[in the afternoon edition of the Daily Bugle]

[x-avier.livejournal.com]

Residents of Scoville, Iowa have been having an extremely unusual week. This normally sleepy little town has seen both a missing child and a bizarre burst of plant growth in the last five days. Scoville is starting to look like a jungle; in some places, residents have used scythes or machetes just to get from one farm to another. Still, the focus of this tight-knit community is not on the wild greenery. It's the disappearance of Colleen Drew, a senior at the town's only high school, that has everyone's attention.

Colleen, an honors student and award-winning member of the local 4-H Club, failed to arrive at school on Tuesday morning. Efforts to find her, which have included police helicopters with remote imaging flown over from Des Moines, have been hampered by the explosion of plant life in the area. Local agricultural experts have no explanation for the phenomenon and testing, to date, shows nothing unusual about the vegetation. The mayor of Scoville, Lawry Brooks, says they'll worry about this paranormal outbreak once Colleen has been found. Until then, the 75-year old community leader says that "nothing else matters but finding one of our children and bringing her safely home".

--Irene Merryweather, Daily Bugle/AP