Last Sunday, when I was still in my dreams, I felt someone pulling my hair very lightly. I woke up and saw nothing, so I turned my head but nearly squashed something that was on my pillow! Everything was blurry to me if I hadn’t got my glasses on, so I had to squint my eyes to see what the thing was. Shocked, I screamed at a high-pitched voice when I took a closer look. The thing on my pillow was actually my mum, but only 20 cm tall!
I still couldn’t react after such a shock when my mum started talking. I wasn’t concentrating on the words, so I only caught a few words, ‘wizard’, ‘spell’, ‘shrunk’. Then I knew what had happened. A wizard had caused a spell on my mum, so she shrunk into 20 cm tall. Well, it was my duty to take care of Mum until she could change back to her normal size.
I was so miserable as I’d never taken care of my mum before. I didn’t know what to do so I wanted to give up. But looking at my helpless mum made me force my silly idea away. I decided to take good care of her to thank her for what she had done to me for these 14 years.
First, I thought of giving her a bath, like how she helped me when I was young. I found a bowl and poured in some warm water. I tested the water and helped my mum in cautiously, as I was scared that I might hurt her if I put too much force on her. Washing her hair was no easy task. I had to make sure that no shampoo would get into her eyes and I wouldn’t hurt her. Washing her body was no better either, as the soap was quite big so it’s hard to rub it against her tender skin.
It was just then I thought of the most important question: how was I going to find clothes to suit my mum’s size? I found some Barbie clothes and tried to put them on my mum.
‘Hey, stop poking in my eye!’
‘Sorry, mum.’
‘This dress is too short, grab me another one.’
‘This one?’
‘No! This is even shorter!’
Soon, it was the noon time. I went to figure out something to eat. I cooked some corn but then remembered it’s too big for mum to bite. So in the end, I fed her one by one until she was full.
After lunch, I read stories to Mum like what she did when I was little, so that she could stay happy in the fairy tales and forget all the misery.
At last, the evening came. Suddenly, my house was filled with smoke and a wizard appeared. There were tears in his eyes. Mum then turned back to her normal size.
The wizard happened to want to train children to care more about their parents. That’s why he set up such a task for me.
I felt so guilty that I didn’t care much about my mother before. I decided to do better from then on.
Chong Mei Sze
2C 2014-15