Solution to Fruit Around

Answer: FEED IT A NEW BERRY
by Jen McTeague
Art by Joe Cabrera
Additional support: Katie Hamill, Ben Smith and Kevin Wald

1, 2, 3, to the Zoo

Each group of letters consists of the the letters of a computer part and the letters of a name of a Mac OS X version combined and then alphabetized. Recreate the two parts, order by the Mac OS X version, and then read down the first letters of the computer parts to get ON OPPOSITE, which is OFF.

Letters	Enumerations	Computer Part	Mac OS X Version	Version Number
AADEEGIIKKMNOOPRSSTTY	(9 6; 6)	OPERATING SYSTEM	KODIAK	10 beta (first)
AACCDEEEHHKNORRTTW	(7 4; 7)	NETWORK CARD	CHEETAH	10.0
ACDEEIMOPPTTUUUV	(6 6; 4)	OUTPUT DEVICE	PUMA	10.1
AACEGJOOPRRRSSU	(9; 6)	PROCESSOR	JAGUAR	10.2
AEEHLNOPPPPRRSTUWY	(5 6; 7)	POWER SUPPLY	PANTHER	10.3
ACDEEGIIILOPRRTTV	(7 5; 5)	OPTICAL DRIVE	TIGER	10.4
AADEEEKLOPPRRSS	(8; 7)	SPEAKERS	LEOPARD	10.5
ABDEEEEILNNNOOOPRRRRSSTTWW	(8 7; 4 7)	INTERNET BROWSER	SNOW LEOPARD	10.6
AACDIKLNOPRT	(8; 4)	TRACKPAD	LION	10.7
AABCEEEEHIILLMNNNNOORTTTU	(8 5; 8 4)	ETHERNET CABLE	MOUNTAIN LION	10.8

The Lamb and the Butterfly

Solve each of the cryptic clues. Each of the answers can be paired with an answer from the other side by forming X and Y phrases. When lines are drawn this way, the letters for LEVEL can be found on the crossings of two lines.

Cryptic Clue	Answer	Reason	Cryptic Clue	Answer	Reason
Painting and sculpture for two topless tarts (4)	ARTS	Remove the T from (t)ARTS	Part of jaw that's about 1.66 feet (5)	CHAIN	Part of Jaw = CHIN, 1 = A
Loudly cry, ""Lucille!"" (4)	BALL	Homophone of BAWL	Pieces of a totally boss '70s motorcycle cop show (5)	CHIPS	Double Definition
California will give a hoot, perhaps (4)	CALL	California = CA, Will = 'LL	Makes 100 simple flotation devices (6)	CRAFTS	100 = C, Simple flotation devices = RAFTS
Vehicle to deteriorate, becoming a vegetable (6)	CARROT	Vehicle = CAR, to deteriorate = ROT	Dirk, Penny, and Mick, but not Juliett (6)	DAGGER	Penny = D, Mick, but not Juliett = (j)AGGER
Conceal and reassemble a lock (5)	CLOAK	Anagram A LOCK	Yes, in Russia no unstuffed cabbage is formal (5)	DANCE	Yes in Russia = DA, No = N, Unstuffed C(abbag)E
Sort of a failing swimmer? (4)	FISH	Failure = F, Sort of F is F-ISH	Enid flipped over feast (4)	DINE	Reverse ENID
Drug-addled greeting will be heard (4)	HIGH	Homophone of HI	Three of the Germans reportedly like some martinis (3)	DRY	Homophone of DREI
Make out a thousand and one empty ships (4)	KISS	Thousand = K, One = I, Empty S(hip)S	Employing telepathy, Ronald starts to send feedback (8)	RESPONSE	Ronald = RON, telepathy = ESP, starts to SE(nd)
Boy, start to guess a number (4)	SONG	Boy = SON, Start to Guess = G	Pierce Justin's innards? That's disgusting (5)	STICK	(ju)ST(in)'s innards, That's disgusting = ICK
Something to drink with beef, by the sound of it (4)	WINE	Homophone of WHINE	Section of intelligence report (4)	TELL	Section of (in)TELL(igence)

My Very First Book of Motion

Pictured is a baseball scorecard. The flavor text hints towards the Rookie of the Year, and the right side of the image indicates that you should be looking at the National League Rookie of the Year. Each winner from the years specified has a six-letter last name, and every player at-bats six times. The at-bats can be treated as a cryptogram for the players' names. Get the cryptogram key, and then decode the bottom to spell out HANDSEWN.

Player	At-Bat 1	At-Bat 2	At-Bat 3	At-Bat 4	At-Bat 5	At-Bat 6
HORNER	Hit by Pitch	Single	K	Home Run	Walk	K
WALTON	Intentional Walk	Double	3-1	6-3	Single	Home Run
DEGROM	1-3	Walk	7	K	Single	Triple
SEAGER	8	Walk	Double	7	Walk	K
HOWARD	Hit by Pitch	Single	Intentional Walk	Double	K	1-3
PUJOLS	F5	K (looking)	5-3	Single	3-1	8
FURCAL	3U	K (looking)	K	7-3	Double	3-1
ALONSO	Double	3-1	Single	Home Run	8	Single
SEAVER	8	Walk	Double	9	Walk	K

Letter	At-Bat	Letter	At-Bat
A	Double	N	Home Run
C	7-3	O	Single
D	1-3	P	F5
E	Walk	R	K
F	3U	S	8
G	7	T	6-3
H	Hit by Pitch	U	K (looking)
J	5-3	V	9
L	3-1	W	Intentional Walk
M	Triple

The Nonsense Show

This is a series of edited versions of This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams. Each poem clues two words. The top word is the bottom word without the first two letters. Those missing bigrams, in order, spell out DIVINE, FORECAST, OR ANTICIPATE. This is a clue for PREDICT. Take the first two letters off of that, and you get the answer EDICT.

Top Word	Bottom Word	Bigram
VERSE	DIVERSE	DI
CARS	VICARS	VI
URAL	NEURAL	NE
REIGN	FOREIGN	FO
PEAT	REPEAT	RE
NOODLE	CANOODLE	CA
RANGE	STRANGE	ST
BITS	ORBITS	OR
DANTE	ANDANTE	AN
REDNESS	TIREDNESS	TI
TABLE	CITABLE	CI
TINA	PATINA	PA
STING	TESTING	TE

What's Your Favorite Color?

Each picture represents a T stop on the Orange Line. The Trip Through All the Pictures consists of all the Orange Line stops from Oak Groves to Forest Hills. The Extraction section consists of pairs of the pictures. Index the name of the stop represented by the picture on the left by the number of the stop represented by the picture on the right. Do this for all the pictures, and it will spell NUMBER THEORY.

Left Station	Right Station	Letter
NORTH STATION	OAK GROVE (1)	N
MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE	STONY BROOK (18)	U
ASSEMBLY	SULLIVAN SQUARE (5)	M
STONY BROOK	COMMUNITY COLLEGE (6)	B
COMMUNITY COLLEGE	ROXBURY CROSSING (16)	E
JACKSON SQUARE	TUFTS MEDICAL CENTER (12)	R
STATE	ASSEMBLY (4)	T
FOREST HILLS	NORTH STATION (7)	H
TUFTS MEDICAL CENTER	JACKSON SQUARE (17)	E
DOWNTOWN CROSSING	CHINATOWN (11)	O
GREEN ST.	MALDEN CENTER (2)	R
HAYMARKET	WELLINGTON (3)	Y

Overall Meta

The meta seems straightforward enough, but two problems quickly present themselves. The first is that you need the "canonical source" for the trip, and the second is that it is very hard to place the answers without knowing what ordering they are going in - especially since two of the answers are the same length. You can stare at the answers for a long time, but doing so won't help you. You'll need to get these bits of information from somewhere else.

First, the "canonical ordering". Googling the five book titles for the subpuzzles shows that they are all written by Eric Carle. Eric Carle's most famous book also happens to involve a voracious bookwyrm - The Very Hungry Catepillar. Finding a copy of the book, you can find that the canonical ordering of the trip is one apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries, and five oranges.

Now, if we can associate the answers with a fruit, we can put them in order. While we can't associate the answers directly with fruit, we can associate the puzzles themselves with fruit, thereby associating the answers.

1, 2, 3, to the Zoo is about versions of Apple's Operating System.
The Lamb and the Butterfly is about pairs (pears) of words.
The Nonsense Show uses the form of a poem about plums.
My Very First Book of Motion talks about the NL Rookie of the Year award. The 1983 winner (as indicated by the flavor) was Darryl Strawberry.
What's Your Favorite Color? is about the Orange line of the T.

With this information, we can now place the words in the grid. Each word needs to be placed in the grid in the above order such that it covers up the correct amount of the appropriate fruit. Read the letters from each answer that are on the correct fruit, and you get the thing we need to do to quell the Voracious Bookwyrm - FEED IT A NEW BERRY

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