h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Paisley the pretty platypus flip-flopped down the trail to the stream. She couldn't wait to go for a swim! She'd been stuck in the house for two days doing spring cleaning, then there was tea with old Mrs. Hedgehog, and choir practice with the frogs on the east fork of Woogie's Stream. But now she finally had some time for herself, and she was going for a swim...

but as she was heading down the hill a great storm swept up quickly from the north. The wind which was mild earlier in the day picked up and swept the flowers from Paisley's hair. What's this? she thought. This is unusual weather for this time of year. I do believe it's going to storm...

...so maybe I should return to the house and iron Old Mr. Hippogorfamus's undies. The "storm" turned out to be a flock of piecosts flying South for the holidays. "Humph!" Paisley grumbled,
"Here am I, with unfinished work up the gazoo, and those potfors can just fly off anytime they want to cavort and carry on in a distant tropical paradise. Why, I have a mind to..."

go home, fill the elephant gun with peanut butter and blast those birds into a large sticky mass! Paisley continued to sputter and curse all the way home. Just as she was rounding the bend to her cottage she herd a shriek come from the mulberry bushes on her left...

...near the spot where the Origami butterflies liked to play. There, caught in the middle of the mulberries, was a baby Flussagophulary. Two of its heads were fully formed by now, but the other three were still unopened buds. The purple spots on its yellow wings were still pretty small, so it was probably only 300 years old, well short of maturity. "Hmm," said Mrs. Paisley, "the only known way to lure a Flossagophulary out of a mulberry bush is to prepare to some fresh huckleberry pie with..."

"...horseradish!" So she hurried into the house and started gathering the ingredients for the huckleberry pie. After searching the entire rootcellar for horseradish, she finally found some. Carefully climbing the steps to the kitchen she reached for the door handle and... it was locked! How can that be? The door didn't even have a lock on it, yet, try as she might she could not get the door to open. "Now what do I do?" she thought to herself as she sat on a sack of potatoes in the center of the room. No one will hear me yelling for help in here, and it's dark and, and...

"Oh for heavens sake, I'll help ye if ye just quit yer incessant whining!" said an irritated voice out of the dark.

Paisley leapt up, banging her head on one of the overhead rafters and jumped back into the corner. Who said that? She peered into the darkness, hiccupped and...

from behind the furnace peered two red eyes!
Who are you?! she shouted?!
I'm the Boogie-Man! Who else would be in your root cellar?
Poor Ms P. cried even harder now!
"Oh sure," said The Boogie-Man, "Cry your eyes out. Everyone who sees me does. How do you think that maqkes ME feel? Well? Answer me!"

"Ah, not quite *everyone,* Boogeyman!" said another voice in the darkness. "There are a few of us who are thrilled to finally be able to meet the Boogeyman!"
"Why, that sounds like Looney Leonard," said Mrs. Paisley, her heart thumping in her chest, for she had always had a mad crush on Leonard.
"Yep," affirmed Looney Leonard, "but for now you can call me the president of the Boogeyman Fan Club. Oh, and Mrs. Paisley, the way to get out of this root cellar is through..."

"...this magical carrot. You just stick in your ear so, recite the entire lyrics from the song "Mack the Knife" while balancing on your left foot and blink twice."

Paisley just stared at him.

"No, really, I'm not pulling your leg" said Leonard in a very serious tone of voice.

So Paisley took the carrot from him, stuck it in her ear, stood on her left foot and while singing she blinked twice. WHOOSH, SHOOM, SHWALOP!!! the earth tipped and Paisley found herself dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the kitchen floor. There was a moment of silence then Leonards voice from behind the rootcellar door... "um, Paisley? Could you possibly just open the door please. I only brought one magic carrot and..."

the Boogie-Man is looking at me...in 'THAT' way!

So Mrs. Paisley opened the root cellar door, allowing Looney Leonard
to come into her kitchen. He gave her a kiss out of gratitude. She did everything she could to prolong the kiss.

"Wow, I didn't know you cared," Leonard said, "or I would have dated you instead of..."

Right at that moment Leonard was interrupted by a loud clattering and bumping noise coming from the roof. Paisley and Leonard ran out into the front porch to see what was going on. There in the middle of the roof, sitting in a very sad and peculiar way was Bertie Turniphoover. Her dress was torn, and she looked just as surprised as Paisely and Leonard did.

"Whaaa... what... " stammered Bertie.

"Yes! My question exactly" replied Paisley rather indignantly.

Leonard looked shocked, then flustered and then embarassed as he...

sheepishly looked at Bertie and said, "Well, looks like drinks are on the house!"
At which time...

...they all noticed that Leonard was being quite literal. Apparently there were approximately 42 drinks sitting in various places on the roof, and it also looked like Bertie had drank at least part of most of them.

Now how did she, and all that alcohol get on my roof? Blustered Paisley.

Leonard tried to look invisible but in the process he fell over the watering trough and onto one of Paisley's cats. The cat started hissing, which caused the horse to start bucking and the chickens got all in an uproar.

Just what is going on here? demanded Paisley

Leonard stammered on about how he was falling for Mrs Paisley
and that Bertie was stalking him. To prove his point he turned Mrs Paisley toward the roof & pointed upward at which time there could be seen stalks of celery sticking out of all the drinks!
This was curious indeed as most of the drinks wern't even bloody marys, they were mostly...

HappyDudes, named in honour of the H2G2 researcher who invented them.

Bertie picked up her enormous parasol, opened it, and jumped from the roof, landing as gently as Mary Poppins. "Spit spot!" she said, "we'd best hurry, as we don't wish to be late for..."

"...the monster truck races! I know how much you love monster truck races Leonard, so I bought several tickets so that you and your friends could go. Oh dear seems I've only bought tickets for you and me. I guess Ms. Paisley will have to go another time "

Now Paisley was really getting mad! This had been such a strange day already, then this pushy Bertie showed up and was moving in on her Leonard! Well she wasn't going to put up with it, not any of it! Just then she remembered she was still holding the magic carrot! She quickly stuck it in Bertie's ear, stood on her left foot and started singing "Mack the Knife". Bertie looked stunned for a minute then started screaming in anger and tried to pull the carrot out of her ear. But Paisley was just at the part where she blinked twice, and she wasn't about to let go of the carrot. Bertie gave a sudden hard yank at Paisley's hand, Paisely blinked twice and...

turned into a !!!
Still able to speak, Mrs Paisely fluttered around Bertie & Lenord
yelling at the top of her tiny lungs that no matter how mad she was...being a fairy, she just was unable to wipe the smile off her face. Which was very irritating since she was mad as a hornet!
With the sweet smile plastered across her face she swooped up high & took a dive at Bertie!Just as Mrs Paiely was about to land in Berite's hair...

...Bertie took a big bite out of the magic carrot, chewed quickly, and swallowed it. A huge puff of dust rose from the scene, and when the dust settled, Mrs. Paisely was her old (but still extremely ) self. Bertie, however, had been turned into an enormous codfish, which was stuck in the top branches of the old apple tree.

"Get me down!" Bertie the Codfish wailed, " everyone knows that don't belong in trees. I will be the laughingstock of the school, not to mention..."

I literally am a fish out of water!