Max Splat And The Snack Cart Coup

In the sleepy town of Brookhaven, where hopscotch grids faded like summer dreams and juice boxes flowed like wine, there thrived a secret society of unparalleled cunning: toddlers.

Most grown-ups figured kids under three were too busy chewing crayons and announcing potty victories to cause trouble.

They were wrong.

Behind the curtain of Little Sprouts Daycare, beneath a fortress of plush animals and half-deflated bouncy balls, a syndicate operated with the chaos of a raccoon rave and the strategy of a spy thriller. They called themselves The Nap Time Underground.

At the center of it all was Tommy "Tooth" Marlowe. He wasn’t the tallest, or the loudest—but he was the only one who’d bitten Miss Heather twice and lived to smirk about it. He sucked on a rubber shark named Mr. Chomp like a cigar, and he kept his pacifier tucked in his sock like a sidearm. Tommy didn’t start fights. He strategized them.

His second-in-command was Lulu “Goo-Goo” Garcia, who ran a pacifier ring from behind the reading nook. She wore sunglasses indoors and refused to take them off—even during naptime. She could rig a talking book to say curse words using only a paperclip and two AA batteries. She once convinced a substitute teacher that Wednesday was Opposite Day—and nap time became snack time for an entire afternoon.

Max “Splat” Renner was their demolition expert, mostly by accident. He communicated in sound effects: explosions, sirens, crashes. If you asked him to share, he’d say “KABOOM” and hurl a sippy cup like a grenade. He wasn’t malicious. Just misunderstood. And probably over-sugared.

Then came the Binkie Twins—Bella and Ella—identical masters of deception. One of them always cried. The other always denied. You never knew which was which, but you always knew they were two steps ahead and already stealing your graham crackers.

The NTU’s headquarters lay deep in the nap room, hidden behind a wall of foam mats and guarded by a plush tiger named Lieutenant Whiskers. You had to crawl through three overturned toy bins and say the password ("Banana Butt") to get in.

Their first major operation started with a cookie shortage. Not just any cookies. The cookies. Soft-baked, melty, chocolate chip miracles. Staff kept them in the breakroom, a place only teachers were allowed to enter and which may as well have been Narnia for the under-three crowd.

Miss Heather handed them out sparingly: two per toddler, no refills.

Tommy saw injustice.

“We’re not animals,” he whispered, holding court behind the puppet theater. “We deserve snacks without conditions.”

Lulu agreed. “I have a blueprint. The fridge sits here, next to the phone Miss Heather never stops talking on.”

“So we hit during a call?” Tommy asked.

“We hit hard.”

The plan was elegant. The Binkie Twins faked a twin meltdown in the hallway. Max, duct tape wrapped around his caterpillar scooter wheels to silence the squeaks, served as transport. Lulu created a diversion with a diaper she pretended was “haunted.” Tommy led the breach wearing a glitter cape to throw off facial recognition tech (aka Miss Denise’s poor eyesight).

It worked. Max returned low and fast, cheeks puffed with stolen goods and eyes wild with chocolate.

Victory.

But victory is addictive. Soon, cookies weren’t enough. Juice boxes were rerouted. String cheese went missing. They created an entire black-market economy based on animal crackers and snack currency.

That’s when she arrived.

Matilda.

Tutu. Holstered juice box. Bilingual. Voluntarily potty trained. The other kids watched her like she was a tiny alien. Who organizes LEGOs by color on purpose?

“She’s a narc,” whispered Max.

“She’s a decoy adult,” hissed Lulu. “You ever met a toddler who says ‘actually’ that much?”

Then one day, she approached their hideout and, without blinking, said, “I know you’re running supply ops out of the snack cubbies. And I know about the yogurt raid last Tuesday.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes. “You want in?”

“I want fairness,” she said. “And maybe... one of those cookies.”

She passed their tests: lied convincingly to Miss Heather (“Yes, I did wash my hands”), disarmed a motion-sensor toy, and correctly identified a trap set by the Binkie Twins. Matilda became their intelligence officer—mapping teacher rotation schedules, tracking diaper changes, even translating toddler babble from the younger ones.

But then came the rumors. Whispers about a rogue kid.

Stinky Pete.

No one knew where he came from. Some said he’d been kicked out of five daycares in three weeks. Others claimed he’d once single-handedly caused a fire drill with a single slice of bologna.

He showed up on a Monday morning, carried in by a father who looked like he’d lost a bet. Pete had wild hair, mismatched shoes, and a scent that said "banana yogurt left in the sun."

Miss Heather clapped. “Everyone say hi to Peter!”

Pete burped so hard a puff of glitter escaped his sleeve.

He didn’t talk much. He didn’t need to. By lunch, he’d cracked the snack bin lock and blamed the block corner. By nap time, he’d replaced everyone’s blankies with towels from the art station. By pickup, he’d vanished from two headcounts and left behind a rubber duck in the staff restroom.

“He’s chaos,” whispered Lulu.

“He’s beautiful,” said Max, awestruck.

Pete didn’t ask to join. He just showed up at HQ one day eating a hot dog that no one remembered being served.

Tommy offered him a spot. “You in?”

Pete shrugged. “I’m everywhere.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Then came The Potty Chart.

A glitter-covered monstrosity tracking how many times each toddler “went like a big kid.” Five stars got you a sticker. Ten stars got you a prize.

“This is psychological warfare,” muttered Lulu.

“It’s divide and conquer,” said Ella.

Tommy stood firm. “We are not beholden to stars.”

But pressure mounted. One by one, NTU members defected. Lulu forged her way to five stars using peel-and-stick eyeballs from a Halloween craft. Max accidentally earned three stars just from false alarms. Matilda insisted it was “good hygiene.”

Only Tommy and Pete refused.

Then Tommy overheard Miss Heather on the phone: “He’s falling behind. I think it’s time to transition him to the Big Kid Room.”

He froze.

No naptime. Tiny forks. Chores.

“They’re sending me away,” he whispered to the others. “This is our last stand.”

That night, they planned their greatest operation yet: Operation Sippy Storm.

At 12:00 p.m. sharp, the signal sounded: a crayon tower knocked over in slow motion.

All-out war erupted.

Max launched applesauce bombs from a spoon catapult. Lulu triggered the talking Elmo to scream on repeat. Pete dragged in a tricycle wrapped in streamers and rode it straight through the art wall. The Binkie Twins faked simultaneous allergic reactions while Matilda looped the baby monitor feed with footage from last Tuesday’s Circle Time.

Tommy stood atop the sensory table, arms wide, shouting, “TODDLERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!”

It was beautiful. It was chaos.

And then it ended.

Cleanup crews came. Parents were notified. The HQ was dismantled. Members were reassigned. Lulu moved to Preschool Prep. Max got labeled “spirited.” Pete just... vanished.

It could have been the end.

But a few weeks later, during sandbox free play, a baby—barely walking—stacked four blocks in a strange pattern: circle, square, triangle, square.

Matilda, now in the Big Kid Room, saw it. She smiled.

Tommy, drawing in the dirt with a stick, carved something simple: a circle above a rectangle. A pacifier over a cookie.

NTU.

The revolution naps. But it never sleeps.