Read Smelliest Day at the Zoo Online

Authors: Alan Rusbridger

Tags: #Children's Books

Smelliest Day at the Zoo (2 page)

BOOK: Smelliest Day at the Zoo
2.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Chapter Three

Mrs Crumble, the crocodile keeper, came round the corner on the way back to the Crocodile House to find Mr Raja and Mr Emblem arguing over whose poo made better fertilizer—a rhino’s or an elephant’s.

How childish
, thought Mrs Crumble.
Typical men!

But when she got back to the Crocodile House and found a trail of little round brown droppings, she had a second thought, which was,
Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all
.

Mr Crumble was a keen gardener, with a particularly fine vegetable patch full of runner beans, lettuces and—his pride and joy—prize cabbages. Or, at least, he used to win prizes for his cabbages. Recently, at a considerable knock to his pride, he had struggled to make second, or even third, place.

Mrs Crumble thought with delight how gigantic her husband’s cabbages could be this year if liberally sprinkled with some top-class crocodile manure.

She collected up all the crocodile droppings she could find into a plastic bag.

The crocodile, who had been woken up as each dropping noisily landed in Mrs Grumble’s plastic bag, watched her through half-closed eyes and thought grumpily to himself how very strange his keeper was.

Mrs Crumble left the plastic bag at the zoo gate with a big label saying ‘Arthur Crumble’ on it. And then she went back to the Crocodile House and texted her husband.

HV LEFT PCKGE @ ZOO 4 U. WOT GR8 MAN-UR 4 YR CABBGES!

Mr Crumble was in town when he picked up the text message, so he drove home via the 200 to pick up the plastic bag.

When he got home he pondered his wife’s kind message. For years he had struggled to decipher Mrs Crumble’s scribbled notes. While his wife had become rather expert at motor mechanics, it is fair to say she often struggled with her spelling. Now he had to descramble her text messages, which were often just as confusing as her notes had been.

However, this one seemed very simple: “What a great man you are for your cabbages!”

How typical of Mrs Crumble to send such a thoughtful message, knowing of his recent disappointment in the Melton Meadow Flower and Vegetable Show. He peered into the plastic bag.

“Meatballs!” he chuckled to himself. “My favourite!”And, as soon as he was home, he set about cooking a rich tomato sauce to go with his dinner.

While the sauce was simmering away, Mr Crumble carefully placed the crocodile droppings on a baking tray and drizzled a little sunflower oil over them, adding a little pepper and salt for good measure. He placed them in the oven and went out to pick an especially tasty-looking cabbage.

Back at the zoo, Mrs Crumble was feeling very pleased with her efforts and was a bit miffed not to have received at least a little thank you back from Mr Crumble. So she texted him again:

GOOD MAN-UR?

This one puzzled Mr Crumble, now back in the kitchen, as he put a knob of butter over his lightly boiled cabbage. They were very fond of each other, but it wasn’t like Mrs Crumble to go to the trouble of telling him ‘What a good man you are’ twice in one day. And why the question mark? He texted back:

GOOD WOMAN-UR

And with that he poured the tomato sauce over the crocodile droppings and sat down to eat.

Back at the zoo, Mrs Crumble frowned. Why was Mr Crumble telling her what a good woman she was?

“I don’t know,” she said out loud. “What’s he on about?” The crocodile shook his big head in disdain. His keeper seemed to be getting stranger by the minute.

In the meantime, Mr Crumble chewed enthusiastically on his first bite of crocodile poo. It tasted very funny. He tried spooning some more tomato sauce on to his fork, but it still tasted very odd indeed. He didn’t wish to hurt his wife’s feelings, so he texted once more:

DID UR MUM MAKE 1 MEATBALLS?

He picked away at some of his delicious cabbage, and thought that perhaps he should be the one to make dinner from now on. His phone peeped and he scrolled down for the response.

WOT MEATBALLS?

Mr Crumble stared at the little brown balls on the place in front of him, and cut one in half. It seemed to have half-chewed grass inside it. He texted Mrs Crumble:

IN PLSTC BAG?

This time, he didn’t try any more meatballs, but waited for the response.

NOT MEATBALLS! MANURE!

Mr Crumble stared in horror at his mobile phone, rooted to his chair as his stomach heaved and rumbled and gurgled. Then he rushed over to the kitchen sink where, I’m afraid to say, he was violently sick.

Back at the zoo, Mrs Crumble couldn’t believe her husband was so stupid. She sent him a final text:

WOT A DAFT MAN-UR

“He’s eaten your poo!” she screeched at the crocodile.

The crocodile eyed Mrs Crumble sorrowfully. She was obviously stark-raving bonkers. He turned round and decided it might be a good time to go back to sleep.

Chapter Four

Back in his office, Mr Pickles was gazing out of his window, toying with the idea of catching up with the Test Match score. Suddenly—CRASH!—the window shattered, showering broken glass all over the office.

“What on earth is—?” shouted Mr Pickles.

But the question froze on his lips. He could see at a glance what was going on. Half a dozen chimps had broken loose from Mr Chisel, their keeper, and escaped from the Chimp House and were running riot in Mr Pickles’s prize flower beds.

It turned out that the flower beds were a much better place to play than the chimp house, which to tell the truth, the chimps had been getting rather bored with lately They had discovered a number of round balls hidden among the flower beds—too small and hard for football, too big for cricket. But just perfect for throwing at each other.

And even better for throwing at the head zoo keeper.

Mr Pickles ran out of his office, shaking his fist. He felt really quite cross. The chimps, however, thought he was urging them on. Brilliant! Mr Pickles was obviously much more fun than Mr Chisel—maybe they could even swap keepers after this.

One chimp picked up a large ball of elephant dung.
THUD!
It landed on the top of Mr Pickles’s head with a painful thump. The chimps screeched with laughter. Mr Pickles was such a sport for joining in the fun.

“I’m so sorry about this,” gasped Mr Chisel. “I was just trying to give them some air while I cleaned their house.”

Mr Pickles spun round and saw (far too late) another chimp with his foot in the middle of one of Mr Raja’s big runny piles of rhino poo. With an elegant flick of his foot, the chimp scooped up the soggy mound and splattered it slap bang in the middle of Mr Pickles’s horrified face.

For a few seconds the head keeper of Melton Meadow Zoo stood frozen like a statue. Slowly he opened one eye, then the other—revealing two white holes in an otherwise brown and slippery face. Three or four drops of poo slid off his chin on to his clean white shirt. A large bluebottle settled on his nose.

He opened his mouth, spitting out little flecks of poo from his lips and teeth and setting off a fresh round of amused screeches from the chimps.

But no words would come to the head keeper. For the first time in his long life Mr Pickles was speechless.

Glaring through his brown poo mask he retreated to his office, dodging, with varying success, one or two elephant-dung missiles as he went.

Miss Busby, the zoo secretary, managed to suppress a snigger as Mr Pickles dripped into the outer office.

“Shall I run you a bath?”

BOOK: Smelliest Day at the Zoo
2.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Ransom by Terri Reed
Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
Amanda Scott by Reivers Bride
Husband Hunting 101 by Rita Herron
A Play of Isaac by Frazer, Margaret
Collected Stories by Peter Carey
Avondale V by Toby Neighbors