12. Marvellous Medicine Number Two  |   <<   Back   |   Home   |   Next   >>

No harm intended, no profit made.

Marvellous Medicine Number Two

They were in the kitchen now and the big saucepan was on the stove. All the things Mr Snape had brought were lined up near the sink.

'Come along, my boy!' cried Mr Snape. 'Which one did you put in first?'

'This one,' Severus said. 'Goldengloss Hair Shampoo.' He emptied the bottle into the pan.

'Now the toothpaste,' Severus went on... 'And the shaving soap... and the face cream... and the nail varnish...'

'Keep at it, my boy!' cried Mr Snape, dancing round the kitchen. 'Keep putting them in! Don't stop! Don't pause! Don't hesitate! It's a pleasure, my dear fellow, to watch you work!'

One by one, Severus poured and squeezed the things into the saucepan. With everything so close at hand, the whole job didn't take him more than ten minutes. But when it was all done, the saucepan didn't somehow seem to be quite as full as it had been the first time.

'Now what did you do?' cried Mr Snape. 'Did you stir it?'

'I boiled it,' Severus siad. 'But not for long. And I stirred it as well.'

So Mr Snape lit the gas under the saucepan and Severus stirred the mixture with the same long wooden spoon he had used before. 'It's not brown enough,' Severus said. 'Wait a minute! I know what I've forgotten!'

'What?' cried Mr Snape. 'Tell me, quick! Because if we've forgotten even one tiny thing, then it won't work! At least not in the same way.'

'A quart of brown gloss paint,' Severus said. 'That's what I've forgotten.'

Mr Snape shot out of the house and into his car like a rocket. He sped down to the village and bought the paint and rushed back again. He opened the can in the kitchen and handed it to Severus. Severus poured the paint into the saucepan.

'Ah-ha, that's better,' Severus said. 'That's more like the right colour.'

'It's boiling!' cried Mr Snape. 'It's boiling and bubbling, Severus! Is it ready yet?'

'It's ready,' Severus said. 'At least I hope it is.'

'Right!' shouted Mr Snape, hopping about. 'Let's test it! Let's give some to a chicken!'

'My heavens alive, why don't you calm down a bit?' Mr Snape said, coming into the kitchen.

'Calm down?' cried Mr Snape. 'You expect me to calm down and here we are mixing up the greatest medicine ever discovered in the history of the world! Come along, Severus! Dip a cupful out of the saucepan and get a spoon and we'll give some to a chicken just to make absolutely certain we've got the correct mixture.'

Outside in the yard, there were several chickens that hadn't had any of Severus' Marvellous Medicine Number One. They were still pecking about in the dirt in that silly way chickens do.

Severus crouched down, holding out a spoonful of Marvellous Medicine Number Two. 'Come on, chicken,' he said. 'Good chicken. Chick-chick-chick.'

A white chicken with black specks on its feathers looked up at Severus. It walked over to the spoon and went peck.

The effect that Medicine Number Two had on this chicken was not quite the same as the effect produced by Medicine Number One, but it was very interesting. 'Whooosh!' shrieked the chicken and is shot six feet up in the air and came down again. Then sparks came flying out of its beak, bright yellow sparks of fire, as though someone was sharpening a knife on a grindstone inside its tummy. Then its legs began to grow longer. Its body stayed the same size but the two thin yellow legs got longer and longer and longer... and longer still...

'What's happening to it?' cried Mr Snape.

'Something's wrong,' Severus said.

The legs went on growing and the more they grew, the higher up into the air went the chicken's body. When the legs were about fifteen feet long, they stopped growing. The chicken looked perfectly absurd with its long long legs and its ordinary little body perched high up on top. It was like a chicken on stilts.

'Oh my sainted aunts!' cried Mr Snape. 'We've got it wrong!! This chicken is no good to anybody! It's all legs! No one wants chickens' legs!'

'I must have left something out,' Severus said.

'I know you left something out!' cried Mr Snape. 'Think, boy, think! What was it you left out?'

'I've got it!' said Severus.

''What was it, quick?'

'Flea powder for dogs,' Severus said.

'You mean you put flea powder in the first one?'

'Yes, dad, I did. A whole carton of it.'

'Then that's the answer!'

'Wait a minute,' said Severus. 'Did we have brown shoe polish on our list?'

'We ddi not,' said Mr Snape.

'I used that, too,' said Severus.

'Well, no wonder it went wrong,' said Mr Snape. He was already running to his car, and soon he was heading dowh the village to buy more flea powder and more shoe polish.

12. Marvellous Medicine Number Two  |   <<   Back   |   Home   |   Next   >>