grin... Haha!....found them! Eric wins! Eric wins! said the grin. We could not believe it! He did it again, every time we play hide and go sneak with Eric we end up looking for him and somehow he still wins, even if we are in another time. He licked off the jam that was left on his hands and climbed into the box with us. What are we playing now? he said.

We asked him how he first found the time machine and if he was also almost eaten by a T-Rex, but the story he told didn't all add up. He told us that he was on his way to come and look for us when he saw someone left a jam jar out. Worried that some passer-by by might also see this and be tempted to eat it he thought it would be best to put somewhere safe...but while deciding whether the safest place for jam is the fridge or in his tummy he heard giggles coming from the hallway. He then followed the giggles and found us inside the box! He also said he didn't see any dinosaurs on the way there but he said he can show us a dinosaur if we give him some green crayons...

My brother’s explanation also doesn't quite make sense...He said we arrived back there at the same time Eric was fist going to climb inside the box...but cause we came from the past we were already inside the box when Eric first found it...even though Eric found it long before we did...He said this is called a time travel box paradox but we think it was all just part of Eric’s plan to win the game without having to come look for us cause he’s sneaky like that.

We still use the time machine all the time...but we found out the only ingredients you need to make it work is a wee bit of imagination, a friends or two to join you and of course the magic words ‘do you remember when’... Oh...and a thing on a key ring that goes peep boop!

you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

ERIC AND THE TIME MACHINE (Part 1)

(first published 5 July 2013)

PART 1: a part with sticky little toes & a tick tock clock.

Once upon a long long time ago is where all good stories start, but when it’s a story about a time machine you can start it at any time you want! So to make this story extra good we will start it a whole week before once upon a time...so...Just the other day, a whole week before once upon a time we were playing a game of hide & sneak...

It was Eric’s turn to be ‘it’ and when Eric is ‘it’ it’s a problem. When you are ‘it’ you have to close your eyes and count to ten while everyone else goes and hides. Eric is an expert at this part of the game. He’s so good he can sometimes even count to ten using only 6 or 7 numbers...it’s the next part of the game that’s a problem. The part where he has to sneak around and look for everyone that’s hiding cause if he sees anything that he finds just a little bit interesting (and that is almost everything) he’s going to stop looking for you and play with his new found treasure instead. This means that if we are still hiding after ten minutes we are probably going to be hiding all day so we have to come out of our hiding spots and we all end up looking for him...and this is not even the worst part. The worst part is when we find him, cause as soon as he sees us he jumps up with a big grin on his face singing ‘found them! Eric wins! Found them! Eric wins!’

We are never quite sure if he does this cause he is very easily distracted or cause he’s very very sneaky!

Lucky for us it’s usually very easy to find him. There’s always a trail of sweetie wrappers, cookies crumbs or something sweet that follows him wherever he goes...and today was extra easy! It seems that he found an open jam jar along the way so we just had to follow the sticky footprints...and they took us all the way to the big cupboard in the hallway...

We’ve never seen inside this cupboard...not even a little peek. We aren’t allowed to go near it and also it’s always locked so it’s impossible to get in, we’ve tried everything....but not today. Today someone left it open so we peaked inside and we could not believe what we saw...it was the biggest mess in the whole world! If our cupboard ever looked like this we would be in troubles for ten million years. It was like a crazy maze of boxes and machines and buckets and mops from the bottom all the way up to the very top of the cupboard. If it wasn’t for the sticky footprints we would never ever find Eric in there but lucky for us they went straight to a wee little wooden box in the corner. It was a mysterious box. It was covered in fancy letters and sticky fingerprints. The letters were very old and faded so we could not read what they said but the fingerprints were brand new and Eric shaped. This didn’t explain the mystery of the box but it was a very important clue as to where Eric was. The other clue was the footprints that stopped in front of the box. Any detective that is worth some salt would agree that this is conclusive proof that Eric is definitely inside the box...

We sneaked up to it, counted one two three and flipped open the lid but instead of Eric there was just an old tick tock clock inside. We could not believe our eyes...someone turned Eric into a clock! We thought about this for a while and realised that that is actually impossible. Eric has never ever been on time, a clock would be the last thing in the world he would turn into, there had to be another explanation and when you think about it logically the explanation is quite obvious. It’s not a box with a clock and a missing Eric inside...it’s a time machine! Eric is probably making troubles in another time...and we have to go get him!

you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

LETTERS CAN GO A LONG WAY

(first published 16 November 2012)

Yesterday we had an unexpected little adventure when we went to mail a letter all by ourselves! We think we did quite a good job in the end but when we first got to the post-box there was a wee little problem…we just couldn't reach high enough to put the letter in the post-box’s mouth. We tried standing on tippy toes, we tried jumping, we even made a Picsee tower by climbing on top of each other but we were just too little…the only option we had was to go back home and try to build a catapult or a ladder.

We decided it’s probably best to build a ladder cause we’re not really allowed to make catapults any more. We got all our paintbrushes and covered them with glue. Next we had to put them together in a ladder shape but they all got stuck to the floor, except for one that got stuck to the wall. We tried again with our pencils and made an even bigger mess so we decided to stop before we glue ourselves to the floor cause that would make it very difficult to prove we had nothing to do with it…this also meant we were left with only one option…

it was quick to find all the ingredients for our catapult, and before long we were back at the post-box. When we got there we played a game of ‘who can draw the shortest straw’ to see who has to go on the catapult…but we forgot this is never a good game to play with goblins and Eric made us re-do the game seven times until eventually he got the shortest one. With the letter under his arm and a big smile on his face he pointed the catapult at the post-box and jumped on.

We are still not sure if it was a miscalculation of angle and projection or maybe just too many springs but something went a wee bit wrong and Eric ended up inside the mailbox and the letter was still outside! This was not the best solution but also not the worst one; we just opened the letter and read it to Eric so he can just say it when he gets delivered. It will be almost like getting normal mail only instead of paper you get an Eric! My brother said that’s what an E-mail is, but that doesn't sound right to me.


you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

TEACUPS, SPOONS & SCALLYWAGS

(first published 7 September 2012)

Yesterday we found a whole fleet of pirate ships in the kitchen! Actually when we found it, it was still just a tea set in a big box marked ‘for special occasions’ but we know every day is a special occasion and on special occasions you can turn teacups into pirate ships! It didn’t even take much work because they already had lovely gold patterns and curls painted on, so we just had to add a few pirate pictures and we were ready to set sail for the high seas…or in this case the little river by our house cause it’s much closer. When we got there we saw the goblins playing by the big willow tree and asked if they wanted to play with, and they did, so they helped us unpack the box while we explained the rules…and the rules went like this:

Lillo will be the sea monster cause she is the only good swimmer. She will be protecting the treasure that we will be trying to find. The treasure will be a whole week’s worth of cookies. They will go into the teapot and Liloo will go hide it on the wee little island on the river. Everyone else will be pirates and every pirate gets a teabag and a teaspoon. The teabags are for anchors and the teaspoons are for rowing and for fighting off the enemy! The teacups will of course be pirate ships and the saucers will be pirate rafts. It was a bit more difficult to sail pirate ships than we thought and we sank almost all the teacups while practising so in the end we set sail in the remaining teacups and the goblins got the saucers, we told them they must go to the other side of the river and race us to the treasure…but they must have misunderstood, cause when we sailed past the willow tree goblins came flying down from everywhere! Somehow they became space goblins with flying saucers, splashing and crashing into the water causing everything to capsize and sink!

Lucky for us we were all very close to the island and could paddle to safety. We were still crawling out of the water, covered in yucky river leaves and gasping for air when Liloo jumped from behind a bush, but instead of a growl she gave a scream, jumped into the water and swam away! She must have thought we were the real sea monsters. Usually it’s very funny to give someone a fright but this time the joke was on us! We were all stuck on a tiny island and the only one of us who can swim was miles away and was probably still running like a crazy bean.

So the only thing we could do was sit there eating our treasure cookies and remembering the good old days when we lived on the continent…but then my brother got a plan! It was a very risky plan, some might say crazy! It would take so much courage and sacrifice but it was the only thing to do….we had to throw the cookies in the river to lure the ducks! We started breaking them into little pieces so they would float better, rewarding ourselves with a wee piece every now and then for all our hard work and dedication…and the hard work paid off! A few minutes later all the ducks were there and after they ate all the cookies they helped us all back to the safety of our home soil.

Lucky for us the empty box in which the teacups used to live was still where we left it so we took it back home and filled it with old newspapers and potatoes cause if you have a box full of things you never use it doesn’t really matter if it’s full of lovely teacups or full of potatoes

THE TREASURE MAP

(first published 14 September 2012)

When you find a pirate map in your living room you know its probably going to be a very good day! We did make the map ourselves but it was a very very long time ago, so long ago we couldn’t even remember what the treasure was, but we were going to find out! So without wasting a moment we went to draw some eye patches on for all of us cause as you know it is very important when you are looking for treasure! Next, we followed the map step by step around the house finding clues in every room. A clue in the study and in the kitchen too, a clue in the hallway and even in the loo! It all went really well until we got to our room where the final clue should be…but the clue was missing! We checked and checked again, looking exactly where the map said. We even read the map upside down to see if that helps…but there was nothing! And then we realised what happened…the clue got lost because we had to tidy our room last week! It was now probably neatly packed away in a cupboard or a drawer somewhere that we would never even find in over three million years!

All hope was lost! The hunt was over! The pirate ship has sailed!

We decided the only thing to do is to go watch some telly but on the way my brother shouted something crazy about scallywags and shivering timbers and ran back to our room, returning seconds later with the mysterious missing clue! He remembered that whenever we clean our room we just hide everything under the bed so it was very easy to find! With all the clues on board we checked the map once more and it said that when we found all the clues we should set sail to the park cause thar the treasure shall be…but with one quick stop on the way.

This was to go find our friends the dogs, Mister Barkus, mister Growley and mister Woofler a real motley crue! It was real smart of us to put this in the map cause we need their help to dig up the treasure and also its so much fun when they give us doggy back rides to the park! We found them just down the road and they said they will help us if we gave them each a cookie when we get back, its expensive but always worth it ~:) We got to the park in no time and followed all the clues till we found the place where eggs marks the spot and we started to dig, this was also when we remembered what the treasure was……what happened was we were in the park one day reading our new book about pirates and how they buried treasure everywhere and made all these cool maps and we decided that is what we wanted to do!…but the only treasure we had with us that day was our brand new pirate book…and probably we shouldn't have buried it.
We did find it again but it is no longer our favourite book about pirates, instead it’s a book all about mud!

Luckily we learned two important things. Just because a story book is like a treasure chest filled with priceless gems it doesn't mean you should bury it in the park for a treasure hunt and then most importantly if you want to be a good pirate you should never ever clean your room!


you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com

THE WEE STORY OF THE BLUE PICSEES

(first published 7 September 2012)

Yesterday when we woke up the sky was all grey and grumpy so we could not go outside to play, but lucky for us we are quite smart and we made a plan…
We went to get our paints and painted our faces the brightest blue we could find! I did spirals on my face, Liloo had squiggles, my brother made ziggy zags and Mika was blue all over cause he was being silly and then he fell into the paint pot! Then with our blue faces and blue Mika we went to sit by the window so that the sky can see what colour he is suppose to be and all the while we were saying pleasepleaseplease…and then, after almost too long, the sky slowly became bluer and bluerer…like magic! We were so happy we ran straight to the park but on the way there, at the roundabout we met the goblins and cause we had blue paint on our face they thought we were all warriors and said we must play battle battle! And we did, but they won…but don’t worry we are all ok! It was just a play play battle and we think we only lost cause the goblins cheated! We still invited them to come play in the park and we all had so much fun running and jumping around like crazy beans...but we forgot about one little thing, our faces was still covered in the magic blue paint! The sky saw this and thought we want him to jump around too which is exactly what he did and that made it rain real hard and we all had to run home as fast as we could!

The moral of the story is that you should always keep an eye on Mika if you don’t want blue footprints all over the floor!

you can read more of our little short stories on www.thepicsees.com