Edward's Watch Mouse Experiment

Part 8: Success at Last

A whole week had gone by without any thought of how to turn Squiggles into a watch mouse. I was too afraid to try just any old ingredient after the previous failures. Who knows what might happen?

It was Saturday afternoon and I had my friends Jaxon, Daniel, Jarrod, Tor, Zoe and Evie over to play. We were in the lounge playing my favourite computer game called 'Crikey Cricket'. Mum was at the shop. She was feeling a lot better than last week after the burglary, but still wasn't her usual cheerful self. Dad was in the kitchen with Alyssa, cooking a chocolate and caramel cream cake. This also happened to be my favourite type of cake.

While playing the game we could hear Dad and Alyssa discussing the ingredients in the kitchen. As you would probably be aware, ingredients were now an obsession of mine.

I heard Dad say to Alyssa, 'Honey, can you get the self-raising flour from the shelf over there, please?'
'Okay Dad, here it is,' she replied. 'Why don't we use just normal flour?'

'Because this makes the cake rise when it's cooking,' Dad explained. 'It makes it bigger.'

'BINGO!' I yelled.
'Strange thing to say when you've just been bowled out,' said Evie.
'Oh, yeah, sorry, I thought I'd hit the ball.'

I let my friends continue with the game while I sat back on the couch thinking about my eureka moment. I still wasn't sure that self- raising flour would be the ingredient to make Squiggles larger, but I had a good feeling about it. However, right now I couldn't do anything. I still had my friends here. I would have to wait until that night after dinner.

We didn't eat dinner until quite late. It was busy at the shop so we waited a little while longer for Mum to arrive home. She was exhausted, but cheered up when she saw that Dad had prepared her favourite meal of roast turkey. Dad could cook a mean roast and for dessert we had his special chocolate and caramel cream cake. It was delicious and I had a second helping. Alyssa called me a pig and was sent to her room. Unfortunately we didn't finish dinner until just before bed time, so I wasn't able to get into the shed. I would now have to wait until morning.

It was difficult getting to sleep that night. I had Squiggles and self-raising flour on my mind. I decided that if this wasn't going to work, I would just have to give up. After all, the whole affair was beginning to become very stressful for poor Squiggles.

First thing in the morning, after breakfast of course, I was straight back into the shed. Dad had gone to the shop and Mum was playing with Alyssa in her room. I managed to collect some self- raising flour, plus the other ingredients needed for the concoction. Hopefully Mum and Dad weren't becoming suspicious about all the missing food. If they got wind of what I was doing the whole project would be ruined and we would continue to be at the mercy of the burglars.

Squiggles was in his newly repaired cage to greet me with a nod and a wink. Then he went back to admiring himself in front of his mirror. Squiggles had certainly become a more confident macho mouse. I wasted no time.

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 self-raising flour

I began to mix the ingredients.
A little bit of this
A little bit of that
Into Mum's blender and...and...and NOTHING!
Nothing happened...at first. But as anyone who has cooked a cake would know, self- raising flour takes time to work. It doesn't happen instantly and it was about five minutes before I began to see a change in Squiggles.