And for one glorious, terrifying week, Mulberry Lane believed him. Until the men in white coats came—not for Arthur, but for the mayor, who had started painting the fire hydrants to look like strawberries.
And then came the music.
Arthur Ponder had always been a quiet man, which made his sudden mania all the more alarming to the neighbors of Mulberry Lane. For thirty years, he had tended his petunias, nodded at mailmen, and returned library books on time. Then, one Tuesday, he painted his front door a screaming shade of vermilion and began speaking in rhyming couplets about the moon. madness mania