Grace Serene
Grace Serene lived in the typical All-American house,
in the typical All-American neighborhood, in the typical All-American small
town. Antique stores lined Hopeville’s downtown and the Super Wal-Mart was
located on the outskirts of town. The trash cans on Grace Serene’s street were
always in perfect alignment and the yards were fertilized regularly. On 4666
Pleasant Street, there was a two-story house with a white picket fence. Despite
appearances, Grace was not the ordinary seventeen year old.
Grace’s mother died when she was two and her father remarried a beautiful new
wife that already had twin daughters from a previous marriage. Her daughters,
Julie T. Rubble and Katherine T. Rubble, were the same age as Grace.
Julie and Katherine hated Grace. Although they were well respected and
well liked for being the best ice skaters in the entire state. They had a
secret. Julie and Katherine only looked sweet and innocent. They had nasty
dispositions.
Grace loved nature. She wanted to go Montana State University to study how
to become an engineer of water purification. She loved to spend time down by the
city’s lake and listen to the frogs right after nightfall. Grace had been
spending hours and hours down at the lake since she was a small child. She
would go down to the lake every day after she got off from her job at the
factory. Lately she had been noticing that many of the frogs were deformed. She
decided to take action and write an anonymous letter to the local newspaper.
One day an article appeared in the Daily News and Observer informing the
community taking about the strange frogs living in Hopeville Lake. The article
read:
The Daily News and Observer received an anonymous account of sightings of
frogs with three legs, five legs, one eye and other mutations. The citizens of
Hopeville should be outraged. What could be causing these mutations? The
tadpoles look normal until they start to change into frogs. Could something be
wrong with the lake water? Should the citizens of Hopeville be worried? The
local water comes from Hopeville Lake.
The mayor decided to pay a group of biological consultants to advise the city.
Dr. Bull and Dr. Honcky arrived and brought sophisticated instruments and
computers to the scene.
The mayor, Mr. Dam, asked Dr. Honcky what his initial thoughts on the situation
were. “Well, Mr. Dam, this situation must be studied with all available tools
before any reasonable hypothesis can be reached. Can your town afford to pay
for a ten-year, in-depth study? That is what I think you need for the
situation,” replied Dr. Honcky.
“The town of Hopeville needs to find the cause of this situation as soon as
possible because all of our drinking water comes from the Lake. Is there
anything you can do to speed up the process?”
After this dreadful conversation, Mr. Dam was frustrated and decided to
consult his wife’s opinion on the situation, “Sunshine, what do you think I
should do? If I don’t make the right decision many people will suffer?” asked
Mr. Dam.
“Why don’t you make it a contest? Have people send in their ideas of what
might be causing the frog mutations. You could offer fifty-thousand dollars to
whomever, solves the problem.”
The next day the Daily-News and Observer advertised the contest, and soon the
submissions began to come in:
I think the aliens are playing with our minds.
Now, you know, it’s probably a government cover-up.
The Afghans are responsible.
It’s God’s wrath against the sinners of Hopeville.
Each idea was thoroughly researched and explored as a cause but none seemed
to pan out. Grace Serene would read the newspaper each day hoping that someone
would come up with a viable cause for the frog mutation. Even more, Grace hoped
that someone knew how to reverse the situation.
The Rubble sisters began to tease Grace. They had been accepted to college
and their step-father had offered to pay for their tuition after persuasion from
their mother. Grace also had been accepted to first choice college, Montana
State University, but her father could not afford to send her there because he
had already pledged his funds to her step-sisters.
He told Grace, “You are a strong worker. You work in that factory lifting heavy
boxes every day. Julie and Katherine would not be able to do manual labor.
They are very petite and fragile. That’s why I think you should keep your job
here in town and go to the community college. You would make enough money at
your job to afford the tuition.”
Grace was saddened but did not want to cry in front of her father,
two-step-sisters and mother. She stayed until she cooked dinner for the family,
everyone ate and she cleaned up. Then she left for her “secret spot”.
As she made her way through the grove of Weeping Willows, the tears that had
been welling inside started to fall down her cheeks. She ran down a path that
led to her secret hiding place. Crimson leaves from above brushed against her
as she ran. Grace stopped running and began walking as soon as she caught a
glimpse of her precious place. She could hear the rush of the water as it
cascaded down from above. The falling water created rainbows as it fell. As
she sat and thought of all that had happened, calmness came over her. Grace
fell into a deep slumber. While she feel asleep she dreamed of her neighbors
fertilizing their already pristine lawns. Then she dreamed of deformed frogs.
She awoke to find a man gazing at her. Suddenly, she became aware that she
was alone in the woods with a strange man. She started to run and lost her
hiking boot in the mud. Scared out of her mind, she left her boot and continued
to run towards civilization.
The strange man did not mean her any harm. He happened across the beautiful
waterfall. He was a kind and gentle man and was simply trying to find out what
could cause so many deformed frogs when he became memorized with the sleeping
Grace. All day he thought of the sleeping lady that ran away. He could not
figure out why he was so drawn to her. She was pretty, but not gorgeous like
her twin stepsisters, Julie and Katherine Rubble, he had met down at the local
diner. Later that day he went back to the waterfall, to see if she had
returned. Instead, he found a brown leather-hiking boot with splashes of yellow
and green paint on it.
The strange man was named Kenneth Charming and he was visiting his great
aunt in Hopeville when he saw the series of newspaper articles. He decided to
investigate Hopeville’s crisis and include his findings in his Forestry paper
for school. His plan was to go house to house and have locals complete surveys
about their household habits. He tied the brown hiking boot to the back of his
book bag and started his surveys.
After two days of surveys, Kenneth was about to leave town but decided to
finish surveying the residents on Pleasant Street. He knocked on the door of
4666 Pleasant Street and Julie and Katherine answered.
“Sure we’d love to complete a survey for such a handsome man. Ken what’s
your last name?”
“Charming.”
“Charming, how fascinating! Maybe you’re my Prince Charming,” flirted
Julie.
“Or mine,” commented Katherine.
“Are you two done with those surveys? Do you know anybody else in town I
could talk to about the frogs?”
“You could talk to us about the alien frogs,” Katherine teased.
Grace enters the house. “Grace, you are late getting home. We didn’t have
anyone to cook us dinner so we ordered pizza. Don’t worry though, you can still
cook yourself dinner because we ate it all,” called Katherine.
“You’re…the girl!” cried Ken.
“You’re the guy from…” cried Grace. “You have my shoe.”
“Who are you?” they asked at the same time.
The two proceeded to tell who they were. And then Grace started to tell
about her strange dream with the fertilized lawns and the frogs.
“That’s it!” Ken exclaimed. “The fertilizer runoff is polluting the lake
water and since the frogs are an indicator species, they mutate. That should be
an easy problem to fix. Once the residents of Hopeville realize what harm their
fertilizers are causing they will quit. If they don’t want to quit, the city
can pass regulations against using chemical fertilizers within city limits. We
can split the reward money. What do you plan to do with your money?”
“I’m going to use it to go to Montana State University. What are you going
to do?”
“I attend Montana State. That is such a coincidence!”
“Donate it to help with the clean-up and public awareness of
fertilization. Will you go to dinner with me?”