POTION CATASTROPHE

• Anuja Dahanayaka, Grade 1, Berwick Primary School
• Short Story
• 2021

Excellence Award in the 'Play On Words 2021' competition

Sam and Max love science and their job is to create magical potions because they are scientists!! One day they made the most amazing experiment and it worked. It is the greatest science potion named the “Shrink It In” potion.
Sam said, “Max, we will be world-famous, we can shrink the lions and carry them in our hands.” He put a drop on Jack the big, fat bulldog. It works. The big fella is now the size of a little rat. “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Max in excitement. Sam screamed with joy and hugged Max. Alas, the jar fell off onto his hand and then dropped on the floor, making a splash of potion all over them.
The shrinking began. First, it was the legs, just feeling shorter and shorter, and then it was the whole body. Max said, “Oh no. What did you do?” “It’s ok, let’s find the antidote,” said Sam. He started climbing onto the chair. “The antidote is on the top shelf, how are we going to reach there?” said Max. Sam said, “I have a plan.” He climbed onto the table and pushed on the flower vase. He pushed harder and nothing happened. “C’mon Max, help me.” Together they pushed and the flower vase fell with a crash. Sam pulled two flowers with the longest stems and pushed them against the shelf. He started climbing on the flower stem ladder to reach the top shelf.
Finally, there they were, sitting on the top shelf next to four bottles; each had red, yellow, blue and green liquid. “Which one is the antidote?” asked Sam. Max said “Red.” And Sam said “Green.” Again, too much confusion. So, they first tried a drop of green liquid on Sam’s hand. His hand started swelling and then getting bigger, bigger, bigger and bigger. It was so big, even bigger than his entire body. His hand felt so heavy, he fell off onto the shelf along with a big crash. “Splash… crash… bang… dong…” Sam and Max stared at each other, “Well, seems like we are back to normal size,” both screamed with joy. The whole room was full of smoke and splashes of potions. There it is Sam and Max’s potion catastrophe!