Daisy and the Trouble with Zoos (14 page)

I even promised I'd take him to school with me so that he could learn how to read and write and skip and everything.

I bet none of the penguins at the zoo know how to read and write. Or skip.

But Mum still made me take Findus back.

That's
the trouble with mums whose children have adopted baby penguins
: they're just not fair!

When we got back to the zoo, the zoo was on amber alert. If a lion or a rhinoceros had been missing, then it would have been a red alert, but as it was only a baby penguin, it was just an amber one.

My mum's face was on red alert though when she gave Findus back. She said it was ever so embarrassing, and she was ever so EVER SO sorry, and I hadn't meant any harm, and I'd just misunderstood what ‘adopt an animal' meant.

WHICH ISN'T MY FAULT!

The zoo were OK about it. They said they were just pleased to have Findus back. In fact, I'm not really sure what all the fuss was about.

After we'd dropped Gabby and Dylan off, Mum's face went all kind of strange and funny looking.

Then she started talking to herself.

“Out of all the mums in all the world, guess WHOSE daughter kidnaps a penguin from the zoo?” she said.

I decided I wouldn't say anything for a while; at least until we'd got
back into the house and she'd had a cup of tea.

Trouble is, her face still looked kind of strange and funny, even after a cup of tea.

And after three crunchy creams!

So I decided I'd go upstairs to my bedroom and play with my birthday presents for a while.

The
trouble with birthday presents
is they're not as good as baby penguins.

Even magic sets with actual wands aren't as good as baby penguins.

So I wasn't really in the right mood to play with my birthday presents.

After about an hour, I went back
downstairs to see if Mum's face had got any better.

It hadn't. It had got worse.

“DAISY!” she growled. “DON'T YOU EVER STEAL A BABY PENGUIN FROM THE ZOO AGAIN!” she said. “IT'S A GOOD JOB IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY,” she said, “OR … OR … WELL, I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'D HAVE DONE.”

Then her face went even stranger and funnier. Plus growlier.

“PROMISE ME, DAISY!” she said. “PROMISE ME YOU WILL NEVER STEAL A BABY PENGUIN FROM A ZOO AGAIN … OR A BABY CROCODILE OR A BABY ELEPHANT OR A BABY ANYTHING!”

So I promised.

I was going to double promise, but before I could say the words, our front doorbell rang.

Nanny and Grampy had arrived, with my special home-made birthday zoo cake!

The
trouble with special home-made birthday zoo cakes
is sometimes the penguins on the icing look like zebras.

Especially if the person who's done them is really old. Nanny said she'd done all the penguins on the icing without copying, but apart from them being black and white, they still
looked like zebras to me.

The candles looked like candles though, and I had a really good time blowing out seven more all over again!

Then everyone sang “Happy Birthday” AGAIN!

And then Nanny and Grampy gave me ANOTHER present!