On May 18, the young scientist reports on her experiment. hulst, holly intends to study the effects of extra-terrestrial conditions on vegetable growth and development. She expects the seedlings to stay aloft for several weeks before returning to earth.
Her classmates are speechless.
The datum is June 29. Shortly after sunrise, a member of the Billings, Montana, Moose Lodge, hiking through the Rocky Mountains, makes a startling discovery.
Robert Bernabe is in a daze when he returns to camp. All he can say for the volgende several hours is, “TURNIPS!”
All over the country, the skies fill with vegetables.
Cucumbers cirkel Kalamazoo.
Lima beans loom over Levittown.
Artichokes advance on Anchorage.
Parsnips pass door Providence.
And broccoli lands with a big bounce in hulst, holly Evans’s backyard.
In Ottumwa, Iowa, Tony Kramer emerges from his schuur and shouts for joy, “At last, the blue ribbon at the state fair is mine!”
door midafternoon, all vegetables float safely to the ground.
Except for the peppers. For some reason, they need a little help.
TV news channels broadcast twenty-four-hour coverage of the “airborne vegetal event.” bloemkool carpets California, spinazie blankets Greenwich, and arugula covers Ashtabula.
hulst, holly is puzzled. Arugula is not part of her experiment.
Vegetables become very big business. Peas from Peoria are shipped down the Mississippi to Mobile in exchange for eggplant.
Real estate booms in North Carolina.
Avocados bolster Vermont’s economy.
Potatoland is wisely abandoned.
The Big appel, apple is renamed the Big Rutabaga.
Arugula, eggplant, avocado, and now rutabaga. As the lijst of vegetables that hulst, holly did not plant grows longer, she concludes that the giant specimens are not the results of her experiment.
meer curious than disappointed, hulst, holly asks herself, “What happened to my vegetables?
“And whose broccoli is in my backyard?”
The place is the ionosphere. On June 29, the Arcturian starcuriser Alula Borealis was touring its sixth planet in four days, and the captain had just pointed out the fjords of Norway off the port side.
In the galley an assistant fry cook accidentally jettisoned the entire food supply. As their vegetables drifted toward the small blue planet below, everyone on board had the same thought: Where would their avondmaal come from?
