Three naughty mice lived in a mouse hole on the bottom floor of a huge house. Everything in this house was lovely and nice. The copper pots in the kitchen shone and sparkled. The windows had no spots or nose prints, and the wooden floors always looked polished. The best thing about living in this house was that there were always jars full of candy and sweets kept on the kitchen counter. Every night Mr. and Mrs. Bubnoggin would eat a handful of jellybeans and sourballs. Mr. Bubnoggin loved sourballs. He loved the way the sour taste made his mouth pucker. Mrs. Bubnoggin loved the sweet chewiness of the jelly beans. What they didn't know was that the three naughty mice in the mouse hole crept out each night after Mr. And Mrs. Bubnoggin had gone to bed and snuck the jellybeans and sourballs. They never took enough for Mr. And Mrs. Bubnoggin to notice.

One night Mr. Bubnoggin didn't feel much like going to bed, so he stayed up late reading a book. As he turned the pages he felt a rumbling in his tummy. “I am hungry. It's too late to eat a sandwich and it's too late to have a piece of cake. Ah, I know. I'll go and have a sourball.”

When he opened the kitchen door, he turned on the light. There sat the three naughty mice, picking sourballs and jellybeans out of the jars and dropping them to the counter. “What's this? Why you naughty mice! Mice aren't supposed to eat sourballs and jellybeans. Why aren't you eating your cheese?”

The mice looked at Mr. Bubnoggin. Their whiskers twitched and their tails swished back and forth. Before they could move another inch, Mr. Bubnoggin picked them up by their tails and threw them outside. He shut the door, rubbed his arms and put the lids back on the jellybeans and sourballs, but not before he popped one in his mouth.

The three mice found a way back into the house and immediately ran over to the jars, turned the lids and nibbled on the sweets inside.

When Mrs. Bubnoggin woke up the next day, Mr. Bubnoggin told her about the mice. “Oh my. We can't have naughty mice nibbling our jellybeans, can we.”

“What about my sourballs!”

Mrs. Bubnoggin came up with an idea. That night, before they went to bed, they cut a block of swiss cheese into bite-sized pieces and put them on a saucer next to the jars. “That should do it. We all know mice like cheese much more than jellybeans and sourballs.”

Mr. Bubnoggin hid and in the wee hours of the morning he turned the kitchen light on. Once again the naughty mice sat nibbling on his sourballs. They didn't even touch the cheese. He grabbed them by the tails and threw them outside again.

“This won't do at all,” Mrs. Bubnoggin said. She had another idea. That night before she went to bed she cut some cheese and then she lay a handful of jellybeans and sourballs next to the cheese on the same plate.

Mr. Bubnoggin hid again and in the wee hours of the morning turned the light on. He was much surprised to see the mice nibbling away on the food on the plate. They hadn't opened the jars and touched his or Mrs. Bubnoggin's sweets.

From then on, Mrs. Bubnoggin left out a plate of food for the mice and never again did they have to worry about them nibbling their sourballs and jellybeans.