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

Paisley looked at Bertie the codfish in disbelief. Then the corners of her mouth slowly turned up into a smile as she turned to Leonard, and in her sweetest Paisley voice said: "Will you be staying for dinner Leonard? I think I feel a fish stew coming on "

Leonard looked at Paisley, then back at the struggling codfish in the tree, then at Paisley again, squeeked once, turned white as a sheet then promptly fainted.

"Ah, well, I guess that would be a "no" then." Paisely said to the prostrate Leonard then she walked into her house to get the big kettle. But just as she was reaching for the cupboard door...

... a hand grabbed her arm!

Not just any hand but a grizley, gnarled hand!

A hand that was attached to the Boogeyman!

Paisley sighed and said "I thought we left you in the basement where you belonged!"

But the Boogeyman snarled and said "Eeba-goomvam! Reebnuv vrandine?! Trimko braip hoquet, nreed pruiggy fritzen gobboo..."

"Stop right there", yelled Paisley! "I can't understand a word you're saying!"

So the Boogeyman cleared his throat, adjusted his tie (for despite being ugly, gnarled and grizley, he was dapper in his dress), and said...

..."I think I'd fancy a cheeseburger instead luv" Then he snapped his fingers and what do you know? A lovely little cart appeared in Paisley's dining room. On the front of the cart was a picture of the cutest little red haired pig-tailed girl and in bright red letters above the cart the sign read "Wendy's". A man appeared behind the cart, flipped a burger and said "Hellow, my name is Dave. How do you want your burger?"

Well Paisley wasn't about to have any of it. I mean, the pertinance of these people constantly parading in and out of her home, in the root cellar, on the roof, it was too much really. But then she saw Dave mixing up a fresh "Frosty" malt and she...

...sank wearily into the red-and-white checked chair that Dave pulled out for her. The Boogeyman re-appeared, only this time he was in a freshly-pressed tuxedo. "Relax, Paisley," he purred, "you've only seen the scary side of me, but what you see now is the suave, debonnair, *real* me. I rock, baby!"

"Yes, but something *else* is rocking right now," Mrs. Paisley said as the floor shook and bits of ploaster fell from the ceiling.

"That's because of the earthquake," the Boogeyman said, "but it should be over by..."

this time, oh, say, in 2006. A little something I arranged with the Inner Earth Goobers. I thought it would be fun to shake thing upo a bit. You can probably tell, I don't get out much.
The BNoogeyman went on to say, "Scary things those Goobers. No mouthes and only one...

"...nostril! But they can really get the job done! Care to waltz with me Paisely?" he said as he leaned in close and waggled his unibrow.

Right then, as Dave was handing her a super-huge frosty, everything disappeared. The Boogeyman, Dave, the Frosty (yes, even the Frosty... is there no god?) Startled, she sat up and looked around. She had been sleeping! Here she was, safe and sound in her own little bed. Paisley hugged her knees and laughed out loud. A dream! It was all only a dream. What a relief! She layed back onto her pillow and snuggled under the blankets. Just a dream she thought to herself as she drifted back off to sleep. It was all just a dream. She was slowly drifting back to sleep when...

she heard a loud boom! She lept from her bed, threw open her shash...and what do you know?! A spaceship had crashed!
Oh my whispered Mrs Paisely. I must take our visiters out some bread and jam! I wonder if they would like a nice drink of

...pfaffenbooger tea. I have it on good authority that pfaffenboogerberries only grow on this planet, but are prized throughout the galaxy."

She put some plates of toast and jam on a blue willow tray, placed the teapot and cups in the center, and went to greet the aliens. When she got to the UFO, however, she found that the aliens were actually cousins of the Boogeyman, who had come to...

brainwash her into falling in love with the Boogyman!

"Why, why, why must life be so complicated" though Paisely to herself. "Oh well, I'll serve them tea anyway. There's never any reason for bad mannors, and the blue willow trays cheers everyone up so!"

So Paisley bravely marched into the center of the herd of yammering Boogey cousins and started serving tea. Pretty soon all that could be heard was the happy sigh of Boogies, sipping the euphoric pfaffenbooger tea and eating jam.

As Paisley was pouring the last cup of tea, a very small Boogey cousin tugged on her skirt, and said in a very high pitched, squeeky, grating voice "Ms Paisley, our cousin the Boogeyman never served us tea and jam before. You're such a nice person that I must insist that you not marry him! You will ruin the family honor! If the relatives back in Boogieville ever knew that he had married someone as nice as you, they'd fire him from the job of Boogeyman faster than you can stuff scare the hair off of a bald man! Well, the rest of the boogie cousins agreed, and they all packed up (thanked Ms Paisley for the tea of course) and flew back to Boogieville.

This of course did not make the Boogeyman happy and ...

...he stormed angrily into Mrs. Paisley's root cellar to sulk.

"How quickly things change around here," Mrs. Paisley mused. "Well, since things are quiet once more, and since they could easily become hectic again at the drop of a pfaffenbooger berry, I might as well hurry down to the river for my swim while I can still...

Meanwhile, Clarise, resident poet/manicurist was wallowing in the best mudhole in Sweetlife county. This wasn't just any old mudhole. Certainly not! This mudhole (located on Josiah Farklebottom's farm) had just the right amount of shade, so that the lovely mud never dried up and you never go too warm. But it also had just the right amount of sun, so that you wouldn't get too cold. And Clarise (being a pig) was enjoying her Wednesday wallow immensley. She layed on her back in the silky-smooth mud with her hooves akimbo in the air. Manicuring was just one of Clarises many attempts at an alternate career if the "poetess" gig didn't work out. And it seems as if it didn't work out - often. The problem was, that with hooves instead of digits on the end of her legs, it was quite difficult to hold a fingernail polish brush. Yet Clarise remained optimistic. "Sporange. No I don't believe that's a word either" thought Clarise to herself as the mud slithered around her. "Why is it so hard to find a word that rhymes with "orange"? "Adorange" Oh balderdash she said under her breath, "I should just..."

...invite Mrs. Paisley over for tea."


Clarice reached for her laptop, and used Instant Messaging to invite Mrs. Paisley. Imagaine Clarice's surprise when Mrs. Paisley herself appeared at the edge of the Farklebottom mud flats.

"Hi," Mrs. Paisley said cheerily, an inflatable yellow raft tucked under one arm, "I'm just a few dozen feet down the river. We can have our tea while basking on my raft."

Clarice liked this idea, but...

...thought that the yellow raft would clash miserably with her mauve hooves. So she talked Ms. Paisley into letting her paint their toenais/hooves cherry red, and after a prolonged drying spell (in which they laughed hysterically at Rupert the horse when he tried to ride the farmers bicycle), they headed for the river.

"It's a lovely day for an outing" said Clarice as she trotted alongside Ms. Paisly.

"Yes, quite" replied Paisley. She intended to speak of the strange goings on earlier in the day to Clarice, but thought better of it. "I do believe we're here".

Clarice looked around and ...

...admired Snowcup the Swan, who was showing off her 8 young swanlets for the first time. Then she realized, to her disquiet, that two of the swanlets were winged horses.

"Looks like Snowcup has been fooling around with some non-swan entities," Mrs. Paisley whispered to Clarice.

"No, no, I have it on the best authority that those two are offspring of Pegasus and Peggy-Sue Pegasus," Clarice replied, "which is nice because it means Pegasus has gotten back with Peggy-Sue after that ugly fight over..."

"...transmission fluid."

Well, Paisley had no idea how flying horses used transmission fluid, or why they would want to. But she didn't dare questions Clarice as Clarice had a reputation of having a horrible...

habit of telling long, drawn-out stories whenever anybody questioned her. So, the two of them quietly floated on the raft for a while, then had a picnic of...

...booliewoogers on toast, smurchberry jam with biscuits, a nice swamp bottom salad and some fizzywizzer soda. That Clarice was sure a good cook! Paisley hadn't tasted booliewoogers that wonderful in ages! And the fizzywizzer soda tickled her nose as she swallowed it.

Once they were done with lunch, the two women continued to float downstream on the raft. Neither one of them noticed the bubbles in the stream that seemed to follow them from a distance...

Gradually, though, the bubbles disappeared.

"Whew," said Mrs. Paisley. "For a minute I was afraid that Snarking Sarcophagus T. Crocodile was following us with an intention of having us for dinner."

"I'm glad it wasn't he," said Clarice. "He serves such dreadful pickle blintzes, smothered in a sauce made of..."

"...brinewater leeches" Both Paisley and Clarice turned their noses up at the thought. However the bubbles continued to pursue them as they lazily floated downriver.

Just as they were about to float over the minor rapids, the bubbles following them got larger and the water exploded. Paisley gasped as a large entity leaped out of the water and onto their raft, dousing them both with water and upsetting the tea set. She finally got enough water and wet hair out of her eyes to see that it was none other than...