Truth is stranger than fiction, especially when it turns out that a little boy's tale about "special medicine" plants was based not on his imagination but on his family's real-life marijuana-growing operation.

According to authorities in Vermont, the 8-year-old boy wrote a story about helping a farmer grow these plants, and after speaking with school officials and police, the second-grader confirmed that he got to help his mother's boyfriend grow "special medicine that can cure anything at all."

After searching the boy's home, police found two "grow rooms" next to the child's bedroom, and detective Jennifer Frank said the boy told her that people came to the house frequently. Following the marijuana bust, the boy's mom, Leona Hunt, and her boyfriend, 54-year-old Steven Mann, were arrested. He pleaded not guilty to a felony of cultivating more than 25 marijuana plants.

As for the boy, CBS News [1] reports that the Department for Children and Families currently has custody.