Pumpkin Growth

"Dreadful," Hortense grieved, looking at the destroyed vines where her gigantic pumpkin once grew proudly. "How could this happen?"

Forlorn, she went into her shed and found her notebook. There she had written every detail about her huge gourd. This pumpkin was of the species Cucurbita maxima, a squash of the family Cucurbitaceae, of the order Cucurbitales, of the class Magnoliopsida, division Magniolophyta, and of course kingdom Plantae.

She had been growing this pumpkin for about three and a half months, or 102 days, and it had reached a weight of roughly 712 pounds! Turning the pages, she thought about her progress. Planted the seeds in April. Waited eagerly for them to germinate in May. June and July she watched the plant get bigger and flowery. After much sun and pollination, come August, fruits were born. Bigger and bigger and bigger they grew. Most of them stayed somewhat small, but there was one huge one that was growing insanely large. Through August and September it developed into the enormous pumpkin that made Hortense so proud.

Until this fateful October day, of course.

"We did help!" came Zookeeper's voice from the doorway. "After all, the pumpkin needed major pollination during the summer. It could never survive without it. So I sent my bees to do the job."

"True," Hortense admitted. "That was helpful. Spared me the task of hand pollination."

Zookeeper blinked. "Hand pollination?" she asked with a smirk.

"Oh, yeah, when bees are scarce, you may need to pollinate the flowers manually. There are tools for that sort of thing."

"Oh, oh. Okay."

"I helped, too!" added Rock Collector. "You needed the proper soil at the very beginning. Just the right concentrations of everything: 22 parts per million of nitrogen, 58 ppm of phosphorus, and 297 ppm of potassium, and everything else was at good levels. Magnesium. Calcium. So give us some credit."

"I admit the soil was excellent, thank you, Rock Collector," Hortense said.

"What about me?" asked weather girl Claudia St. Cloud, inching her way into the shed behind Zookeeper and Rock Collector. "I helped as well. The weather was optimal for pumpkin growing this year in this region."

"What?" Hortense said. "Claudia, you merely observe the weather. You don't control it. How can you claim credit for that?"

Claudia frowned. "I just want recognition."

The Downfall

"If everyone intended to help the pumpkin," Hortense muttered later on. "Then how did it explode?"

So she decided to wander around the Village asking what was going on. After all, they all seemed to be rooting for the pumpkin. But what were their reasons?

First, she came to Dr. Med's clinic.

"Ah, yes," Dr. Med sighed, pondering. "I've been rather interested in that pumpkin."

"What for?" asked Hortense.

"Lutein, my dear! Don't you wonder what makes the thing orange? Lutein absorbs blue light, and therefore is an orange or reddish or yellowish color. Like pumpkins!"

Hortense shrugged. "That sounds more like the sort of thing the Rat would be into. Why are you so fascinated?"

"It exists in food, does it not?" the doctor went on. "Mostly leafy veggies, but squashes as well. Eating it is healthy. It's good for the eyes. Provides carotene. That makes vitamin A. Makes you healthy. And I'm a doctor. I like to see you all healthy." Pause. "You know, so that's less work I have to do."

"Well, alright, but what does this have to do with my pumpkin specifically? What were you planning on doing to it?"

"I wanted to eat it!" Dr. Med replied abruptly. "Lots of healthy lutein for Science Village, eh? A pumpkin that size could make lots of pumpkin pies come Thanksgiving. What a treat!" He sighed. "Of course, what a shame it's been destroyed now."

"And you are certain you had nothing to do with it? Didn't want any early carotene or anything?"

"No, no, I wouldn't do that."

"Okay then," Hortense resigned with an inquisitive glance around the area. "I'll just have to find out who did."

Next, she wandered by a very dark cave. Inside the cave, one could only see a scared-looking pair of eyes. These eyes were all anyone ever saw of anti-light Villager, Mr. Photophobe. "May I speak with you?" Hortense greeted, kneeling beside the small entrance. "What can I do for you?" Mr. Photophobe replied timidly. "Do make it quick. I hate light so much."

Mr. Photophobe

"Clearly," she said. "Do you have any idea what happened to my pumpkin, Photophobe? You weren't responsible for its demise, were you?"

"How could I be? It's too bright out there."

"Not at night. And I happen to know you're very fond of pumpkin seeds."

"Yes, yes, I am!"

"You didn't by any chance wait until the moon drifted behind a cloud to sneak out and disembowel my pumpkin?"

"You know, I considered doing that!"

"Figures."

"Oh, but I just couldn't."

"The pumpkin was too brightly colored, I take it?"

"It was bright, as are most things," Photophobe stammered on. "But it's not that. It's just a little dream of mine to bore inside a giant pumpkin, and make a nice dark home for myself, eating the pumpkin seeds. Such a grand thought."

Hortense chuckled. "What stopped you?"

"Candles, Hortense! Candles. Seems like where there's a pumpkin, sooner or later someone will come along to carve it open, and stick a big bright waxy candle in it! My nice dark hideout, rife with delicious pumpkin seeds, would be ruined. I couldn't bear the thought. So to spare myself the heartbreak, I decided to just stay here."

"Um, alright then. I suppose I'll just have to keep looking."

Now she came to the watchtower, atop which Aerial Watchman lived, watching everything below.

"Surely you must have at least seen something!" Hortense called up to him.

"Sorry," Aerial Watchman responded through his speaker at the bottom of the tower. "I saw it explode, but I didn't see how it happened or anything."

"Is that so? I saw your little contests with Claudia. I know you two were stealing my yellow squash last spring. Only to drop them from varying heights."

"Uhhh... that wasn't us."

"What! Sure it was. I'm not stupid. I saw you."

"Alright, alright. We stole your stupid squash. But we had good reason."

"Your dumb little contest? To see how high you could drop it to make it shatter?"

"Well, there was that. But also, we were meaning to maybe chuck them at that creepy Fortress that opened up next door after Christmas last year. You know, because everyone got sick of hearing about your stupid holly so they went over there."

"Oh, enough!" Hortense snapped. "So you had squash. What were you planning with my pumpkin? Couldn't get a big enough splat from little squashes, so you set your sights to the gigantic pumpkin, right?"

"Right!"

"What! You were responsible for it?!"

"No, no. You see, Claudia and I had every intention of dropping that big pumpkin from some high point. Just one problem."

"What's that?"

"Claudia can't lift much when airborne. This tower has a strict weight maximum. The pumpkin would have exceeded it, and I'd have come crashing down. So, no, I did not destroy your pumpkin. I had no means to do so."

Hortense grumbled. "Fine. Moving on!"

Now she found chemophysical reaction enthusiast, Reactions Rat, pawing through the pumpkin debris.

"I'll bet it was you," Hortense accused. "It's usually you."

"What?" asked the giant talking rat. "What'd I do?"

"My pumpkin, you rodentian imbecile! I'm certain you are responsible for it blowing up."

Reactions Rat hissed with laughter. "Oh, yes! That is so something I would do. After all, what greater reaction could there be this time of year than to see your precious oversized gourd erupt and spatter all over? Reactions!"

"And how did you do it? Dynamite? Nitroglycerin? Hydrogen?"

"Hydrogen! Yeah, right, Hindenberg Pumpkin!" the Rat snickered. "Oh, I should definitely do that next year."

"You won't be doing anything next year or next week or even next hour if you don't answer me!"

"My, my! Such a temper in a gentle plant girl. I haven't confessed to a thing."

"Then who did explode my pumpkin?"

"I don't know. Terrorists?"

"Someone had better come forward," Hortense ranted. "I'm getting so fed up with this. Everyone so far has denied any involvement, yet, somehow or another, we've got bits of pumpkin strewn all over the Village. Bits of my prize pumpkin."

Reactions Rat shrugged. "Don't know what to tell you."

Solved

Hortense moped around her garden some more, unable to figure how this happened. She gazed at the depressed soil that once carried the weight of the huge gourd, where a hose lay, which had been attached to the pumpkin, feeding it some nutrients.

"Have you seen my helium tank?" came Reactions Rat's voice.

"What? No, I haven't," she replied irritably.

"I'm missing one. Might be the one that got brought out here to your garden shed because I was running out of room in my warehouse."

"Rat, don't store your things in my shed. I have enough of my own stuff to store as it is."

Reactions Rat didn't pay any attention, as he was now examining something in the garden. "Wait. Here it is. What's it doing here?"

"What?"

"My helium tank. It's lying right here."

Sure enough, there was a big green gas cylinder lying there on the ground, marked He.

"I never noticed it there before," Hortense remarked, puzzled.

"Why's there a hose attached to it?" Rat asked, following the hose to the depressed part of the soil.

And, exchanging appalled glances, they figured it out.

"Hortense," Reactions Rat began calmly, "Did you inflate your pumpkin with my helium?"

"No!" she protested. "The hose was feeding nutrients into it. I have a set of green cylinders full of plant food." Pause. "Rat! Did you place your helium tank beside the plant food?"

"Hey!" the Rat replied. "Learn to read labels next time. And quit blaming all of us for what's actually you're own silly mistake!" Then he hissed with laughter. "Helium pumpkin popped like a balloon. Reactions!"

But then Hortense unhooked the hose from the cylinder and chased the Rat all through the Village, whacking him now and then. The other Villagers merely watched with amusement.

"You miserable rodent and your helium!" she bellowed.

"It's your own stupid fault, Hortense," Reactions Rat shot back, still running from her and she chased him to and fro.

"If you hadn't stored your cylinder with my stuff, this wouldn't have happened!"

"Why don't you watch what you feed to your plants?"

"Why'd you put an identical cylinder with my plant food cylinders?"

"Why do you keep your plant food in cylinders anyway?"

"Because it's cool!"

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