The missing red carpet
There were two large red carpets rolled up in the corner of the assembly hall. We hastily hid one of them and left through the back entrance from which we came; after all, the hall was locked off and we didn't want to get caught trespassing. T'was a heavy bugger. We dragged it to an obvious and far from brilliant hiding place below the platform where the drummer was placed during concerts. After school, we had a laugh and went home. That was the end of our inane prank.

Or so we thought.

Arrived the next morning to learn that the entire faculty had spent several hours grooming the entire school area in search of the missing red carpet. At the end they were forced to roll out just one carpet which extended half way down the outside stairs and only half way to the royal car. The queen mother walked several metres on non-royal(!) pavement. Actually, she probably didn't mind. The principal did mind, though. Humiliated and furious and much wanting to catch the perpetrators, expulsion would have been a likely outcome. Paranoia set in, not entirely unjustified. Several years later, a girl from our class told us how close she had been to ratting on us. She still thinks we overstepped a line there. I still think it would have been hilarious to have been a fly on the wall. As it was, I didn't even meet the queen mother, so obviously this answer doesn't qualify.

For that I apologize. And for the girth. And spelling.

(BTW: This took place in Denmark, with Danish royalty. You may think of them as equivalent to English royalty, only with less colourful habits.)
(spinoza, Thu 3 Aug 2006, 22:01, Reply)