The day my dad drowned the school!

"Do you have all the ingredients, dad?" asked Florence as she clicked her seatbelt into place.
"Yeah, yeah," her dad sighed and started up the car. "But I ran out of sugar yesterday."
"But the sugar is the main ingredient, dad. You can't make Sugar Mice without sugar," hissed Florence.
"Calm yourself down, girl. I got some sugar replacement, from a mate of mine. It'll be fine."
Florence huffed at her father's disregard of how important the day was for her. She didn't want him to make a complete fool of himself in front of her friends and the teachers, again. She still hadn't forgiven him for flooding the school gymnasium the last time he was involved in 'Parent Participation' month. She folded her arms crossly and muttered under her breath "Sugar replacement. This is gonna be the worse day of my life again."
She turned away from him and stared out of the window. She was starting to wish she had stayed in bed or had the foresight to come up with a plausible reason to stay off school, like a fever, or something. Too late now.
When the car pulled up alongside the school, Florence leapt out and dashed toward the entrance without a word to her father.
"I'll see you inside then, I guess," he shouted out to her.
Florence ignored him. She ignored him all the way through assembly, even though she could see him sat at the front all fidgety and awkward next to the teachers, and she ignored him through her first two classes. But after break time there was no avoiding the inevitable.
"Right, time for some fun now," said Miss Berenger, the Primary three teacher. "Today we have Florence's father with us. Stand up, Florence."
Reluctantly Florence stood up and then hurriedly sat down again, hoping she didn't attract any more attention to herself than she needed.
"And this is her father, Mr Baker," Miss Berenger continued. "He'll be making Sugar Mice with us."
Florence's classmates cheered and clapped their hands together . One of them, Damien Cleaver, the school prankster who loved nothing better than to throw spiders at the squeamish girls, said, "I wonder if he's gonna flood the kitchen this time."
If that wasn't enough for Florence to flush a deep shade of red, watching her father doing his fish wave to the class with his hands made her want to curl up into a ball and roll out of the door. She might have found it funny when she was three for about a nanosecond, but that was five years ago.
"Okay calm down now please," said Miss Berenger. "Can everyone please go and put on their aprons and then stand round the table."
Florence sloped off and snatched her blue striped apron from her coat hook at the back of the class. Everyone except Florence was excited as they tied their aprons round their waists and eagerly waited round the table.
"So the first thing you do," said her dad as he opened the plastic shopping bag and pulled out the ingredients, "Is check you have what you need."
As he pulled out the packet of 'sugar substitute' a shower of coins and notes flew out of the bag and bounced across the table.
Florence's classmates screamed and scrambled for the loose change. Some handed what they'd picked up over, but a couple pocketed what they'd found.
"We get paid as well," said Damien Cleaver to Robbie Wright, the boy next to him. "Bonus!"
"Whoops," said Florence's dad. "Forgot I left that in the bag. Anyway, the next thing you do is take your bowl and whisk and beat up an egg white till it's nice and fluffy."
Florence cringed as her dad tried once, twice, three times to separate the yolk from the egg. And when he finally managed it, he beat the egg white so hard most of it ended up on Miss Berenger's dress. Big blobs of white fluff slid down her skirt. Miss Berenger tried to be nice about it but Florence could tell from the way she marched off to clean herself up that she was indignant.
"Then you add the sugar and a couple of drops of food colouring."
Again her dad's lack of dexterity caused a giant mess as he struggled with the delicate screw top to the food colouring bottle. His clumsy fingers were so big they snapped the neck of the bottle causing blue liquid to pour over his hands and onto the table. Everyone leapt back in case they were sprayed and began to laugh when Mr Baker tried to clear up the mess by scooping it back into the bottle. With one blue hand and a bowl full of a gloopy blue mixture he began to stir until it all came together in one large, doughy lump.
"Now comes the fun part," he said with a toothy grin and a chuckle as he pulled off a chunk of the sugary mixture and began to mould it with his fingers. He placed it on a baking sheet and rammed two silver edible balls into what he claimed was the head. “And there you have it. A mouse.”
The entire class silently scrutinised the lonely sugary blob before giving each other bemused looks. Mr Baker’s creation looked more like a legless anteater with wonky eyes than a mouse. Florence wanted to mash it with her fist. Once again she would be the teased because of her “stupid” dad.
“Wonderful,” said Miss Berenger, hesitantly. “Thank you Mr Baker, for that demonstration and creative interpretation of a mouse. Okay, everyone now take a lump of the blue sugar dough and create your own mice.”
Florence pulled off a lump and rolled it in the palms of her hands whilst her classmates feverishly sculpted theirs.
“I’m not gonna make girly mice, I’m gonna make martians,” announced Damien.
“I’m making a T-Rex,” said Robbie.
“Well, I’m making a horse with mine,” declared Elizabeth from across the room.
Florence stared down at the lump in her hands. It looked more like a snake than a mouse and it had turned her hands blue.
“When you’ve finished place your creation on the baking sheet,” said Miss Berenger. “Then after lunch, once they’ve had the chance to harden, we can eat them. Now I’d like you all to thank Mr Baker for taking the time out to come to see us today.”
“Thank you Mr Baker,” said everyone, except Florence who was watching her father frantically trying to scrub the blue food colouring from his hands in the art sinks.
He held up a hand and waved back to the class.
 
“Well that went well,” said Florence’s dad as he sat down beside her in the school yard.
”Almost well,” Florence mumbled as she munched on a sandwich.
Her dad stared down at his hands. They looked like they’d been in the freezer.
“It’ll come off soon enough,” he said as a shrill scream made him and Florence jerk round.
Milicent Bogward came tearing out of the classroom, screaming and shaking her hands through her hair. “Get it off me, get it off me,” she cried.
Florence leapt up as Miss Berenger, breathless and shaking, appeared in the doorway.
“What’s going on?” said Mr Baker.
Miss Berenger stared at Florence’s dad. She tried to speak but nothing but squeaks came out of her mouth.
Florence ran inside the classroom and was barely able to believe what she saw. The sugar sculptures had come to life and were running amok round the classroom.
Stacey's kangaroo was bouncing from desk to desk knocking books, pencil cases, and lunch boxes onto the floor. Cameron's tarantula was spinning a giant sugar web across the classroom. Robbie's T-Rex was trying to force its way through the bars of the Ernie the hamster's cage causing a terrified Ernie to bury himself under the sawdust. Damian's martian was shooting sugar bullets from its sugar ray gun. Elizabeth's horse was galloping across the floor leaving sugar poops on the linoleum. Two sugar cars were racing round the chair and table legs, a sugar budgie was flying round the room-which Florence presumed was responsible for tormenting Milicent-and Florence's snake was trying to slither into the air vent. Florence dove for the rogue candy and grabbed the tail. She tugged so hard though she pulled out not only the snake but the air vent as well.
The commotion inside the school had now attracted the attention of all the pupils. Those that couldn't get into the classroom to witness the carnage were pressed against the windows peering inside. Damian was ecstatic when he saw his martian shooting everything and was goading him on. Milicent was still screaming from what Florence could hear and Miss Berenger was a nervous wreck. She was huddled in the corner of the room, guarding her face from the dive-bombing budgie.
"No more, no more, no more," she mumbled to herself.
"What did you do, dad?" bellowed Florence. "I knew I couldn't trust you. I knew you'd embarrass me again."
"I don't know. I swear it," her dad pleaded with open arms.
Florence dismissed him with a wave of her hand. She snatched up the remains of the packet of sugar substitute and read the label.
"Toppit and Layton's Magical Grains, mix and watch. Dad, this isn't sugar, where did you get this?" she snapped and threw the packet at him.
"I told you. My mate gave it to me. He said he got it down the flea market but never used it. He did say it might be out of date though."
"I don't care what he said, dad. Look at what you've done to my school," she cried. "There are sugar soldiers over there trying to bomb Martin's sugar submarine and a sugar bear that's climbing into our fish tank. You have to do something."
Her dad stared at her, the chaos around him and then scrutinised packet in his hand. As Florence waited for him to answer her his eyes lit up. "I have it!" he beamed. "I need a hose pipe. Now!"
"What for, dad?" Florence asked sceptically.
"No times for questions, Florence, just do it."
Florence ran out of the class and into the janitor's closet and returned with a length of green piping. Her dad grabbed the hose from her, shoved one end on one of the art sink taps and turned the tap on. When the water came through her dad pinched the end of the hose and sprayed the entire class from floor to ceiling. Everything was drenched in water. All the art prints and collages on the wall began to peel, all the clothes and jackets hanging on the hooks at the end were soaked, the floor looked like a swimming pool but more importantly the live sugar sculptures began to dissolve. When they finally disappeared and order was restored all the kids that watched the excitement unfold moaned that it was over. Miss Berenger unfurled herself from her refuge behind her desk and although delighted she was no longer under attack she was horrified by the fact her classroom looked like it had been hit by a freak tidal wave.
Her dad turned off the tap and dusted his hands. "I think that's got them."
Florence looked at him. She wanted to hit him but instead she threw her arms round his waist and hugged him. "Well done, dad!" she said.
Damian Cleaver sloshed through the puddles of water with his hands on his hips and said, "I told you he'd flood something!"