This was the weirdest month of my life.
Have you ever seen your cat chatting to your landlord on the phone? I have.
Have you ever seen your dog trying to run away from its own voice? I have.
Have you ever seen your rabbit munching on carrots while singing? Guess what? I have.
And have you seen your goldfish reading a book to a rock? I have.
It all started one day in the summer holidays.
Nova is my best friend, and she is a brain. She's always coming over to my house with some new potion or invention.
Today she brought both. Not separate. It was a potion made out of a machine.
"This is the one", said Nova, beaming. " The big one. It's a potion to make pets talk."
I stared gaping at her. She had never made a potion or machine like this before.
"But...but...how did you do it?", I gasped.
" Simple", said Nova with a cheeky grin. "All I did was take one of my old broken machines, melt it, and mix it with some other stuff!"
"But, which machine did you melt?", I asked, getting worried. It might've been a really good one like the pom pom maker.
" The Massage Machine", Nova sighed. "It was getting out of control. It stopped massaging and started slapping. It hurt a lot, too."
Well, at least she got rid of one that was malfunctioning.
I was pumped. I really wanted my cat, dog, goldfish and rabbit to be able to talk to me.
"Let's try it!", I exclaimed as I got out Tiger, my cat, and sat him in front of his food bowl.
" Ok, let's do it!", said Nova, as she poured some of the potion into the bowl.
Then something weird happened.
The potion automatically turned into cat food.
"Wha-", I stuttered. " Cat...food?"
"Yup", said Nova. " It's to make it look like food, so that they actually eat it."
Tiger sniffed it, purred and licked it.
"Where is the phone?", said Tiger in a man's voice. " I would like to talk to talk to your landlord about this infestation of rodents."
He held up my rabbit, Cheetah, by the left ear. She squealed terribly.
"Let's give some to Wolfie", said Nova.
Wolfie, as you would expect, was my dog.
" Wolfe!", I yelled.
He scampered over to us.
We poured some into his food bowl. It turned into dog food.
Wolfie sniffed it, growled and licked it.
"I must say...", he said, but didn't finish. He ran away. He was scared of his own voice.
"Help! The noise! It scares me! Run!!"
After he had run around for about an hour, and we had stopped our sides from aching for laughter, we gave some to Cheetah.
"Hi!", she said, cheerily. "Got any carrots?"
"Yup!", I giggled, trying not to screech hysterically at her squeaky voice. " They're in the fridge."
Cheetah stood up, walked over to the fridge, took out a carrot and munched on it, while singing 'Gangnam Style'.
"Num...heeeey! Num num...lady! Wop...num...num...num...num...Gangnam Style!
Nova and I were staggering around with laughter. They had been able to talk, and it was funny, too.
" It works!", I said, and suddenly an idea came to me.
"Nova, I just remembered. Yesterday I got a pet goldfish."
"Haw haw haw!", Nova chuckled. " Let's try it!"
Before I could stop her, Nova raced into my room and came back just as quickly with my fishbowl full of water.
I had to take my goldfish, Goldrush, out of the bowl and put her in the mini pond because the fishbowl had got dirty and needed cleaning.
Nova slammed the fishbowl down onto the table and scooted outside. I knew what was going to happen next.
I was right.
Nova had a wild look in her eyes as she gripped the thrashing goldfish in both hands. The potion had obviously taken over her brain.
She dumped Goldrush into the fishbowl and poured nearly all of the rest of the potion into it. It turned into fish food.
Gulp! She swallowed it in one go.
"On, hello, Roxie Rock", she said in a young woman's voice. " Would you like a story?"
The only reply was us bursting into giggles at the thought of a goldfish reading a book to a rock.
"Once upon a time..." She started, but she was cut off when we screeched hysterically at her voice tone. It had changed from calm to the voice of a woman imitating a monster to little kids.
"Oh, hello, girls", she said, back to her normal, calm tone. " Would you mind sharing the joke with me? I do love a good laugh every once in a while. "
Before I could answer, Cheetah came up to me and tugged, yes, TUGGED, on the back of my jeans.
"Carrots?", she said in her squeaky voice.
Before I could answer HER, Wolfie came tumbling towards us.
" Can you help me?!", he screamed, and then, Tiger walked, yes, WALKED, into the lounge room with the phone held to his ear, talking to the Landlord.
"Hello, yes, Tiger the cat speaking. I live over at 23 Lamp Street, Australia. We appear to have an infestation of singing rodents in our house. Yes, singing. No, this is not a prank call. I am a cat just like you are a person. And you are a person, aren't you? I thought so. And I am a cat. Anyway, we would like you to get rid of these singing rodents immediately. Our phone number is 8644 2102. By the way, please call pest control as well, as we have a very loud canine in our house, and a talking goldfish. Do not catch the fish, I can do that. Yes, it was 23 Lamp Street, Australia. Goodbye.
Anyway, Just as he hung up, Wolfie came tumbling towards us.
Tiger ran behind us, and Cheetah was still clinging on my jeans, so everyone was in the one spot - that is, everyone but Wolfie.
He lost footing and skidded across the floor.
Chaos followed.
We kept having to move back further and further, and finally we bumped into a wall.
Nova reached out for something - don't know what, could have been the painting behind us - and her hand closed on the air. I reached up and grabbed the painting from the wall.
"What are you doing?", Nova asked. " Are you going to hypnotize him into stopping?"
I looked at the picture and turned it around and around. It looked like a hypnosis spiral.
"I might just do that", I said with a sinister tone in my voice.
I showed the painting to Wolfie. He was coming closer and closer. And then I spun it around and around.
It made no difference. He simply crashed through it.
" RUN!!!", we both shouted together.
"Keep the noise down", Goldrush said calmly. " Roxie is nearly asleep."
We ran, with tiger on his back legs, running after us.
Cheetah was hanging on desperately to my pocket.
And I was holding Goldrush in her little bowl, and she had a book in her hand. Or fin, I should say, because she is just a goldfish.
Just then, my big brother, Tim, walked in.
On all fours.
Then he came up to me, sniffed my hand, PURRED, and LICKED it.
Then he MEOWED, and walked out of the room, just like he had, on all fours.
Wolfie suddenly stopped, and walked off muttering, "Stupid scary noise."
Tiger went over to the cupboard and got out a pair of Tim's reading glasses, a piece of paper and a pen.
Cheetah stood up, brushed herself off and walked over to the fridge. Then she opened it, took out a carrot and started munching on it, while singing 'Que Sera'.
Then my other big brother, Wilfred, came in, just like Tim - all on fours.
Then he SCAMPERED over to us, JUMPED UP on us and LICKED us, then went out on fours - WAGGING HIS BUTT BACK AND FOURTH.
"What the hell is going on here?", I said.
I had four brothers and sisters, two big brothers, one little sister and one big sister.
Suddenly I heard a squealing noise coming from Chelsie's room. Chelsie was my little sister.
" Nova! I think something's happening in Chelsie's room! "
So we ran down the hallway, turned right, then right again and that's when we found ourselves standing in front of a small pink door with the letters C, H, E, L, S, I and E nailed into it.
The squealing noise got really loud then. Like a rabbit trapped by a dog.
But there was something different about the noise. I heard growling too.
"I hear growling", Nova whispered.
" Yeah, so can I", I whispered back.
Slowly I turned the flowery doorknob, and I peeked in.
Oh, the horror!
Wilfred had cornered Chelsie up against the wall and was growling. Yes, GROWLING.
And Chelsie was squealing like a rabbit. Yes, A RABBIT.
I had to close it.
"What's happening in there?", Nova asked quietly.
I stayed quiet.
" Oh for goodness sake. I'll open it."
She threw open the door and screamed.
Wilfred turned around and Chelsie hopped, yes, HOPPED, over to me and hid behind my leg.
"This is so weird!!", I said to Nova. " They are all acting like animals!"
"If this is a dream", Nova said, " Then your big sister Glenda wouldn't be here. I never have dreams about her."
"Me neither", I said, " But what does that have to do with this situation? "
"Well", Nova said, " If this is a dream, then Glenda wouldn't be here to tell us that it was a dream, right? So, if it ISN'T a dream, your brothers and sisters are really acting like this and Glenda would ALSO be acting like an animal. You following me?"
"Uh, not exactly", I say, confused.
" What I'm saying is", she said, "Is that if we check on Glenda then we can see if this is really happening because she is not ever in our dreams, and she'd be acting like an animal too."
"Er, ok."
So we went to Glenda's room.
We heard thumping noises.
"I bet I know what we're gonna see", I said. " We're gonna see Glenda in a huge fishbowl."
We both giggled.
We pulled the door open and saw Glenda flipping and flopping on the floor with her mouth opening and closing. Like a fish.
"Something seems...fishy around here", I said. " I'm sorry. I had to."
"They're all acting like your pets!", Nova gasped.
So we picked up Glenda by the hand and dragged her to the little outside pond. She jumped in and swam around like her life depended on it.
She thrashed around and then sort of floated in the middle of the pond.
" Let's treat the others like your pets", said Nova cheekily.
So that's what we did.
We got Tim in Tiger's bed and he licked his hands like crazy.
We put Wolfie's leash and collar on Wilfred's neck and tied him up outside.
We gave Chelsie a carrot, which made Cheetah very upset.
"Now let's treat the animals like your brothers and sisters", Nova said.
We dressed tiger up in Tim's new T-shirt, new shorts and his reading glasses.
Wolfie got Wilfred's brand new muscle shirt and a blue and white baseball cap.
Cheetah just loved the pink tutu and crystal tiara we put on her.
And we took Goldrush out of the bowl, who didn't even gasp. Then we sewed her a tiny floral dress and cute rainbow headband.
" Now I guess we just wait for the potion to wear off", Nova said, and shrugged.
Fourteen days later...
Nova came over again to see how the animals were doing. Wilfred was chasing Chelsie around the house on our automatic vacuum cleaner, and Tim was Trying to take Glenda out of the pond.
Suddenly Glenda gasped and tried to swim out of the pond. Then she screamed, covered her private parts and ran inside.
At the same time, Goldrush fell onto the grass and started flipping and flopping about. I threw her into the pond.
Tim stood up, wondered why his hands were wet, and went inside too. Tiger wobbled, teetered on his back legs and fell over.
Wilfred fell onto his stomach and stood up. Wolfie fell over.
Chelsie got off the vacuum and went to her room.
And as for Cheetah, well, let's just say she still sings a very high note when somebody gives her a carrot.
The End