Challenge 1088

Ghosts on Tour

In Amita Basu’s Mirror, part 2: Apparently, Adolf Hitler did have a niece. Their relationship seems to have been fraught at least at one point, and her death was mysterious. In that light, who might the “Stranger” be?
In William Quincy Belle’s Hey, Good-Looking!:
1. Why would the space aliens go out to a public park when they and their human companion knew there was a significant chance of being mistreated and they were accompanied by security guards who were prepared for it?
2. What does a hostile human do that accounts for his group’s arrest?
In Barbara Krasner’s My Independence Day: How might the marked contrast between two university instructors have affected not only the narrator’s academic career but her later life?
In Ginger Strivelli’s Just a Nurse:
1. How, exactly, will Marie explain to real physicians the unusual operation on the baby’s back?
2. A possible question for historical research: Wouldn’t bullet extraction have been so common an operation at field hospitals at the battle of Verdun that even nurses might have been taught how to perform it? And in light of the number of casualties, wouldn’t they have been needed to help regular surgeons?
In Charles C. Cole’s Althea’s Eventful Night:
1. What is the dramatic function of the Lanford “ghost tour”? How does it appear to have been something of a bust?
2. Althea and Swain conduct what appears to be a kind of impromptu “ghost tour” of their own. What does each of them do in secret in their turn?
3. How does Althea instinctively let propriety outweigh urgency? How does she reassure Swain that she has a good sense of time?
In Crystalwizard’s The Doggerel and the Caterwaul: Why is “doggerel” sometimes spelled correctly but as “doggeraul” otherwise? Why is “horrible” spelled “horribaul”? Why is the spelling of “caterwaul” not affected?
In Edward Ahern’s Miramichi Afternoon: What season or time of year might be depicted in the poem?
In Brenda Mox’s Filling Up Silence: What might happen if “thinkers” also talked?

Responses welcome!