Uncle John's the Enchanted Toilet Bathroom Reader for Kids Only!

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  MEANS: “You are so full of yourself.”

  INSULT: “Whiteliver!”

  MEANS: “Coward!”

  HOW TO MAKE A WISH

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  Ever heard the story about the kid who ate so many Pop Rocks his stomach exploded? Actually, that’s a myth, but you get the point: Be careful what you wish for!

  WHAT YOU NEED:

  οLarge bowl

  οRice paper

  οScissors

  οTea candle

  WHAT TO DO:

  1.Fill a large bowl with warm water.

  2.Cut a one-inch square of rice paper.

  3.Write a word on the square to symbolize your wish.

  4.Drop the square into the water.

  5.Ask an adult to light the tea candle. (Yes. An adult. Burning down the house is not considered lucky.) Float the lighted candle on the water.

  6.As the candle burns, picture holding what you wish for in your hands. Don’t blow out the candle. Let it burn until it goes out on its own.

  7.Once the candle burns out, dig a hole, pour the water and the paper into the hole, and cover them.

  8.Keep picturing your wish coming true.

  K-9ERY ROW

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  An Uncle John’s Totally Twisted Tale

  TIMES WERE TOUGH on K-9ery Row. The dog-food cannery had closed, so the dogs were out of work. They hung around the boarded-up cannery all day, watching the ocean as it crashed on the rocks below the pier.

  Like most of the unemployed dogs, a mutt named Lucky ate his meager meals at the soup kitchen. Then he wandered over to the pier and curled up, hoping his grumbling belly wouldn’t keep him awake all night.

  One evening, on the way to the pier, Lucky ran into his friend Snarl. “Those pinch-penny Poodles at the soup kitchen don’t give us enough to stay skinny on,” Lucky complained. “I’m still starving.”

  Snarl picked some gristle out of his teeth with a toenail, and then wiped his graying muzzle clean on his matted coat. “Be thankful for what you get,” Snarl said.

  “Thankful?” Lucky snorted. “For the trash they feed us? Tastes like ground-up cat guts. I’d rather eat maggots.”

  “Here,” Snarl said. He pushed his last scrap of food toward Lucky. Lucky ate it without a word of thanks.

  The next morning, Lucky got up early to beat the rest of the starving mutts to the garbage cans. Every can had already been picked clean. So Lucky headed along the empty road. Months before, trucks had filled the road, coming and going as they picked up loads of dog food from the cannery. Now the road was empty.

  Lucky kept walking until he caught a whiff of something wonderfully fishy and rotten. And it was close by! Lucky bounded up a small slope and was thrilled to find a dead salmon. Had it fallen off a truck before the cannery closed? He poked the fish with his nose. It still had plenty of oozing flesh. Yum! Lucky nudged aside some flies and picked up the fish with his teeth, maggots and all.

  Lucky glanced around and spotted Snarl coming up the road. His friend looked thin and hungry. Sorry, buddy, Lucky thought as he trotted away. This fish isn’t big enough for the both of us.

  Lucky cut through the back alleys of K-9ery Row and headed toward the pier to eat his catch. He went all the way to the end. Before he sat down, he glanced into the water and spotted…another dog! And that dog had a tasty, rotten salmon, too!

  I should take that fish, Lucky thought. I’ll save it for tomorrow.

  Lucky leaned over the edge of the pier and opened his mouth wide to snatch the other dog’s fish. When he did, his own salmon fell into the water with a plop. Lucky yelped. My fish! But when he reached down to retrieve it, a giant mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth thrust toward him.

  No…it wasn’t Lucky’s reflection. The mouth belonged to a great white shark. Lucky pulled back, but he was too late. The shark swallowed him in one gulp.

  A few minutes later, Snarl wandered along the tide line sniffing for food. The tide was going out. Just beyond the breakers, he saw a huge fin break the water’s surface, and then disappear.

  Snarl padded on. Pretty soon he came to a dead salmon washed up beneath the pier. Snarl grabbed the prize and trotted happily back toward K-9ery Row. This fish is big enough to share, he thought. I wonder where my friend Lucky is right now?

  Moral: A fish in the mouth is better than being in the mouth of a fish.

  THE END

  οοο

  WHAT’S SO FUNNY?

  THERE ONCE WAS A DOGLIKE BEAST with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. It was said to have lived around two thousand years ago, in India and Ethiopia. It’s name: the crocotta. Some say the crocotta hunted people. It tricked its prey into coming into the woods. Then it would attack. Why would anyone be fooled? The crocotta could imitate the sound of someone calling for help. Long thought to be a creature of legend, scientists now think the crocotta was actually an ancient hyena.

  REAL-LIFE PRINCESSES

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  Here’s proof that the life of a princess isn’t all tiaras, balls, and Prince Charming.

  οAs a child, England’s queen, Elizabeth II, was known as PRINCESS LILIBET. As a teen, she had a few flirtations, just like most young women. One was with Prince Philip of Greece. How did her parents react? Her mother thought Prince Philip would make a fine match, but her father disagreed. “His wardrobe is ghastly!” said the king.

  οPRINCESS STéPHANIE of Monaco earned the nickname “wild child” in her teens. Why? She has at least seven tattoos, including a flower chain around her wrist and a snaky dragon on her back. “I may be a princess,” she said, “but above all, I’m a human being.”

  οAs a little girl, PRINCESS CHARLENE wasn’t scared of anything. “Once she jumped off a tree onto a horse and broke her arm in three places,” her father said. She’s a vegetarian who eats lots of garlic and chili, and she’s also a South African swimming champion. Charlene has something in common with the classic fairy tale princess, Cinderella. What? She wasn’t born a princess. She married a prince—Princess Stéphanie’s brother, Prince Albert II of Monaco.

  οWhat would it be like to grow up in a palace? According to PRINCESS HAYA of Jordan, “When the doors were closed, it was a home. There was laughter and water fights!” But when she asked her father, the king, for a horse, he hesitated. Jordan is a conservative country. What would people think of a princess on horseback? “Daddy, every princess has a scandal,” Princess Haya reminded him. The king bought the horse, and Haya named it Scandal.

  οWomen are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. They have to rely on male relatives to drive them, or hire male drivers. PRINCESS AMIRA AL-TAWEEL is hoping for change. She gets behind the wheel whenever she can. “I have an international driver’s license,” Amira says. “And I drive in all the countries I travel to.”

  οPRINCESS BEATRICE of York is most famous for…a hat. At the wedding of her cousin, England’s Prince William, Beatrice wore a tan hat that made her look as if she had a giant pretzel perched on her head. The thing was a foot tall. The hat got so much buzz, it ended up with its own Facebook page. “It has its own personality,” says Beatrice. What did the princess do with the hat after the wedding? She auctioned it off and raised $130,000 to support two children’s charities.

  BAG OF RUNES

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  Runes are ancient symbols that can be used to predict the future. Here’s a way to bake your own set.

  WHAT YOU NEED:

  οSmall package of white polymer clay

  οToothpick

  οBaking pan

  οAluminum foil

  οAcrylic paint (optional)

  οZipper-lock or drawstring bag

  WHAT TO DO:

  1.Decide how many runes you’d like to make. Form a ½-inch clay ball for each rune. Flatten each ball by pressing on it with your thumb.

  2.Use a toothpick to carve a rune symbol into each clay rune. (Choose fr
om the symbols on pages 251–252, but leave one rune blank.) Carefully scrape off any bits of clay left sticking up after carving the rune.

  3.Preheat your oven to 275 degrees. Line a baking pan with a sheet of aluminum foil. Place your clay pieces, rune-side up, on the foil. With an adult’s help, put the runes into the oven. Bake them for about 30 minutes, and let them cool for at least that long.

  4.(Optional) For colored runes, paint them with acrylic paint and let them dry completely before storing.

  5.Store your runes in a zipper-lock or drawstring bag. Ready to predict the future? Turn to page 250.

  οοο

  MAKE MINE MEAD

  Ever wonder why some people are poets? Our favorite explanation comes from the Vikings.

  Viking myth has two races of gods: the Aesir and the Vanir. As gods tend to do in mythology, the two races went to war. At the war’s end, the gods decided they would all spit in a jar to seal the peace. They used the spit to make a man who was sent into the world to spread wisdom. Some wicked dwarfs killed the man and mixed his blood with honey to make a magical mead. (Mead is a potent drink, usually made from fermented honey and water.) The dwarfs called their potion “The Mead of Poetry.”

  Some time later, the dwarfs handed over the mead to a powerful giant to keep him from squashing them to jelly. The giant hid the mead in a cave. Odin, top god of the Aesir, heard that the giant had the Mead of Poetry and went to find it. When he did, he gulped down the entire vat, turned himself into an eagle, and flew back to Asgard (home of the gods). Most of the magic mead made it back to the gods, but Odin spilled a little during his flight. It fell to Midgard (Earth), and that is why humans can become poets.

  TURN LEAD INTO GOLD!

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  According to modern science it can’t be done…but that hasn’t stopped people from trying.

  SCIENCE, MADNESS, OR MAGIC?

  In the Middle Ages (roughly A.D. 400–1600), men of “science” spent a great deal of time trying to turn metals like lead into gold. Sound nutty? Maybe not. One of the most famous scientists of all time tried for years.

  Remember Sir Isaac Newton, the scientist who liked to watch apples fall to the ground? Those apples helped Newton figure out how gravity works. But he also spent a lot of time at a furnace, brewing foul-smelling mixtures of mercury, lead, sulfur, and other ingredients in a quest to turn them into gold.

  PRESTO, CHANGE-O!

  The art of turning one thing into another (like cheap metals into valuable ones such as gold) is called alchemy. The practice thrived in Europe during the Middle Ages. But it was illegal. Kings feared that alchemists really would make gold. If they did, that extra gold could ruin a country’s monetary system. (Of course, many of those same rulers ordered alchemists to try to make gold. Why? To swell the royal treasuries.)

  RECIPES FOR FAILURE?

  In their attempts to make gold, alchemists concocted elixirs. Elixirs might include anything from plants to metals, eggs, or even human hair. After mixing an elixir, the alchemist added it to a common metal and then heated it. Most alchemists kept their recipes secret. Newton wrote his recipes in riddles like this one:

  This is the magic fire of the wise to heat the King’s bath (which within a week’s prepared).

  Unlock it which thou mayest do in an hour, and after wash it with a silver shower.

  Fortunately, some alchemists used plainer words. Here’s a recipe for making gold bracelets: “Take two parts lead and one part gold, and grind the metals into fine powder. Mix the powder with gum.” (Not chewing gum. Probably gum Arabic, which comes from the sap of the acacia tree.) “Use the sticky mixture to coat a ring of cheap metal, such as copper. Heat the metal ring. The mix will harden and look like pure gold.” The problem: The copper ring doesn’t really turn into solid gold. It just looks like gold.

  Our favorite recipe promised to turn donkey urine into gemstones. For those who happen to have donkey pee on hand, here’s what to do: “Take white lead, one part, and of any glass you choose, two parts, fuse together in a crucible, and then pour the mixture.” Next, add “the urine of an ass.” Wait about 40 days, and the mixture will turn into emeralds.

  A HISTORY MYSTERY

  Why would a scientist like Sir Isaac Newton waste his time on alchemy? “It was perfectly reasonable for Isaac Newton to believe in alchemy,” says Dr. Bill Newman, a history of science professor at Indiana University. “Most of the experimental scientists of the seventeenth century did.”

  Alchemists might not have made gold, but they created all kinds of useful compounds. They gave artists better paints, sick people new drugs, and smelly people stronger soaps. Transmutation—breaking down one compound and turning it into something else—is still an important part of the scientific process. It’s used to make everything from ink to gunpowder to cosmetics. No one has turned lead into gold (yet), but alchemists like Sir Isaac Newton laid the groundwork for a modern field of science: chemistry.

  THE SECRET BEHIND THE SECRET ART

  Of course, alchemy didn’t start with Isaac Newton. A clue to its origins is hidden in its name. Alchemy comes from the Arabic word al-Khem, which means “from the Land of Khem.” And khem is the Egyptian word for the rich black soil of the Nile River delta. Alchemy is rooted in the “secret arts” of ancient Egypt.

  By 3000 B.C. Egyptians are thought to have already mastered many processes related to working with metals and chemicals. The penalty for sharing those secrets with outsiders was death. So how did their secrets spread? When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and became Pharaoh (332 B.C.), he stole the scrolls filled with Egypt’s secret knowledge and had them translated into Greek.

  That still leaves a big question: How did the Egyptians master metallurgy and chemistry thousands of years ago? Egyptian myth says that “god-like” beings came “through the Void” and settled in Egypt. These beings taught mankind “all the secrets of nature,” including the art of alchemy. Were they gods…or aliens? We may never know.

  TWO MASTERS OF ALCHEMY

  οJABIR IBN HAYYAN (circa A.D. 721–815) This Arabian alchemist wrote down his formulas in a language he made up. Why? At the time, alchemists were thought to be sorcerers. The penalty for sorcery was death. So Jabir didn’t want anyone else reading what he’d written. The modern word gibberish (nonsense) came from his name.

  οROGER BACON (circa A.D. 1214–1292) According to the Bible, humans once lived to be 900 years old. This English scientist wanted to create an elixir that would let people live that long again. Did he succeed? Hard to say. When Bacon claimed the ancients lived longer because they were more moral than Christians, monks nailed his books to library shelves and let them rot.

  FAIRY-TALE TONGUE TWISTERS

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  Before you try these tongue twisters, you may need to sprinkle fairy dust on your tongue.

  To start a fairy flying fast fly faster than the flying fairy starts.

  Which witch switched wands?

  Starry elves stuck in the star thistle.

  Pour a cup of coffee from a copper coffeepot.

  Crabby king crabby king crabby king.

  When snow blows the knight knows to blow his nose.

  Six shiny stars show signs of shining.

  Tales dragons tell smell.

  Prince Zith’s sister plays a zither.

  Tommy the tuba tooter tutored two tooters to toot.

  Ugly ducklings don’t dunk doughnuts.

  SOCKED IN

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  An Uncle John’s Totally Twisted Tale

  MAYDAY! MAYDAY! Sixteen-year-old Miles stared at the instrument panel in his Cessna cockpit. The gauges were spinning out of control. He had no idea of the plane’s altitude, air speed, or direction. One minute he’d been flying along the Florida coast without a cloud in the sky. The next, he was flying blind inside a cloud bank black as the inside of a clothes dryer.

  Miles reached into the glove box
to get his maps. He peered at the area closest to where he’d been when his instruments went berserk. “Oh, no,” Miles whispered. “The Bermuda Triangle.”

  The Triangle was legendary. In 1910, a Navy ship vanished with 309 sailors aboard. Five bomber planes went missing in 1945. Yachts, airliners, tankers—all kinds of vessels had disappeared in the triangle of ocean between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. There were plenty of theories: magnetism, pirates, tropical storms, dimensional portals, even aliens had been blamed. Was Miles about to discover the mysterious triangle’s secret?

  The aircraft began to shudder. Miles fought to keep the throttle engaged, but failed. The airplane started to dive, nose first. He had only seconds before gravity would decide his fate. He reached down between his knees and grabbed the handle of his ejection seat. Wham!

  The canopy separated and Miles was blasted into the air along with his seat. Wind sucked at his cheeks, and rain scoured his skin. Then his parachute opened and jerked him away from the falling aircraft.

  Miles took a deep breath, and for just a moment he thought everything might be okay. Then lightning crackled across the sky, and his nylon chute went up in flames. Miles plummeted. He wished he’d given his mother one more hug. He wished he’d played fetch one more time with his bulldog, Chomsky. Most of all, he wished he’d taken more flying lessons before going solo. Miles closed his eyes and braced for impact. Then he hit: FWUMP!

  Fwump? Not sploosh or splat or crunch? Miles fumbled in the darkness trying to figure out what had broken his fall. His hands touched something soft and lumpy. Clouds? That’s it, Miles thought. I’m dead. And this is heaven. Then he sniffed. Heaven smelled familiar. Flowery. Like the dryer sheets his mom used.