One day, I woke up at 6:00 a.m. as usual. I punched my alarm clock and threw it out of my sight. That was a rare morning without my mum’s loud and clear voice. Therefore, I fell asleep again but my feet were itchy… “Cockroach?” my heart seemed to be stopped beating because of the terrible scene I imagined. I jumped out of my bed and stared at that unknown itchy object. “What? I must be dreaming! That is even more horrible than a cockroach!” I rubbed my eyes and screamed.
I didn’t know why my dear mother became a tiny person whose height was only 20cm! I had no idea about how to let my mum grow back to her normal size, so I just took her to the dining room. I brushed my teeth and washed my face in a few minutes. I came out and saw my mum’s hopeless face. I poured some milk into my mug and started to eat my favourite baguette. The baguette seemed to be even harder to bite as my mum’s face turned red probably because I had ignored her. I looked at her strange body size and suddenly my brain lit up. I grabbed a packet of cookies from the cupboard. I picked one and gave mum. She got it and bit it hard although it was crunchy. Therefore, I poured some milk on it to make it softer for her.
I put on my school uniform as fast as I could (I thought I had the potential in breaking the Guinness World Record of changing uniform)! I came out and found my dear mum for helping me to wear my school tie, but when I saw my tiny mum again, I felt dizzy. My mum climbed on to my neck without saying a word. She caught one side of my tie and ran around and shuttled and shuttled. Lastly, my tie was done but mum seemed to be out of breath.
I looked at the clock and my mum’s helpless face, I decided to stay at home today to take care of my mum. As she knew I wanted to stay, she became worried and shouted (but it sounded like a mosquito buzzing), “Why are you not going to school? You’ll be late!” I just told her I would take care of her today and she started to cry because of happiness (I admitted I just wanted to have a holiday at that time).
I let my mum sit on the sofa to watch her favourite TV programme－America’s Funniest Home Videos. While my mum was laughing, I just sat in front of my desk, thinking about the solution for the problem. I stared at the TV with my blank mind and I saw a rabbit jump into a hole in the show, which made people laugh. All of a sudden, I remembered the diary I wrote yesterday. I opened my diary, I found that a line of word turned red in the story “Alice In Wonderland”. The sentence was “Alice drank the glass of water which was written ‘Drink Me!’ and she shrank.” I tried to get back into my memory…
Yesterday, I was writing the story “Alice In Wonderland”. My mum was tidying up my things. I tried to find where my things were and I saw my mum looking at my things, I roared at her and told her not to see my things anymore. I was really angry at that time…
I got back to reality again and suddenly a witch appeared, she teased, “Ha ha! I just helped you to punish your mother for peeking at your diary and I worked out a magic spell from the line about Alice and it made your mother shrink.”
“No!” I screamed, but the witch disappeared. I felt hopeless and helpless again.
It was time for lunch, maybe because of mum’s shrunk tummy, she didn’t feel hungry. However, I was. I took one Cup Noodles and filled it with hot water. Although my mum didn’t look hungry, I was worried about her. Therefore, I took a packet of jelly beans out from my schoolbag. I had my noodles and mum had her bun－the jelly bean looked like a bun when my tiny mum was chewing it (I wanted to take a photo for her but my camera was broken, so bad!)
After lunch, mum ordered me to help her to do the housework with her soft voice. I swept the floor and it became glossy, not because it was clean and tidy, but as it was full of bleaching agent. My mum could not help me, so she was just skating on the slippery floor to chase me for seeking what would I do.
After that, I fed the goldfish. I shook the bottle of pellet food, but I used too much power to shake it, the cover of the bottle fell down and all pellet food sank to the bottom of the fish tank. My mum started to fall down, not because of the slippery floor this time, but she felt dizzy after she saw my action in doing housework.
Finally, I broke two vases and three cups and the TV was out of order after my cleaning. My mum surrendered and stopped me in the evening. I began to cry…
“I made my mum shrink but I could do nothing, I just made the problem become bigger and bigger. I was so useless!” I cried in my heart, but tears welled up my eyes.
At that moment, the witch appeared again and said, “Do you regret about your impoliteness to your mum? She was just caring about you. Actually, I’m a fairy, I just want you to know why your mother looked at your things.” Next, she used a magic spell to turn my mum back to the normal size. The fairy told my mum, “I know parents worry about their children. But please give them freedom and their own space. Peeking shows you’re not confident about your kid, so don’t do that again.” The fairy disappeared after speaking.
“I’m not a kid now!” I murmured.
Suddenly, my mum hugged me and cried, she made me cry so. Afterwards, Dad was home and asked for the dinner, mum told Dad to phone Pizza Hut for take-away. However, when Dad was phoning, I needed to attend the ‘Good Mother Housework Training Course’ which was taught by my lovely mum. Also, my purse became lighter because of the fine of breaking things. However, I didn’t care much (I didn’t mean I was rich), because the ones I cared most were my mother and also my father from that day on.
The next morning, I stood straight during the morning assembly. Mr. Leung said on the stage, “I’ve heard many funny reasons for being late for school, such as being trapped inside a lift. But today I’ve heard an especially ridiculous reason for getting an extra holiday. That student said that her mum had shrunk the day before, so she had stayed home and taken care of her mum.” All students teased me on the playground. I could only sigh that I was pathetic… No one understood me this time, only my mum did. She wrote a letter to the school office. The school office staff phoned her and said, “Please do not be too kind to your child in giving her excuses for truancy.” Lastly, the demerit reminded me to be kind to my parents from that day on. If not, my mum might shrink or enlarge next time, and I must surrender.