The Science Fair Disaster
by Cordelia W. King
Honourable Mention - Roslyn and Max Margles Contest Grades 3/4
My alarm clock rang. I threw on the clothes that I had laid out the night before, then I rushed downstairs and ate breakfast, barely stopping to take a breath.
“Slow down, you don’t want to get hiccups,” said my mom.
“I can’t! Today’s Take Your Pet to School Day!” I responded with my mouth still full. I am a BIG animal lover so I couldn’t wait to get to school and see all the cute animals. I grabbed the cage holding Carrot, my pet bunny, and got onto the stinky school bus, which was both stinkier and cuter than usual. Walking through the schoolyard I saw five dogs, seven puppies, four cats, three guinea pigs, one ant farm, and one horse?!
My first class of the day was science. I put Carrot’s cage on the countertop in the back of the classroom instead of bringing her to my table because my lab partner, Suzie, had warned me about her fat cat that hated all animals other than himself, and I was worried for the safety of my bunny.
“This is Boots,” said Suzie clutching her fat calico cat to stop him from scratching me.
We worked on the finishing touches for our science fair project, a Coca-Cola and Mentos volcano, (I know not very original… I wanted to make a bike-powered fan, but our principal banned bicycles from inside the school after The Incident of 2018). Suzie wanted to touch up the lettering on our poster so she set Boots down on our station and he started prancing around the table. I saw him heading straight for our experiment with evil in his eyes.
“Suzie! Boots!! The volcano!” I spluttered.
Suzie stared at me in confusion. “What?”
“Pick him up before he–”
“MEOW!!”
Clunk! Crash! Splash!
Suzie and I watched in horror as Coca-Cola spilled all over the floor of the science lab. Suzie rushed over and grabbed Boots, but not before he used his tail to swat the open container of Mentos off the edge of the table and into the puddle of Coke. The mixture started to bubble, and before we knew it, the foamy liquid had shot up, spraying the ceiling, us, and Boots, whose usually fluffy fur was now plastered to his body and who looked like he was regretting his life choices.
The bubbling remains of our experiment flowed across the ground until it stopped at our neighbours’ station.
“Our experiment! It’s… it’s ruined!” cried Suzie, looking both angry at Boots and sad, as she grimaced at our broken volcano and soggy poster lying on the floor. We had worked really hard on our project and now we had only one day to think of and create a whole new one. We needed to think of something that we could make for the fair, and fast.
I stared at the mess with my jaw on the ground, my body refusing to move. Why did Suzie have to let go of Boots?! Why didn’t she hold onto him? The lettering was fine! Well, she didn’t do it on purpose. She just wanted our project to be the best it could be. I glared at Boots, who was glaring right back at me. Hey, what did I do? It’s not my fault you’re wet! If you need to blame someone, blame yourself!
Wanting to dry herself and her sopping wet cat, Suzie loosened her grip on Boots, who jumped out of Suzie’s arms to the ground, landing gracefully on his feet. Even looking like a mess, Boots still thought that he was the most important creature in the room, and pranced around, leaving wet paw prints everywhere he went.
Suddenly, a great idea popped into my head.
“I got it! Everything's better with animals, right? We could design a new experiment to see if jumping cats really land on their feet every time,” I suggested proudly.
“That’s genius!” replied my lab partner, and we started working right away. After going to the bathroom to dry off, we got pillows from the kindergarten classroom, for safety purposes. (Even though he ruined our first experiment, we still didn’t want Boots to get hurt.) We then got Boots to jump off various pieces of classroom furniture that got taller with each jump. We carefully recorded the data in my favourite red notebook, which miraculously was still dry.
I went through the rest of the day feeling optimistic about our new experiment. First thing the next day, it was science fair time. We presented our new poster to the panel of judges, our data neatly displayed in a bar graph, showing that our hypothesis that jumping cats always land on their feet was found to be true. Then for the demonstration, Suzie put Boots on a classroom shelf, which was my height (a whopping 4 feet, 9 inches,) and she put one of his favourite tuna treats on the ground to encourage him to jump. Boots practically flew through the air, gracefully landing on his feet. It worked! I had been slightly worried that he would ruin this experiment, too, but I guess he didn’t want to since this time he was the centre of attention.
“The winners are… In first place: the Cat Jump team! In second place…”
Suzie and I hugged each other, while jumping up and down, Boots squished between us. I can’t believe it! We won! And all because of my love of animals, some quick thinking, a fat cat, and a happy accident!
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Honourable Mention, Grades 3/4 - Cordelia W. King
The jury found “The Science Fair Disaster” to be inventive, funny, and original, with good use of language, strong dialogue, and a well-developed story arc. One juror wrote: “You had me at Calico cats!”
The word Nankoweap is Paiute and the phrase carries differing meanings, such as “place where people were killed” and “place that echoes.”