The Trouble with Nyssa

Zeb, a Nissa of middling height and age, was directing the smallest Nissa to dance on the toilet bowl float…while he held the tank lid aloft.  Zeb encouraged the youngsters, all of them still very new to Enrik’s crew, and quite frankly younger than Enrik liked to hire Nissa.  He moved closer and looked over Zeb’s shoulder, with all six of them gathered on the float it had begun to sink to a level that some water was leaking out of the tank but not far enough to force the bowl to flush again. They wedged an acorn into float mechanism’s post to keep the float from reaching the shut off point and cemented it in place with toddler snot.  Now the bowl was in a perpetual state of leakage, the sextet of Nissa dove into the water and began gnawing around the underside of the stopper seal so the tank would leak even after the acorn might be dislodged.

Enrik listened to the sounds of the human’s preparations: getting dressed in time for the train, opening and closing drawers and closet doors.  He checked his list and saw that the Night Crew had some of the fun jobs: staining ties, chewing holes in socks, mismatching socks, and Enrik’s favorite loosening button threads from shirts.  The man seemed so preoccupied with the task of finding clothes for work today, Enrik was comfortable walking openly through the man’s home, not bothering to slink from shadow to shadow. With silent tread, he trekked through the house, admiring the work of the advance crews who had reset human’s clocks to various times or had simply unplugged the devices temporarily so that they flashed an insistent noon or midnight. Checking things off of his list to make sure that the Nissa had thoroughly pranked this household, in the manner of conscientious managers the world over…

Coming back into the main entry hall, he consulted his clipboard yet again… Where were the house keys? He found the keys on the hall table, which was even with the top of his head, forcing Enrik to jump lightly onto tabletop to make sure the next prank was ready.  Enrik thought that if this household had a cat of its own, this window ledge over the little hall table would be the perfect cat perch, but sadly this human did not have a pet.  Taking a peek to make sure that no neighbors were looking in this window, confident that all their stealthy maneuvers were still unobserved, Enrik snagged the sheer fabric’s hem of the curtain onto the ring of keys.  From this slight adjustment of the curtain and the way it hung, the view of the house keys resting on the tabletop was now partially obstructed…

Satisfied with the tableau he had created, he proceeded to pull the baby powder from one of his overall’s pocket.  He liked this container, it had been liberated from the last nonbeliever’s home and it was covered in shiny red and yellow stickers announcing a variety of clearance prices.  Because petty little thefts were simply irresistible to a Nissa, and being the crew chief meant that he always had to be prepared.  Honestly, how could anyone expect a Nissa not to take it? Baby powder had so many uses…. Enrik thought with a smile that reflected his sharp jagged teeth in the window pane.  Taking a moment to tease up his hair that had started to droop in this humidity and part his beard so that his wart was clearly visible on his chin… He winked at his reflection confident that he was a handsome devil indeed…

Jumping down from the table, he gave the first warning whistle to his crew.  It was nearly showtime. He sauntered over to the loose rug that spanned the small space between the foot of the stairs and the front door, with one hand firmly on the powder container and the other lifting the rug, Enrik powdered under the non-skid strips of the entry rug.  It probably wouldn’t move enough to cause injury to the human target, but it would cause a great deal of arm waving and every once in a while they are treated to a pants-wetting… Whenever this happened it was always an added bit of entertainment for the crew. Several of the smaller Nissa were climbing down the walls or bouncing from step to step and he nodded at them to gather in the shadows by the front door.

Enrik was doubtful that this morning’s target would be that entertaining… and reached into another pocket to have something to do with his hands as he waited. Inside the pocket, he found something sticky… He could not quite recognize the substance but he suspected that the youngsters were pranking him.  Rather than let such a delightful prank go to waste, he smeared what he could recover from his pocket onto the target’s shoes and to edges of the stair treads going upstairs.