Was grading a sophomore organic chemistry exam once, and a student got the structure of water wrong: O-H-O. He was confused about whether the 2 went with the H or the O.
This is a ripoff of a short story by Ray Bradbury called “The Dwarf,” the first story in his collection “The October Country.” Every night a dwarf goes to a mirror maze, and the owner of the maze notices this and spies on him. It turns out the dwarf is going to one particular mirror that makes him appear tall and proportionate. The owner, as a joke, replaces the mirror with one that makes people look short and squat. If I remember right, the dwarf murders the practical joker. The end.
It’s been decades since I read the story, so I’m sure I’ve got some of the details wrong, but that’s it more or less.
All the carbon in the leaves was taken out of the atmosphere, so burning leaves is carbon neutral.