Monsters and Mold

by Asia Citro

  I grabbed Gorp’s arm and pulled him into the barn. “Look! We have three choices: salt, sugar, and vinegar.” I held up the bags.

  A smile lit up Gorp’s face. “Which should we choose?”

  “Good question! Hmmm. You have an awful lot of fur. Let me run in the house and see what we have the most of.”

  I was halfway out the door when I heard a scuffling noise behind me. I turned around to see Gorp backing into a corner of the barn with a terrified look on his face. I guess he’d finally noticed the purring Sassafras at his feet. I scooped up my cat and ran into the house.

  CHAPTER 11

  DECISIONS, DECISIONS

  I set Sassafras down on the kitchen floor and opened the pantry. The first thing I saw was the salt container. I checked, and it was almost empty. I scooted a bag of flour to the side and found a brand new giant bag of sugar. Hmmm. That might be the winner.

  Finally, I looked down at the very bottom of the pantry and found our stash of vinegar. I shook the bottle. Not much left. I’d been making too many baking soda and vinegar volcanoes!

  Sugar was the official winner. I set the big bag down on the kitchen table with a thunk.

  “What else do I need, Sassafras?”

  Sassafras impatiently paced by the back door. He wanted more time with Gorp.

  I grabbed a plastic pitcher and a big wooden spoon to mix the sugar water. I added some water to the pitcher and piled everything in my arms. I took little steps so I didn’t splash the water everywhere.

  Sassafras meowed at me the whole way to the barn. I guess I wasn’t moving fast enough for him.

  Once we got in, I added a good bit of sugar to the water and stirred with my spoon for a minute or two. Then I looked from the pitcher to Gorp. “Um, we should take this outside. It might get a little messy.”

  We went outside, and I checked Gorp’s fur. “Hey, there isn’t any mold right now!”

  “Oh, that’s only because I just bathed in the stream. Is that OK?”

  “That’s perfect. The sugar water should stop the mold from growing on your fur, like it did with the fur sample in the bag. I’m going to, uh, I guess pour it on a little at a time and spread it around with my spoon. Does that sound OK?”

  Gorp nodded and stood very still. Sassafras saw me raise the pitcher up and scooted out of the way. He hates getting wet.

  I poured and spread the liquid as best I could. After a few minutes, I was pretty sure I’d given Gorp’s fur a good coating of sugar water.

  “Ta-da! You’re good to go. If you want to come back in a day or two, I can mix up more for you.”

  “I can’t believe I’m going to the Monster Ball!” Gorp cheered. “I’m a bit damp, so I think I’ll take a nice long walk to make sure I’m dry before I settle down for the night.”

  “That’s a great plan, Gorp! I’m so happy for you!”

  We waved good-bye to each other, and I brought all of my supplies into the house. After I put everything we’d used in the sink to wash later, I grabbed my science journal and wrote down the results of my monster fur experiment.

  I was so happy I’d solved Gorp’s mold problem, but as I closed my science journal, I realized I’d forgotten to get a photo of him again.

  Maybe he’d come back for more sugar water in a few days, and I could ask him then?

  CHAPTER 12

  OH NO!

  Sassafras and I were in the kitchen figuring out what we wanted for breakfast when the magic doorbell rang.

  The doorbell this early? I really, really, really hoped it wasn’t Gorp coming back with mold again.

  Mom looked over at me with a raised eyebrow and handed me a piece of toast.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. I grabbed the toast and gave her a quick hug on my way out the door. Sassafras grabbed one big mouthful of cat food, and trotted out the door behind me with stuffed cheeks.

  We flew through the barn and threw open the back door. And there was Gorp.

  “Gorp! What happened? Why are you all wet?”

  Gorp flung his hands in the air.

  “Everything went wrong. Everything!” he spluttered. “First, on the walk back to my cave, everything stuck to me. Dirt, leaves, twigs, even little flying bugs! I looked ridiculous.”

  Ohhh no. Of course sugar water would be sticky! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I guess because I’d used the spoon instead of my hands, I didn’t feel the stickiness at all.

  He continued, “I thought that was the worst of it, but I was wrong. It got much worse. I woke up to ants crawling all over me this morning. Even in my ears.”

  Ohhh no. I’d forgotten how much ants like sweet things. And sugar water is very sweet. Gorp must have seemed like a giant monster-shaped candy to the ants!

  “I ran and jumped into the stream and then came straight here,” he said. “My fur didn’t get any mold, but this was So! Much! Worse!”

  “Oh, Gorp! I’m so so sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t think of the stickiness or the ants.”

  Oh man, I had totally messed up. I put my head in my hands. I was too embarrassed to look Gorp in the eye.

  Sassafras bumped my leg. “Mrrrw?”

  I looked down to see why he was making that weird noise, and he had a ziplock bag in his mouth. Of course!

  “Sassafras! You’re a genius!” I picked him up and kissed him on the head. Gorp made a sour face. “It’s not over yet. We still have two more things we can try. And this time, I promise I’ll choose more carefully.”

  I opened the bag marked salt that Sassafras had brought over. I reached in to feel. My shoulders slumped. “No! The salt water fur is sticky, too.”

  Gorp’s eyes filled with tears and his lip trembled. “I give up! Nothing will work. I’ll never get to go to the Monster Ball.”

  “Don’t cry, Gorp! We still have the vinegar to try,” I said. But I was worried.

  I took a deep breath. This had to work. Vinegar wasn’t sticky, right? My hands were never sticky after playing with baking soda and vinegar. A little gritty from the baking soda, maybe. But no, definitely not sticky.

  I slowly reached one finger inside the bag. I gave the vinegar-covered Gorp fur a quick poke. I looked up at Gorp and smiled.

  “Feel it!” I took his hand and put it inside the bag.

  “It’s not sticky!” A smile slowly spread over Gorp’s face. He grabbed a handful of the vinegar fur from inside the bag and pulled it out. Then he twisted his head to the side, squeezed his eyes closed, and stuck out his tongue.

  “This smells terrible! Oh no! I can’t stink,” he wailed.

  The vinegar smell made me wrinkle my nose, too. It did stink. In fact, I hated the smell of vinegar . . . which is why I had a solution.

  I grabbed Gorp by the shoulders. “It’s going to be OK. Trust me. I can fix the smell. Wait here.”

  I ran into the house and quickly searched the pantry until I found a tiny bottle of peppermint extract.

  “Thanks, Mom!” I whispered as I grabbed it and the bottle of vinegar and dashed to the barn.

  Gorp had stopped crying, but I could tell that after all these ups and downs, he didn’t think he’d ever go to the Monster Ball.

  I twisted the cap off the vinegar bottle and added a few drops of peppermint extract into it. I put the cap back on and shook the vinegar bottle twice.

  I poured some of the new vinegar over Gorp’s fur sample. “Smell it now.”

  Gorp took a small sniff. Then a bigger sniff. Then a really, really big sniff.

  “That smells wonderful,” he exclaimed. “And it won’t make me sticky? Ants don’t like vinegar, right?”

  “No, it’s not sticky. And ants don’t like it. You can go to the Monster Ball and you won’t be moldy and you’ll smell like candy canes!”

  Gorp grabbed me in a giant, wet, furry monster hug, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I was so relieved to find something that worked.

  Gorp held the bottle to his chest and gave me a huge smile. “Thank you, Zoey. This means so much
to me.”

  I was super excited for Gorp. I kind of wished that I could go to the Monster Ball too, and see him at the ball with all his friends.

  Then it hit me. The camera! Maybe Gorp could take a picture for me while he was there. It wouldn’t be as good as going myself, but when you take a photo of a magical creature, some of the magic stays in the photo. So, having the photo would be like having a little bit of the Monster Ball with me.

  “Uh, Gorp? Before you go — can I ask you a favor? Would you be willing to borrow my camera and take a picture at the Monster Ball? Then maybe afterward you could come by for a visit and tell me all about it?”

  Before he had a chance to say no, I ran into the barn and grabbed my science journal and my camera. I showed him how the camera worked and what a photo was.

  He carefully picked up the camera with one hand and looked at it. “I will bring your machine to the dance with me and I will do my best to get you a photo.”

  CHAPTER 13

  THANK YOU

  Sassafras watched from the edge of my sandbox as I erupted one of my sand volcanoes. After hearing about our success, Mom had taken a special trip to the store to stock up on vinegar.

  I buried another plastic bottle with baking soda inside under the sand. I made sure that only the opening of the bottle peeked out, and then I reached for more peppermint-scented vinegar.

  The smell of the peppermint reminded me of Gorp. Today was Friday, and Gorp had told us that the Monster Ball was on Thursday. I was hoping that he’d gone and had a great time.

  I poured the vinegar into the bottle. Some of the white bubbles flowed down the side of the volcano and got on Sassafras’ paw. He leapt up and shook his paw wildly to get the bubbles off.

  “Oh, Sassafras!” I couldn’t help laughing.

  Suddenly he froze mid-paw shake and took off purring into the forest.

  I stood up. Could it be Gorp?

  I ran after Sassafras and found him at Gorp’s feet. He was, once again, staring up lovingly at the big monster.

  Gorp looked worried until he saw me. Then he smiled. He had my camera and a photo in one hand, but the other hand was hidden behind his back.

  I couldn’t wait to see the photo of the Monster Ball! I ran over to him and gave him a big hug.

  “Zoey! Thank you for all of your work solving my mold problem. I had a great time at the Monster Ball. See?”

  Gorp handed me the photo. He looked fancy in a bow tie and had his arms around two other monsters. All three were laughing. In fact . . . I thought I could hear it. I put my ear closer and grinned. The sound of deep belly laughs was definitely coming from the photo.

  “I can see and hear that you had a great time!” I held it up to Gorp’s ear.

  “Whoooa,” he said.

  I pointed to a cake in the background. “And there was cake?”

  “Yes! My aunt’s famous mud cake with grub sprinkles. Delicious.”

  My stomach flipped at the thought of grub sprinkles. “Oh, uh, yum,” I managed to squeak out.

  “I should have saved you a slice!” He shook his head. “I did get you these, though.” Clutched in the hand he’d been hiding behind his back was a big bunch of green and brown weeds, complete with dirt-covered roots.

  I stared for a minute, not sure what to make of it.

  Gorp pushed it toward me one more time. “It’s a bouquet. For you, Zoey!”

  Ohhh! I took the “bouquet” of weeds and grinned. “Thank you so much, Gorp! You didn’t have to get me anything, though. I’m so glad you finally went to the Monster Ball!”

  “Me too. Do you know what the funniest part was? Everyone kept asking where I’d been at the other monster parties. And when I talked about my moldy fur, they all said they didn’t care about it. I was worried about nothing this whole time. Although I must admit, I enjoy no longer being moldy. And now I smell so good!”

  I sniffed the air and caught a whiff of candy cane. Yum. “You sure do!”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m sorry I can’t stay for long. I promised my friends I’d go hunt for glowing salamanders with them.”

  “I hope you’ll still come visit us sometimes. We’d be happy to make sure you always have peppermint-y vinegar for your fur.”

  Gorp gave me one last hug, and then he reached a finger down and gently tapped Sassafras once on the head. Sassafras dissolved into loud, rumbly purring. Gorp smiled uneasily and waved. Then he headed into the forest to play with his monster friends.

  Sassafras and I went into the house. I grabbed a vase, filled it with water, and tried to arrange the weeds. As well as anyone could arrange a bouquet of weeds, anyway.

  My dad came into the kitchen and raised an eyebrow when he saw what I was doing.

  “It’s a bouquet from a friend,” I told him.

  “Kind of a strange friend you’ve got there, Zoey. Aren’t bouquets supposed to be made of flowers?”

  I laughed and nodded.

  I took the bouquet into my room and set it on my desk next to my science journal. Sassafras jumped up and pawed at the pages of the journal until it opened to Gorp’s picture. He rubbed his face against it, purring super loudly. Then he drooled a little on Gorp’s photo.

  “Ewww, Sassafras! That’s so gross!” I flipped to a new blank page in the science journal to keep the photo safe from further cat drool.

  As I left my room with Sassafras tucked under my arm, I turned back to look at my open journal on the desk. I couldn’t help but grin, imagining what magical friend we’d meet next.

  GLOSSARY

  Conclusion: What you learned from your experiment (hopefully you get an answer to your question but sometimes you don’t)

  Experiment: What you do to answer your question

  Hypothesis: What you think will happen in your experiment

  Materials: All the things you need to do your experiment

  Mold: A kind of fluffy looking fungus that breaks down (eats) dead things

  Preservative: Something that keeps mold from growing

  Procedure: What you do in your experiment (the steps)

  Solution: An answer to the problem

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

  ASIA CITRO used to be a science teacher, but now she plays at home with her two kids and writes books. When she was little, she had a cat just like Sassafras. He loved to eat bugs and always made her laugh (his favorite toy was a plastic human nose that he carried everywhere). Asia has also written three activity books: 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids, The Curious Kid’s Science Book, and A Little Bit of Dirt. She has yet to find a baby dragon in her backyard, but she always keeps an eye out, just in case.

  MARION LINDSAY is a children’s book illustrator who loves stories and knows a good one when she reads it. She likes to draw anything and everything but does spend a completely unfair amount of time drawing cats. Sometimes she has to draw dogs just to make up for it. She illustrates picture books and chapter books as well as painting paintings and designing patterns. Like Asia, Marion is always on the lookout for dragons and sometimes thinks there might be a small one living in the airing cupboard.

  for activities and more visit

  ZOEYANDSASSAFRAS.COM