Bramble and the Very Long Report

Every night at Elf Field Operations, the incident reports arrive at the Incident Desk. They come up the chimney post in little green envelopes, and Inspector Thistlewood reads every one with a mug of cocoa and a red pencil. Most reports are short. A Field Elf writes down what happened, adds a ruling and signs it, and the Inspector stamps it Noted and goes to bed.

Then there was Bramble.

Bramble was the Field Elf for a girl called Priya. His first report arrived on the first of December, and it said this.

Incident: one sock, found on the stairs. Suspect: the sock. Ruling: returned to the drawer. Inspector Thistlewood smiled, stamped it Noted, and was in bed by eight o’clock.

The second report was a whole page. A spoon had gone missing and turned up in a plant pot, and Bramble had interviewed the plant.

Witness: the spider plant. Witness declined to comment, but looked guilty. Ruling: spoon returned, plant watered, case closed. The Inspector chuckled, and was in bed by half past eight.

The third report was three pages long and had drawings. The fourth report came with exhibits. Exhibit A was a crumb. Exhibit B was another crumb, slightly bigger. Exhibit C was one goldfish flake, which Admiral the goldfish had asked to have back.

By the seventh night, the report would not fit in an envelope. It arrived on a roll, like wallpaper. When the Inspector let go of the end, it unrolled across his desk, off his desk, out of the door and all the way down the corridor to the canteen, where it came to a stop against a teapot.

The Inspector put on his reading glasses and began. Incident: at fourteen minutes past seven, the kettle made a noise. The noise was a whistle. Bramble had drawn the whistle from four different sides. He had interviewed the kettle, the teabags and the sugar bowl, and he had asked Admiral to describe the whistle, and Admiral had blown one bubble, which was included as Exhibit F.

Inspector Thistlewood read until midnight. Then he read until one o’clock. Then he fell asleep on page forty with his cheek on the ruling, and woke up with the words Ruling: Kettle printed backwards on his face.

Meanwhile, at Priya’s house, somebody had noticed something. Every morning, the elf had moved, the way elves do. But every morning he also looked a little more tired. There were ink spots on his nose and a pencil behind each ear, and on the ninth morning he was found fast asleep on top of the bread bin, still holding a ruler.

That evening, Priya wrote him a note on the back of a shopping list. Dear Bramble, it said. You do not have to write everything down. Just the best bit. Love from me.

Bramble read the note four times. Then he took a fresh, small card and thought about the day. There had been a missing glove and a muddy boot. There had been a song, sung in the bath, about a potato. He thought hard about which bit was the best bit.

That night, Inspector Thistlewood opened the little green envelope with a small sigh and a large cocoa. Inside was one small card.

Incident: a song about a potato was sung in the bath. Ruling: best song of the year. Everything else: very peaceful. Signed, Bramble.

The Inspector read it once, and then again, because it was nice. He stamped it Noted, very gently, and pinned it to the wall above his chair. Then, at a quarter past eight, for the first time in nine nights, he put on his slippers, turned down his lamp and went to bed early.

Far away, in Priya’s house, the kitchen was dark and the kettle was cold. On top of the bread bin, a small elf with ink on his nose was already fast asleep, and for once, nobody needed to write that down at all.