MYSTERY CRATE FOUND TO CONTAIN NEW CHOCOLATE LUCKY CHARMS®
Friday, January 21, 2005 — The secret contents of the mysterious crate found in the woods near Peabody Park has finally been determined. Millsberry Academy students Amy James, Rusty Carrigan, and Rand Allen found themselves at the center of everyone's attention again today. While dozens of their schoolmates cheered on the three students, Mayor Oliver Trumble presented each of them with honorary civic citations for their work in solving this local mystery.
"Thanks to these wonderful kids and their clever thinking," Mayor Trumble said, as he began his speech between spoonfuls of the new cereal in the breakfast aisle of the Millsberry Grocery, "all of Millsberry now knows that the mysterious new whole grain breakfast cereal is actually... Chocolate Lucky Charms®!"
Earlier in the day, The Millsberry Gazette interviewed science instructor Arthur Fort at the Millsberry Academy. "My team of experts and I take no credit for this discovery," Mr. Fort told us. "If it weren't for these amazing kids, we would still be looking for answers only from our lab tests, not knowing anything beyond the fact that we'd found a great-tasting chocolatey whole grain cereal sprinkled with marshmallow bits. I guess lab experiments can't tell you everything!" he concluded with a laugh.
Rand Allen, the clever youth who confirmed last week that the crate's contents was actually a previously unidentified breakfast cereal, was beaming today as we asked him how he finally solved the mystery. "Well, it was quite simple, really. While I was in the laboratory, watching all the scientists as they studied and did tests on the cereal, it occurred to me - cereal doesn't belong in a laboratory... it belongs in a grocery store! So then, I decided to run down the street and ask Mr. Ettin, the owner of Millsberry Grocery, if he'd recently gotten in any shipments of a brand new cereal, something he'd never seen before. When we went to look at the shelves together, there it was... Chocolate Lucky Charms®!"
"Yep!" Amy exclaimed, joining in. "Rand sure is smart! Why, he burst into the laboratory, shouting, 'It's here! It's here!' He then led us to the Millsberry Grocery, where sure enough, there were rows of boxes of whole grain Chocolate Lucky Charms® on the shelf! This tastes really great," she said, after another bite. "I can't wait until breakfast tomorrow, since Mr. Ettin gave Rand, Rusty, and me each a free box!"
We next interviewed grocer Harold Ettin, who seemed quite pleased about Millsberry's interest in the new cereal. "I'm almost sold out," he chuckled, "and it's barely past noon. Great sales for a delicious and nutritious new product." Interestingly, Mr. Ettin isn't quite sure how he got the shipment, but he's now contacted suppliers and made sure that more Chocolate Lucky Charms® will soon be on the shelves for his many eager customers.
This raises, of course, the one part of the mystery that remains unanswered. "We never did find out how that crate of Chocolate Lucky Charms® ended up in the woods, or how those boxes ended up on Mr. Ettin's shelves. I'm still really curious about that," Rusty told the Gazette.
So, it seems that the arrival of Chocolate Lucky Charms® in Millsberry will continue to remain, at least to some extent, a mystery. However, there is one theory that seems to have started catching on around town. Rusty Carrigan has joked that perhaps it was just something "lucky" that brought this wonderful cereal to Millsberry. After all, when he and Amy found the crate, they reported finding a single four-leaf clover sitting on top of it. Certainly makes this reporter wonder...