Some things
are hidden.
Not from you.
The Society of Unseen Things recruits Noticers: children who spot the missing sock, the remote in the wrong room and the smudge nobody admits to — and write it down.
Recruit a NoticerA letter a week for ages 5–12
A low-tech operation. Letters you print, cards by post.
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A real letter every week
Printed at home and delivered by you, so it arrives from nowhere.
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Missions and ciphers
Ten minutes in the garden with a pencil. A line of cipher at the foot of the page. A report, in writing, sealed.
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A record of service
A service record on card stock, and a sticker for every mission done. Every six months the Society reads it and writes to say so.
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The catalogue
Two cards a month from the Society’s catalogue, posted by the Archive. Six arrive first, in the welcome kit.
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A Noticer’s duties
Count what has gone. Note where the remote turned up. Write it down and send it in. The Mischief hates being noticed.
How it works
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Recruitment
You choose a codename, an age band and a few interests. Never the child’s real name.
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Dispatch
A letter a week arrives in your account, on one sheet of A4. You print it and put it where it will be found.
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The report
Your Noticer counts, looks and writes back. The next letter has read the reply, and says so.
For grandparents
& parents
A sighting record is the Society’s own drawing, sent out to be coloured in. Send the finished sheet back and, once the Archive accepts it, it is printed as a real catalogue card: one comes back to your Noticer, and the rest go out to other Noticers. The colouring becomes the Society’s; the fridge and the album stay yours.
A grandparent can run it from the other end of the country. The letters go to whichever adult handles them, and so does everything the Archive posts.
- One sheet of A4 a week, from your own printer
- A welcome kit by post: six cards, a service record, the stickers
- Two catalogue cards a month after that, postage included
- A codename, an age band and a few interests. Never a real name
- Not taken with it? The first month back in full
Keep noticing things.
We may be watching.
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Where it was found
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Coloured in. Now in the catalogue.
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One sheet of A4, home printer
Questions, answered
Who is the Society for?
Noticers aged 5 and over. The letters are written for ages 5 to 12: a five-year-old shares the reading with a grown-up, a ten-year-old takes the cipher off to their room. What becomes of a Noticer who grows up is a question the Archive has never answered in writing.
How does a letter reach my Noticer?
You print it. Every letter arrives in your own account as one sheet of A4, and one of the child’s own adults seals it and puts it where it will be found — the doormat, the letterbox, in with the ordinary post. We never send a letter to a child: every one comes to you, and you decide how and when it is found.
How often?
A letter a week. Each one carries the story on and answers what your Noticer sent back — the count, the sketch, the question at the bottom.
Is anything actually posted?
Quite a lot. A welcome kit goes out the day the guarantee closes: six catalogue cards, a service record printed in colour on card stock, and the mission stickers that go on it. After that a commission earns two cards a month, and the Archive posts them in batches, once a quarter, postage included. The Archive chooses what fills the envelope, and a card in it may have begun as another Noticer’s colouring — or as your own recruit’s. You can buy more, or send a parcel sooner, any time.
Can we stop?
It is monthly, so stopping is stopping. Anything already printed or posted is yours to keep — the Society does not recall its correspondence. If your child isn’t taken with it, we refund the first month in full: the guarantee runs until they show they are in — a second letter printed, a sighting record filed, or something ordered from the Archive — and while it is open your billing page has a button that asks for the money back.
Is it safe?
We never send a letter to a child — every letter comes to you, and you decide how and when your child sees it. We hold a codename, an age band and a few interests — never a child’s real name. The envelopes we do post go to you, at your own address, and the cards inside carry the codename. How it works behind the curtain is set out plainly in Safety for Parents.