A week later when making his daily check on the petri dish that he kept on the stand next to his bed, Kevin peered into the dish and could tell without a doubt that the slime mold that he was cultivating with sugar water and uncooked oats.
"I hope this will work," he said.
Suddenly, he got a reply. "Kev! Kev, is that you?"
He could hear Jared's thoughts again. "Yes, it's me," Kevin said aloud, unnecessarily since Jared could pick up his thoughts with his weird slime mold ESP.
"I feel like I have been asleep for hours," Jared said.
"Ummm... actually, Jared, you're in a petri dish and have been for the last week," Kevin said, explaining the incident back in the locker room when the janitor had almost wiped Jared from existence with a vinegar spray solution and a sponge.
Jared tried to exert some control over the conglomerate of cells. "You've got to get Wepwawet and get him to ask that judge to change me back. Even being a sheepdog's better than this!"
Kevin sighed. "Don't you think I've been trying."
"Well, keep at it..."
A knock sounded from the front door downstairs. "That might be Charlie," Kevin said. "I'll go check."
He left the room, leaving his door open. Downstairs, he greeted Charlie and a Golden Retriever. An excited Charlie grinned and said, "Meet Max!"
The retriever sniffed Charlie's hand politely. "Can we come in?" Charlie asked.
With some reluctance, Kevin swung the door wider. "Sure, but I don't have long. I...I am working on a problem for Jared."
"I just want to show you that new game," Charlie said, pulling out his phone as Kevin led them into the kitchen. They both seated themselves in chairs while the dog sprawled onto the floor beneath the table.
Before long, both boys found themselves engrossed in the new game and the dog, soon bored, rose and wandered unnoticed from the kitchen. The living room sofa looked comfortable, but a strange scent from upstairs tantalized the dog into ascending the stairs and following its nose.
Jared waited patiently... something he had been gaining, even if reluctantly, since taking on the form of a slime mold. He celebrated the fact he had such a clever brother who had been able to reconstitute him so easily. Nevertheless, he still had a beef with Wepwawet and that weird judge. When he got back into court, he meant to protest quite vigorously...
A splash of warm liquid dropped into the petri dish. The dog sniffed the dish again.
"What the..." Jared "gazed" upward and saw the wide tongue of the huge dog.
"Ahh! Go away!" Jared tried to scream.
The rough tongue scraped up the sheen of sugar water and the gelatinous oats. It didn't taste anywhere near as good as it had smelled, but that didn't keep the dog from licking the small glass dish quite clean of its contents. Finding little else of interest, the dog turned and trotted back downstairs.
Max saw his master and his friend waiting near the bottom of the stairs.
"There he is," Charlie said. "Come on, Max. Time to go home."
As soon as they had departed, Kevin hurried back to his room. "Huh...did I leave my door open," he remarked as he stepped into the room.
Nothing looked out of place, but in shock he saw that the petri dish had been wiped clean of its contents.
"MAX!" Kevin exclaimed, remembering the dog coming down the stairs just before leaving with Charlie. His best friend's dog had just licked up Jared!
His brother, first changed into a dog, then slime mold, by capricious Egyptian gods, had now been eaten by another dog. If he hadn't been so panicked, Kevin might have appreciated the irony.