Miss Maggie Hawksby strongly cautions residents to heed the warning on their toulousite meteorite specimens.
Miss Hawksby, of New Toulouse, watered her display specimen of toulousite.
The specimen came from a chunk of the main mass of the meteorite that Miss Liza Veliz found on October 26. Miss Veliz was doing her civic duty, energetically searching for the new weird glowing mushrooms, when she literally tripped over the huge meteorite. She sent it to the Bureau of Scientific Inquiry and collected a cash reward. The BSI is convinced that the meteorite is the one reported here in early October. The BSI has been giving trophy specimens of the meteorite as a bounty for collecting the glowing mushrooms that have been popping up all over Bayou. Each specimen has an attractive little plaque saying, “Toulousite: A Nickel-Iron Meteorite, whose fall was observed in the Community of New Toulouse. A thank-you gift from the Bureau of Scientific Inquiry (Keep this sample dry).”
Miss Hawksby, being of a curious mind, undertook her own science experiment. She wanted to answer that ageless question that has plagued mankind since rocks first fell from the sky: “I wonder what what would happen if I watered my meteorite?”
Miss Hawksby knew she had a problem when the mushroom that began growing burst through the ceiling of Mr. Elwood Dowd’s home in New Toulouse Bayou, where she conducted her experiment. She tried cutting it down, but it grew faster than she could cut it back. As it grew, she says, it became strangely warm, even hot. When it began to break through the walls and roof, she called for help.
“Frankly, and I hope he doesn’t read this, but the mayor does not have much of a sense of humor,” Miss Hawksby said. “He yelled at me, kind of rudely, ‘Oh, no, not again! I am not going to fix the house, Miss Hawksby! This is not my problem!’ Fortunately, he also yelled for Mr. Pestana.”
Miss Hawksby thought it would be a good idea to summon the kraken, but Mayor Godenot reportedly said, “You want my sea monster, capable of tossing an entire ship, to eat your radioactive and possibly hallucinogenic fungus? No way. Besides, krakens don’t exist.”
But Pazzo Pestana, said Miss Hawksby, was “cool as a cucumber,” suggesting that zombies could take care of the situation. “So I sprinkled that mushroom with graveyard dust, and Pazzo lured a zombie in. Henri wanted to smear the mushroom with brains, but that was dumb. Where would you get that many human brains at short notice?”
Allegedly undoctored photograph of the residence of Elwood P. Dowd, with large fungus
According to Miss Hawksby, the graveyard dust attracted numerous zombies, who ate away at the huge mushroom. “Big chunks were falling off and sprouting new mushrooms, and the zombies were swarming over those, too.” The mushroom, she says, continued warming up until it caught fire. Fortunately the house was too damp to attract the blaze.
Today there is no evidence of this incident. The roof of Mr. Dowd’s house appears to have been patched recently, and Mr. Dowd is away on business. Mayor Godenot reportedly contacted the Bureau of Scientific Inquiry, advising them to varnish all future meteorite samples to keep them dry, but this reporter was unable to confirm this.
“Chalk one up for science,” said Miss Hawksby. “At least we know why you shouldn’t water the meteorites. But those glowing mushrooms were pretty neat. I wonder why the mushroom collection instructions said not to put more than twenty of them in a bucket.”
Gigi Lapin resides in New Toulouse Bayou with her pet crawfish, Jimbo.