I grabbed my bags of monster fur and my science notebook and went into the kitchen. I started writing down all the bits of my experiment so I wouldn’t forget what I’d done. It would probably take a day or two before I could even tell if the mold wasn’t growing on some of my test fur. I could definitely forget a lot in two days.
QUESTION:
What will stop the mold from growing on Gorp’s fur?
Now I needed to make my guess. Which preservative did I think would work? Most of the stuff in the kitchen used salt. It seemed to work for an awful lot of things. So it would probably work on monster fur too.
HYPOTHESIS:
I think salt will stop the mold from growing on Gorp’s fur.
All right. Now to decide how much of each preservative to add. I needed to add the same amount each time. Let’s see. Maybe two teaspoons would be enough? That seemed good to me.
PROCEDURE:
1. Put the Same amount of Gorp’s fur in each ziplock bag.
2. Don’t add anything to one bag. Add 2 teaspoons of oil to another. Add 2 teaspoons of vinegar to another. Add 2 teaspoons of salt to another. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar to another.
3. Seal the bags.
4. Put the bags in the same place in the barn and check every day to See if mold grows.
Phew. That was a lot of writing. I shook out my hand.
First, I sealed the bag with nothing but fur in it. I labeled it so I could remember that it was the one where I didn’t add anything. The nothing bag should grow mold like normal. In a few days, I could hold it next to the other bags to see if they were doing a better job of stopping the mold.
I got a new bag and added two teaspoons of vinegar and swished it around until all of the monster fur in the bag was wet. I crinkled up my nose. Blech. I quickly sealed the bag so I wouldn’t have to smell it anymore. I labeled it vinegar. I did the same thing for the oil bag.
Things were going just fine until I added sugar to the fourth bag.
“Ergh! This isn’t working, Sassafras. The sugar keeps falling to the bottom of the bag. Most of it isn’t even touching the fur.” Maybe it would be fine? No. It was definitely bugging me that it wasn’t coating the fur like the vinegar and oil had.
Whump!
Suddenly a big ball of fluffy fur was next to me on the kitchen counter. I was about to yell “Sassafras! Off the counter!” when I realized he was bumping his head against the jelly jar. That was weird. Sassafras liked to eat bugs, not jelly!
I popped him down off the counter. Maybe he was trying to tell me to put the jelly back in the fridge? I picked up the jar and glanced over the ingredients one last time. Oh! Water!
I turned around and picked up the can of beans. It had water too. Right. The beans used salt mixed in water, and the jelly used sugar mixed in water. Of course!
I added two teaspoons of water and two teaspoons of salt to a little bowl, and two teaspoons of water and two teaspoons of sugar to another little bowl. I stirred them both really well. Then I added two teaspoons of the salt water to the salt bag and two teaspoons of the sugar water to the sugar bag. This time when I swished the ingredients around, the sugar and salt water coated the monster fur instead of falling to the bottom of the bag. In my science journal, I wrote down the change I’d made to the sugar and salt bags.
I clapped my hands together. Perfect! I was ready to move everything to the barn.
Just then my dad walked into the kitchen. I froze. Mom had told me that Dad couldn’t see anything magical. Would these bags look empty to him? He’d probably think this was the weirdest experiment ever.
Dad walked over and ruffled my hair. “Experimenting again, Zoey? What’s this one about?” He glanced over my journal notes. “Monster fur? That’s a cute idea. Are you running a pretend experiment?”
“Ummm . . .”
He lifted up a bag to the light. “It might make it more fun if you had some actual fur in there. Maybe Sassafras could donate some?”
Sassafras growled. I laughed. The bags did look empty to my dad!
“That’s a great idea, Dad! Thanks,” I chirped.
After my dad left, I leaned down and whispered to Sassafras, “Don’t worry, you can keep your fur.”
Then I gathered up all of my supplies and headed out to the barn. As I laid everything on the barn desk, I thought of poor Gorp’s tears. If the things I was trying didn’t stop the mold from growing on his fur, there wouldn’t be enough time to run another experiment before the Monster Ball. And if Gorp was still moldy, he’d stay home from the dance. Again. My heart dropped. He had to go. This experiment had to work!
