Annie B and I looked at one another and dissolved into giggles.
‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ I said. ‘It’s just sorbolene cream and toothpaste.’
‘Right,’ she said, bewildered. ‘Well, once you’ve finished smoothing random products on your faces, would you like to help set up the water slide?’
The moisturiser was quickly forgotten.
We raced to the backyard and set to work assembling the tarp, attaching the hose and slopping sunscreen on our arms and legs.
‘What are you lot up to?’ Joe poked his head over the fence, his clippers in hand.
‘Water slides!’ Annie B and I cried.
‘Water, fun!’ said Max, jumping up and down.
Dad strode over to the fence. ‘Would you like to pop over for a cuppa?’
While the grown-ups chatted, Annie B, Max and I took turns running up to the tarp, then launching ourselves onto our bellies and sliding all the way to the end.
After a few rounds of sliding, I noticed that the sunscreen ending up on the tarps was having a fantastic effect upon the slipperiness of the slide. It was oozy and slimy, and helped shoot us along really quickly.
It gave me an idea.
‘I just need to duck upstairs!’
I didn’t notice any hair-flicking or wrinkle reduction after we used my homemade wrinkle cream as a ‘slip ‘n’ slide’ lubricant, but I did notice a lot of smiles and laughter.
So, maybe anti-wrinkle cream does make people happy, after all.
Thank you to my family and friends, for all your encouragement and support throughout the process of writing this book. A special thanks to my husband, James, for allowing me to bounce endless ideas off him, and to my two lovely children, whose energy and antics are always inspiring. I hope you enjoy reading this book, in a few years’ time.
Thanks also to my writing groups, who critiqued parts of the manuscript at different stages – my SCBWI middle-grade critique group and my Write Links junior fiction group. All the feedback helped to make the story stronger, and going through the process with such a supportive group of fellow writers made all the difference. A special thanks to Lyn, Cherri and Melissa who kindly did a beta read of the entire manuscript – I feel very lucky to have been part of such a great group.
A big thank you also to my agent, Sarah McKenzie, for championing the story, and for finding the manuscript such a fantastic home. It has been great working with you throughout the process.
Thank you also to everyone from the amazing PRH team, who helped to transform my manuscript into a proper, real-life book! A special thanks to my publisher, Zoe Walton, and my editor, Mary Verney, for all your guidance, feedback and support. Mary, your never-ending enthusiasm for Edie’s adventures and your willingness to field all my queries is truly appreciated. Thanks also to the wonderfully-talented Sandy Flett, for capturing Edie and her adventures so perfectly (and hilariously).
Finally, a big thanks to you, the reader, for picking up this book. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it!
Charlotte is an Adelaide-based writer who worked as a civil engineer and physics teacher, before rediscovering her love for children’s literature. Along with the Edie’s Experiments middle-grade series, she is also the author of the picture book All Bodies are Good Bodies. Her favourite things include autumn leaves, family bike rides and travel.
Sandy Flett is an illustrator and author who loves to create cartoons and kooky characters. Sandy has illustrated the middle grade children’s books Edie’s Experiments and Juno Jones, and is the creator and presenter of the internationally successful children’s drawing channel on YouTube, Sandy Flett’s Kids Art School.
‘What happened to the hot water?’
Dad stormed down the hallway, a towel wrapped around his hips. ‘Did you turn it off again, Edie?’ He thundered into the kitchen and stood next to the table, crossing his arms. A droplet of water from his elbow dripped onto my maths homework.
‘No, I didn’t do it,’ I said.
He cocked his head to the side. ‘Really?’ His scruffy blond hair, which typically sticks out in a million different directions (just like my brother Max’s hair), was wet and flat against his head. He looked a bit like a drenched seal.
I shook my head adamantly. ‘It wasn’t me, Dad.’ I’d turned off the hot water three times already that weekend (twice when Mum was in the shower and once when Dad was taking too long), but on this occasion I was innocent.
‘Well, what happened then?’ Dad said, raising an eyebrow. ‘All of a sudden the warm water stopped and I was blasted with ice-cold Arctic water! It gave me the biggest fright!’
‘I know,’ I said. I’d heard him shout. He’d sounded like a drenched seal too. ‘But it wasn’t me,’ I repeated. ‘It was Max.’
Dad’s eyes bulged. ‘Max? Max turned off the hot water? The one who’s trying to push a crayon up his nose?’
He pointed to where my brother Max was sitting on the floor, intent on fitting his purple crayon up his right nostril. When he heard his name, he dropped his crayon and grinned up at Dad. It was the same smile that Dad usually has. (When he hasn’t recently been blasted by an icy stream of water, that is.)
‘I did boost him up to reach the switch,’ I admitted. The hot water switch in the laundry was far too high for a two-year-old to reach on their own. Max is only about 87.2 centimetres tall, after all. (Maybe 87.4 centimetres by now, since it was last month that we measured him.)
Dad went to open his mouth, but before he could say anything Mum struggled through the front door, laden with grocery bags.
She stopped short when she saw Dad standing in a puddle of water, a towel around his waist. ‘Did Edie turn off the hot water again?’ She was trying not to smile, but the corners of her mouth were twitching.
‘No, apparently it was Max this time.’ Dad crossed his arms.
Max nodded his head, his shaggy blond hair shaking all over the place. He jumped up and sprinted to Mum. ‘It me! It me!’ He looked so excited to be the culprit.
Mum dropped her bags and scooped Max into her arms. ‘Oh, it was you, was it?’
‘Yay, yay,’ he said, still nodding enthusiastically.
‘See, I told you,’ I said to Dad.
‘Great. Another environmentalist in the house,’ he said tickling Max’s belly. Max shrieked with laughter as he dropped from Mum’s arms and sprinted back to his crayons.
‘Your shower was over four minutes,’ I said, gesturing to the magnetic timer on the front of the fridge. I’d stuck it there on Friday, when Mum and Dad agreed to take part in my Speedy Showers Experiment. It was a special weekend experiment I’d designed for the homework that my teacher Mr Zhu had set on Thursday. And so far, it was going great. (Although, I have to say, Dad wasn’t the biggest fan.)
Dad’s jaw dropped as he glanced at the screen. ‘Six minutes, thirty-three seconds? No way! That thing must be broken.’ He yanked the timer off the fridge and started pressing buttons. It was the second time he’d accused the timer of malfunctioning that weekend.
Mum tapped her chin. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said. ‘How about we go with a quick knock on the door, rather than turning the hot water off entirely?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘It might be less . . . alarming.’
‘Hmm . . .’ I turned to Max. ‘What do you think?’ Seeing as he was my lab partner in this experiment, I figured he deserved a say.
But Max wasn’t listening – he was engrossed in his crayons again. This time he was trying to fit a green crayon between his toes.
‘All right, we’ll give it a go,’ I agreed. We could always revert to turning off the hot water switch, if need be.
‘Great.’ Dad exhaled. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he continued, twirling on his heel. ‘I’m going to go have a nice hot, steamy, three-hour bubble bath.’
Mum and I looked at one another.
‘Da-ad, no!’ I called.
He poked his head back around the door. ‘Just joking,’ he said, his signatur
e cheeky grin fully restored. ‘I wanted to see what you’d say.’
I sighed. Sometimes it was hard work being a scientist in this household.
PUFFIN BOOKS
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Penguin Random House Australia is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, in 2020
Text copyright © Charlotte Barkla 2020
Illustrations copyright © Sandy Flett 2020
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, published, performed in public or communicated to the public in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd or its authorised licensees.
Cover illustration by Sandy Flett
Cover design by Rebecca King © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Internal design and typesetting by Midland Typesetters, Australia
ISBN 9781760147273
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