Moon Mushrooms

The strangest things happen in the moonlight

The end of September, 2023

They say a full moon can draw odd behaviour from us all. And so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when urgent barking wrenched me a dream.

Humphrey is not an outspoken hound, and so I felt compelled to suffer the shock of bed-warm feet on frigid floor tiles just to see what the fuss was about. 

He whined, nose against the back door, desperate to get at something on the other side. I looked out but saw only the garden, still and ghostly under the moonlight. Unlocking the door would have let that eeriness in, so I sent us both back to bed with soothing reassurances.

But before sleep found me again, a muffled screeching popped my eyes wide. I listened for Humphrey’s reaction, but this time he only let out a series of indignant grunts. I assumed some poor bird must be struggling in the jaws of a night beast. Horrid, but not unusual, and so sleep eventually descended.

Early next morning, we went to investigate. Through the gate and across the paddock, I spied a pile of white under the alders. My suspicions were confirmed, and a morbid sense sent me to identify the feathers. But when in the shade of the trees, something odd caught my eye. Several mushrooms the shape and size of fairy cups made a neat little group where I had never noticed them before. They would have been just mildly interesting, had they not also been bright blue.

I got down closer and followed a snaking line of two, four, five, pushing up through the leaf litter. And at the end, the white pile of… not feathers, but stuffing. Synthetic stuffing. 

I prodded a mushroom and suddenly the colour jogged a memory of an impulse buy; a bright blue squeaky dog toy. Humphrey had met it with disdain, but clearly someone had appreciated it.

The thought of our nation’s countryside mascots; the wise fox, wily stoat, even the surly badger, having a jolly good frolic under the full moon with a latex dog toy, absolutely fills me with glee. I’m sure I’m not the only person too eager to imagine all of nature as perpetually dignified and aloof. At least someone made the best of Humphrey’s toy, although I worry that I never found the squeak.