Little Suze Hanford loves her pet banana slug Hope. But when Hope starts spelling out hot stock tips with her slime trail, she's kidnapped by Suze's next door neighbor, an unscrupulous day-trader. Will Suze ever see her pet again?Dear Editor:
When Hope, her pet banana slug, goes missing, Suze Hanford is despondent, not only because she loves the cute little bugger, but because Hope has helped parlay Suze's lemonade stand profits into a three-million-dollar nest egg. Hope uses her slime trail to spell out stock tips, and so far the little detritivore is batting a thousand. Without Hope, Suze knows she'll squander her fortune and end up working for a living when she grows up, possibly as a prostitute.
Day-trader Snidely Turkovich, Suze's next-door neighbor has been as successful as a three-legged greyhound lately, and if he doesn't start picking winners, he'll lose his house. Snidely is the obvious suspect; with Hope in his corner, his luck would surely change. But when Suze catches the slimeball with Hope, he claims it's not Hope, but Warren, his own banana slug stock forecaster.
Suze calls in a favor from the CSI squad, who discover that every banana slug has a slime trail as unique as a fingerprint. They compare Snidely's slug's slime trail with a slime trail in Hope's terrarium. A perfect match. Hope and Suze are joyfully reunited, and the now-hopeless Snidely is ruined.
Trail of Hope is a 95,000-word commercial novel that should appeal to those who enjoyed Mollusk Fever and I, Gastropod. Thank you.
--EE
13 comments:
You have to take this with a pinch of salt.
"I, Gastropod" nearly made me choke on my coffee. Very clever!
Interestingly, slug racing is no minority interest.
I think someone should take EE seriously on this one.
Geez, who'd have thought my mention of bannana slugs in that guess the plot would be so inspirational! "I, Gastropod"-- hilarious.
You did make up that new banana slug plot description, didn't you, EE?
That new one? Not sure what you mean.
Could it be the slugs are really twins and that slug twin DNA is too close to tell apart? Suze's slug's evil twin.
Nice one, oh most Evil Overlord.
And in the pole position with Robin oh so far away. *sigh* We need to get you wacky kids together.
"Hope uses her slime trail to spell out stock tips, and so far the little detritivore is batting a thousand."
Detritivore? Wow, EE. You go, honey. Is that a real word and everything?
PS - I see you're in the pole position again. As Sarah said...far....far...away from me.
Any book with a banana slug has to do well. I'd like a banana slug, but I filled all my space with snails. (My snails don't spell out stock tips with their slime trails, alas.)
Hee-hee! 'I, Gastropod'
This is excellent!
No sex in the pole position... who'da thunk?
Unless... Just how desperate WAS that dastardly neighbour?
Hmm. I thought this might be a children's book, the way you finished that opening paragraph. You know, as a warning to little girls who don't think of their futures before it's too late.
Do all slugs have a unique slime trail, or just banana slugs?
Seems to me with CSI entering the picture, the now-hopeless Snidely would fight back and take a lead slug in the end.
Hee! Cute! And an entirely new twist on when I had TRAIL OF HOPE for a fake query. Love it.
While my own personal experience runs to snails (which also have a slime trail) I enjoyed this at the top o' the heap and even more so on the reread. When you layered CSI over slime I couldn't help but think of Ghostbusters the movie and it melded into an very interesting sort of goo that coated my cereal.
ME
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