Open Malfunction

[Auden Sheldrake]

One arm looped around the swing chain, Auden smacked his pocket sneakoscope against the palm of his hand. His dad had picked the toy up out of a ‘FREE STUFF’ box down the street, and it hadn’t taken Auden long to find out why it had been thrown away. Stupid thing hadn’t stopped going off all morning. The whistling was driving him nuts. It must have been broken - there couldn’t be that many untrustworthy people in Brightstone Village. He supposed it might just have an extra-long range on it, but that was stupid; the whole point of a sneakoscope was that it helped you figure out who was being sneaky. It would be a bit pointless if it whistled because someone ten miles away stole someone else’s lunch money.

He smacked it again, hard. Maybe it couldn’t be fixed. Maybe he’d just have to smash it up, or bury it in a hole in the park somewhere. Although option A sounded better. ​

 

[Professor Matt Alcott-Ward]

Matt was not in Brightstone and was up at the castle reading a book, whoops

 

[AJ Carpenter]

AJ was kicking a ball around the park when he realized he had been hearing a high pitched whistling noise for a while now. Curious, he looked around for the source. He realized it seemed to be coming from the swings, and after picking up his ball, AJ went over to investigate. He saw a boy sitting there, the noise seemed to be coming from him. He was smacking something that was whistling. "Why are you doing that?" he asked. "Is it making that noise because you're hitting it?"