Closet Rules

Ms Bedtime Sheep padded into the walk-in closet, her blue housecoat swishing like a curtain.

Darlene, the deer, scooted over on the blanket pile. Grace, the goat, tapped her phone screen and yawned.

“Ten Star Hotel,” Darlene said. “Best closet in Bedroom City.”

Grace snorted. “Because it has air vents that whistle like a tea kettle.”

Stella, the other sheep, laughed from somewhere near her pillow. “It only whistles when Grace judges it.”

Ms Bedtime Sheep smiled and leaned back against a stack of folded towels. The closet smelled like clean soap and sleepy socks.

A tiny giggle came from the vent. Not a whistle. A giggle.

Grace paused her scrolling. “Was that… Stella?”

Darlene blinked. “Stella is right—”

Darlene’s sentence fell apart when she looked.

Stella’s pillow was there. Stella’s phone was on the floor, lit up at 11:11.

But Stella was not.

The Wrong Button

Ms Bedtime Sheep hooked her fingers under the vent cover and popped it loose.

Cold air tugged at her wool like a prank.

“Stay here,” she whispered.

She slid in feet-first. Metal scraped her housecoat. Then the vent tipped down.

She dropped—plop—into a laundry cart. Towels bounced around her like soft bricks.

The laundry room buzzed with machines. A goat in a floury apron sealed cardboard boxes with tape.

The goat blinked her bright green eyes. “Uh… room service?”

“I’m looking for Stella,” Ms Bedtime Sheep said, climbing out. Her phone light shone on the floor.

A sticker on a shiny tube read: EXPRESS AIR—MAIL CHUTE.

The goat pointed her tape roll at it. “New system. It connects vents. Faster pastries.”

A giggle chirped from inside the tube, like someone tickling a kazoo.

Ms Bedtime Sheep pulled up the hotel Wi‑Fi on her phone. “Stella’s phone is… connected. And moving.”

A tiny screen icon slid across a map toward a little post-office symbol.

“Moving how?” the goat asked.

Ms Bedtime Sheep tapped a wall panel beside the tube. Big buttons. One said SEND.

“It probably means ‘send sound,’” she muttered—and pressed it.

The tube roared. Something small clinked inside.

On her map, Stella’s phone dot shot toward Bedroom City