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Officer Chester Chump was the Chief of Police in the tiny, sleepy town of Little Twaddle. His biggest case last year was the unauthorized use of a traffic cone as a flowerpot. His office was quiet until the day Mrs. Petunia Post-it stormed in, holding an empty suitcase.

"It's a tragedy, Officer!" she cried. "A spoon-tastrophe! My favorite suitcase, full of my finest spoons, is gone!"

Officer Chump raised a nervous eyebrow. "Spoons, ma'am?"

"Yes! I was taking them to a convention—a Spoon Convention! There was my special dessert spoon that looked like a tiny giraffe, and my rare soup spoon with the wobbly handle!"

Officer Chump, a man who believed in thorough police work, got to his knees and examined the floor. He found a tiny trail of glitter and sugar crystals leading toward the town park.

"A-ha!" he declared. "This looks like a case for... Detective Chump!"

The trail led him straight to the park's central fountain, where a small, eccentric old man named Professor Phileas Fidget was sitting on a bench, looking very pleased with himself.

The empty suitcase was right beside him.

"Professor Fidget!" Officer Chump boomed. "You are under arrest for the Grand Spoon Caper!"

Professor Fidget looked up, an expression of pure, innocent confusion on his face. "Spoons? Oh, my dear boy, I have no idea what you're talking about. I merely borrowed this convenient carrying case."

"Then where are the spoons, sir?"

Professor Fidget pointed a wobbly finger toward the fountain. Officer Chump looked. The fountain was not spraying water; it was spraying a magnificent, sparkling, slightly messy stream of miniature, multicolored ice cream sundaes. And propelling the ice cream? The spoons! They were all lined up inside the fountain's nozzle, acting as a hilarious, chaotic ice cream spray machine.

"They were bored!" the Professor explained. "They wanted to feel useful! Especially the wobbly-handled soup spoon—he was born to spray rocky road!"

Officer Chump stared at the tiny giraffe spoon, which was expertly slinging a perfect parabola of vanilla soft-serve. He realized it was the most fun he'd ever seen spoons have.

"Right," Officer Chump said, sighing and pulling out his notepad. "The charge is now... Unlicensed Ice Cream Projection with a Minor Misuse of Cutlery."

He helped the Professor carefully dismantle the spoon-fountain, and Mrs. Post-it was reunited with her unique collection. She forgave the Professor immediately, provided he give her a free ice cream sundae from his magnificent, albeit criminal, invention.