The Night the Filing Cabinets Had a Sleepover

Once a year, on the night the floors are polished, every filing cabinet in the Bureau of Whimsy has to leave its office. So once a year, on that night, the filing cabinets have a sleepover.

As soon as the last clerk had gone home, they came shuffling down the corridors on their little brass feet. First came Old Oakley from the Records Hall, eight drawers tall and so old that he creaked when he laughed. Then came Clank, the grey metal cabinet from the Department of Teeth, who squeaked on every corner and was excited about absolutely everything. Last of all, a long way behind, came Tiny.

Tiny was a card-index box with one drawer and four feet as small as buttons. It had only arrived at the Bureau on Monday. It had never been to a sleepover, and it had only one file in its drawer, and it was worried about both of these things.

The sleepover was in the Great Hall, where the floor had not been polished yet. Clank had brought the midnight feast: a stack of fresh paper, still warm from the printer, and a bowl of rubber bands, which filing cabinets eat like spaghetti. Old Oakley had brought a lamp. They pushed themselves into a circle and opened their top drawers a crack, which is how filing cabinets smile.

First they played Guess What's In My Drawer. "Something small and white," said Clank, "and very well brushed." "Teeth," said everybody at once, because Clank was from the Department of Teeth and it was always teeth.

"Something old," creaked Old Oakley, "rather long, and smelling of candle wax." Nobody guessed. It was the Bureau's very first rule book, and Old Oakley had looked after it for three hundred years.

Then it was Tiny's turn, and Tiny's drawer stayed shut. "I've only got one file," it said, very quietly. "It isn't very big." "One file is plenty," said Old Oakley. "Let's hear it."

So Tiny opened its drawer, just a crack, and read out its one file in a small, careful voice. "Kindness Citation. A boy called Oscar saw a snail crossing the path on a hot afternoon, so he held his umbrella over it for shade, all the way to the other side. It took eleven minutes."

For a moment nobody said anything. Then Clank gave a long, wobbly squeak, which is what he does when he is very moved. "Oscar's eleven minutes," creaked Old Oakley. "That is one of the best files I have heard in three hundred years." And Tiny's drawer slid open a little wider, all on its own.

Then it was bedtime. The cabinets shuffled into a row against the wall in alphabetical order, which took a while, because Clank kept forgetting whether C came before O. Tiny stood at the very end, next to the radiator. "What if I rattle in my sleep?" it whispered. "What if I keep everybody awake?"

"I creak," said Old Oakley. "Clank squeaks. The photocopier down the corridor hums all night long, and the radiator goes tink. Nobody minds a bit. That is what a sleepover sounds like." Tiny thought about this, and decided it sounded rather nice.

Old Oakley turned down the lamp, and one by one the cabinets closed their drawers for the night. Old Oakley's eight drawers went click, click, click, all the way down, slow and heavy. Clank's went clink, with one small squeak at the end. Last of all, very gently, Tiny closed its one drawer with Oscar's file safe inside. Click.

The Great Hall was dark and warm. The radiator went tink. The photocopier hummed. Far away at the end of the corridor, the floor polisher went round and round, slow and shiny, getting the floors ready for morning.

And in a row against the wall the filing cabinets slept, creaking and squeaking a little, the way friends do at a sleepover, with the smallest one at the very end, rattling softly, and not minding at all.