Welcome to Beansville - Population Zero

By Kris Schulze

Hovering over the town of Beansville is a thick fog, kind of like pea soup, except it’s blue and green and it sort of glows.

Connor explores the town for his third-grade Geography report, only to discover Mephitic Barking Spiders, a gang of bean weevils, and the true birthplace of Jack and the Beanstalk.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359512041

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Welcome to Beansville - Population Zero

Welcome to Beansville

Population Zero

Kris Schulze

Copyright © 2019 Kris Schulze. All rights reserved.

First published in 2009.

Published by the author in Canada.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Schulze, Kris, 1969-, author

eBook ISBN 978-0-359-51204-1

Cover notepaper image by swav | design studios™

For

Meighen and Connor,

my endless source of laughter and inspiration,

and for

Bill,

because he was there for the ride.

Prologue

Dear Ms. Knotty,

You asked us to prepare a report for Geography class, about a city of our choice.  I know I didn’t need a letter of introduction to my project, but I thought I should do one anyway.

I got out a lot of road atlases and photos from family vacations, but nothing got my attention.  Then my Mom told me that every day on her way home from work she sees a town off the highway that looks like a green cloud hangs over it.  I decided this would be a good place to start, so I did some investigating.

I began with a basic report, but when I started writing there just seemed to be so much more that I needed to tell you about.

In order to understand a town you need to understand the people that live and work there.  In my report I have tried to give you that extra sense of everything that I experienced in my research.

When you have finished reading my report you may even decide that such a place cannot possibly exist.  Please keep in mind, fact is often stranger than fiction.

Oh, the city I chose is called Beansville.

Sincerely,

Connor

Location and Climate

- One –

Hovering over the town of Beansville is a thick fog, kind of like pea soup, except it’s blue and green and it sort of glows.

This fog is what sets it apart from anywhere else and it’s why I chose Beansville to report on.

To get to Beansville you take Highway 44, for thirty kilometers, north from Otnorot and exit at Green Lane East.  You can only turn one way and Green Lane goes straight to Beansville.

Since Beansville isn’t far from where we live they have the same weather we do.  The leaves in the fall change colour and in the winter they get loads of snow.

Lucky for me it was in the fall that we got our assignment, because you can smell Beansville long before you ever get there.  The stench positively assaults your nose… like compost rotting in the sun.  Just imagine what it would be like on a hot summer’s day.

I had my notebook handy and scribbled some questions down before going there:

What is the fog made of?

How long has it been here?

What IS that smell?

I was thinking of the causes, like pollution from factories.  Maybe it was from a place