Edward's Watch Mouse Experiment

Part 6: The Animal Phase

The next day I was back in the shed. For the first half hour or so I was just tinkering around, mixing this, mixing that, talking to Squiggles and hoping an idea might pop into my head. I had to think large, big, enormous and gigantic. So what is large, big, enormous and gigantic?

Chomp! Old Mrs Murphy's dog is huge. Why is he so huge? It must have something to do with food. I raced over to Mrs Murphy's house and knocked on the door.

'Hello again, Edward, back for a visit?'
'Just a quick question,' I said.
'Sure, what is it?'
'Can you tell me what you feed Chomp?' 'Sure,' she replied. 'Planning to get that watchdog, hey?' I smiled nervously and looked away. 'I have always fed my dogs Chumpy Chow. It's the best thing for growing dogs. It's full of protein and calcium. Hold on a tick.' Mrs Murphy disappeared into her house for a minute and then came back with a can of Chomp's food. 'Here you go, take this,' she handed me the can.

'Chumpy Chow...great!' I said. 'Thanks again, Mrs Murphy.'

'That's fine, Edward, any time. Say hello to your mum and dad for me.'
'Okay, bye.'

I ran back home to the shed, hopeful this would work. Again I gathered all the ingredients, but this time with Chumpy Chow and minus the curry powder. I had:

Coffee (to stimulate growth)
Milk (for strong growing bones)
A raw steak (for muscle growth)
Cheese (for taste)
Beef jerky (for protein and strength)
Green sports drink (for stamina)
Dad's aftershave (for a butch and manly smell)
One meat pie (for that Aussie taste)
Two eggs (for extra protein)
A frozen Barramundi (for extra, extra protein)
Some Chumpy Chow
I began to mix the ingredients.

A little bit of this

A little bit of that Into Mum's blender and

BOOM!!

When the smoke and rubble cleared I couldn't believe my eyes. Squiggles had already eaten some of the mixture and had grown, only not the way I expected. The cage had blown apart, that was for sure. However, standing in the middle of my rather small shed was a very large and very fierce looking...dog. Yes, that's right, Squiggles had turned into a dog. This was not good because Dad said that we didn't have the room for a dog. I had to turn Squiggles back into a mouse, and fast.

I had to think quickly. Dog food turned Squiggles into a dog. So mouse food should turn him back into a mouse. I found some leftover cheese and quickly fed it to Squiggles. Thankfully it had the desired effect. Squiggles immediately turned back into the buff looking mouse I knew. That was a close call!

I repaired Squiggles' cage and put him back inside. I stood there watching him go through his exercise regime, thinking I had once again hit a dead end.

Over the next week, I managed to turn Squiggles into a variety of animals. I was able to change him back each time, but it was all starting to take its toll on poor Squiggles. Below is a list of ingredients added each time and the animal that resulted.

Added Ingredient Animal

Grass - Cow

Mud - Pig

Ice - Moose

Concentrated Eucalyptus Oil - Gigantic Koala

Vegetable Scraps - Chicken

The gigantic koala looked promising and for a fleeting second I thought about leaving Squiggles that way, but I decided that he was born a mouse and should remain a mouse. Squiggles looked the least happy when he was a chicken. Maybe he knew about Mum and Dad's chicken franchise. The last thing I needed was nervous, volatile poultry, so I wasted no time turning Squiggles back into a macho mouse. The whole experimentation on Squiggles was getting way out of hand, but I couldn't stop now. I was in too deep.