The disappearance of the Compost Kids was first reported in the September 27, 1988, edition of Psytimes:

PSYCHIC HIGH SCHOOL--After nearly a month, the standoff between Psychic Security Force agents and the radical campus fringe group calling themselves "The Compost Kids" ended peacefully today, with PSF agents taking full control of the disputed wooded area.

Following an unprecedented barrage of Unhappiness Beams, Discomfort Kittens, Guilt Rays and CHS (Cold Hard Stares), PSF agents stormed the encampment, only to find that the protestors had apparently already left the area.

"You can see the effect of the Unhappiness Beams right here," said Special Psychic Agent-in-Charge Lou Jaffrery, pointing out the drooping foliage surrounding the area. "Plants don't like it any better than people," he chuckled, "and that was more unhappiness than we've ever let loose on a single target over such a long time. We had to have extra unhappiness tanked in from a number of schools special, you know."

The Compost Kids themselves, however, were nowhere to be found. Their compound was completely abandoned, with no sign of garbage or personal items left behind, save for a banner bearing the words "MAKE KIN NOT BABIES" strung between two trees.

It is suspected that the protestors exited the camp through a large tunnel found dug into the earth in the center of the encampment, which did not appear on the PSF maps of the area prior to the siege. When asked if the PSF planned to pursue the protestors down the tunnel, Special Psychic Agent-in-Charge Lou Jaffery replied "No, on account of the spiders." The Agent-in-Charge did not elaborate.

The subject, Justin Heathcliff, continues to show signs of deterioration. While the Jiffy Whacker Hack ‘n Splice insertion of the Nicrophorus americanus biologic cuttings shows no signs of being rejected, the subject shows signs of a worsening depression. The presentation of the orange facial markings and orange tips on the large antennae are droopy, and the subject does not respond to even Level I comedy diagnostics.

The subject has spent large amounts of time burrowed in the soil beneath the woods. However, pipes, gas lines, underground cables, and other invasive infrastructure placed by the Urban Reality Group border the woods in all directions, not to mention chemical invasion. The subject states: "There's just no place to get lost anymore."

Immigration to Refugia is approved.

Dear Editor,

As a psychic youth, I know what it’s like to be different. I fightened away many a nanny with my telekinetic hijinks as a toddler, and one-too-many bad experiences at high school dances brought me here, to Psychic High School, a place where we can be ourselves, and be safe.

But I didn’t enroll at this school to live in a pest-ridden wildlife preserve! Quality of life on campus is taking a nosedive. The grounds are infested with bees, possums, and rats, while the dorms and classrooms have become havens for toads, frogs, salamanders, and centipedes! Not to mention the unsightly dandelions and weeds they’ve allowed to take over the gardens.

My parents pay good money to send me to an institution of higher psychic learning that lives up to the pictures in its brochures. Allowing these Compost Kids free rein to bring about their disgusting and filthy idea of an “ecotopia” is degrading the level of education for everyone.

Furthermore, the lack of any kind of personal hygiene exhibited by the Compost Kids makes it impossible to even be in the same classroom.

R.S.

Letter to the editor, Psytimes, May 21, 1987

Kids can be so mean!!! I'd only complain to you, dear diary, because I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurts, but I really never expected this kind of outright hatred. It's true that my shell has grown quite large (5 and a half whorls!) and I can't fit into most classrooms, so why can't they just walk around me? I've been kicked, called names, and even spat on. And I move pretty slowly these days, so it's hard to come up with a witty comeback, or even a threatening posture.

Most students are really understanding though. And it's not like any of us could do this alone. The mean kids just all assume that incorporating the genome of an endangered land snail is some kind of vain dress-up game, like I just want attention and to say "look at me!" But for every one of us who have undergone "the change" there are 4 or 5 other humanoid students who are our official kin, because we need to work together on all fronts--making official filings with the Psychic Fish & Wildlife Service, helping with habitat reconstruction, managing media relations, etc.

But there's a group of students who just don't get it, and feel threatened by what we're doing. I mean, yeah, I guess we do want to radically dismantle the earth-killing social machine we've grow up in, but I just wish they wouldn't take it so personally.

May 7, 1987

From Psytimes, the then student-run newspaper, September 13 1988:

PSYCHIC HIGH SCHOOL--The standoff between Psychic Security Force agents and the self-styled Compost Kids on the south end of campus continued into the early afternoon today, following more than two hours of a heavy barrage of Unhappiness Beams from PSF agents of the besieged forest area.

This reporter was allowed passage across the disputed Haraway Zone--the region of liminality that forms the border of the area currently occupied by the Compost Kids. The Unhappiness Beams seem to have had little effect on the members of the radical oddkin separatists, which they attribute to the fundamental difference in ontological frameworks. There's also a hyper-oxygenated, electric feeling in the air, which the Compost Kids explain as a result of their separation from the universal electro-grid (this region of woods is the largest area of campus not crisscrossed by electrical and telephone wires).

"We're fighting for the survival of the world," said @Zoe Missouri, a member of the group involved in the standoff. "We're not separatists--quite the opposite, in fact. A fundamental "coming-togetherness" is absolutely necessary to maintain viability of the ecosystem. It's terribly unfortunate that the administration deems this as a threat."

After the group's recommendations for pesticide cessation were respectfully declined by the school administration, the disappearance of the pesticides from campus storehouses was blamed on the group. Compost Kid spokesbeing @Justin Heathcliff said that the use of such pesticides "is causing the death of species on a wholesale level across the globe," but when asked directly about the disappearance they declined to comment.

"Asking us to leave the area shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the connection we've developed to this region, which exists at a chemical level for us now," continued @Zoe Missouri. "Though our hybridization with marginalized species is the most obvious change we've gone through, we're now directly connected with the entire web of species and processes of the Psyhigh biome. It's not really possible to leave at this point without facing extinction ourselves."

There wasn’t much ruckus about the Compost Kids till their species affinities started kicking in. Babbity (a senior) had merged with the rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis), and one summer the school became a destination for swarms of the endangered bee. It was great for the gardens and all the pollinating plants, but they eventually got deemed a nuisance (and there were students with severe bee allergies and phobias). That was the start of the trouble for the Compost Kids.

We’ve taken the original evacuation maps left by the Compost Kids and overlaid then with present day campus maps. Through Dasein Processing (see slide #16) you can clearly see the pollination corridors still active today, but what is only visible through fictive sampling are the mycelium networks (slide #17) which are roughly 900% more active than comparable non-psychic campuses. The role of the unique Barnsley formations (slide #19) is still being examined.

A clipping in the folder from Psychic Phenotype Review, July 1986:

"We know now that Reality Accidents are cyclical, driven by the boom & bust cycle of the overproduction of hyperreality¹⁸. Every idea that emerges from the Reality Market substrate is immediately replicated, mass produced and remarketed, until hyperreality inflation becomes so great that the system collapses in on itself and resets.

"The Compost Kids deny the products generated by the Reality Market and turn inwards, towards resources generated by nature²⁷. These resources have no brand names, no serial numbers, no manufacturers. They believe that merging with DNA from the natural, unmanufactured, wild world provides the only way truly forward in time (in their view, the machinations of the Reality Market exist only in simulated time¹¹⁴). The Reality Market is doomed to destroy itself in an endless cycle, but through their praxis, the Compost Kids seek to create Refuge from it."

Cruz, Monica. Department of Patabiological Studies, Psychic High School (1986) The Compost Kids. Psychic Phenotype Review, Volume 37 (Issue 9), pp 188.

Subject (not pictured) Zoe Missouri incorporates totipotent stem cells of Holsinger's planarian, endangered, and exhibits pseudo morphological tendencies including a complete ectoderm covering the extent of their original bipedal structure and a pair of ocelli on either side of the head, while the mouth has moved to the underside of the body. Subject reports difficulty in making new friends and finding partners to attend social events with, including school dances. Immigration to Refugia is approved.

Photographs 27-34. Justin Heathcliff presents as a young male in his mid-teens, a mop of brown hair just covering the eyes. The distinctive orange and red markings of Nicrophorus americanus (hybridization choice) are visible on the pronotum (the large shield-like area just behind the head) and on the elytra, covering the delicate wings on the back.

It is unlikely, given the body mass of the remaining mammalian aspects of the subject's biology, that the wings will ever enable actual flight. They could play a role in heat exchange for the rest of the structure, however.

Note abdominal segmentation already beginning to occur in photograph #33.