Zobe Wan Gavinci at the Zoo

It’s a very special day today. Zobe Wan Gavinci is going to the zoo. Isn’t that exciting?

She got up very early to get ready. She put on her best blue dress. Then decided to take it off again. She is a crazy little girly.

She was a little confused as to why she was missing a tooth, but decided not to argue. We all know Jude would beat Zobe in a fight, so she held her tongue. Then she let go of her tongue cos it was slimy. Sorry, unneccessary comment there...

She ate her fish cakes for breakfast with glee, and then made a nice sloppy bowl of porridge for her baby brother.

As she doesn’t actually have a baby brother, and anyway he doesn’t like porridge, she had to eat it all herself and got very very full.

“Feel free to chip in anywhere,” said Ermintrude.

“Chip,” replied the toaster.

Fortunately she didn't have chips too otherwise she would have burst everywhere. And then there would have been fish cake and sloppy porridge all over the place, and that would not have been good.

Setting off for the zoo (having put her best blue dress back on again - no gratuitous nudity in this story)
“She can't have her blue dress on ‘cos she is naked in most of the pictures we have, or at least not wearing a blue dress,” said a dancing hippo.
“Good point,” shouted Ben from Whittington (a.k.a. the middle of nowhere), “scratch that last bit then.”
“Hey! That was harsh,” said Judy, “how did the evil shrinking pixie get to be a narrator?”


Setting off for the zoo (having put her cylindrical brown dress on - still no gratuitous nudity in this story), Zobe Wan hopped onto the bus for the short journey to the zoo.

“Hang on two tics.”

Tic

Tic

“OK, go for it :-)”

Zobe stepped off the bus at the zoo, remembering to let it stop first (this time).

The bus drove away. Bye bye bus!

Oh no!!! She had forgotten to hop. She looked around to check that no one had noticed. Phew!

She hopped to the entrance and paid to go in (what a good little Zobe she is!)

Bored of the long build up, Zobe arrived at the zoo.

Oh, she’s already done that

“Keep up!” Judy said, giving Ben a withering look.

“You’re making me go backwards and forwards,” complained Zobe, “which is very difficult if you have to hop everywhere.”

She got into the zoo and set off to visit the animals.

Being a sensible Zobe Wan she headed straight for the penguins, intending to steal one and take it home as a pet.

Unfortunately we’ve neglected to make a zobe-penguin pic, so we shall move swiftly on.

On realising that she hadn't brought a carrier bag and would have to eat the penguin to smuggle it out she thought better of it and decided to continue on her way.

“You just had to talk about the penguins again, didn’t you!?”
“Why do we bother Judy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you talking to yourself, Judy?”
“Well- look what the alternative is.”
“Ouch!”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it. Hi Ben”

Ben refused to answer. He’d gone in a huff with Jude for being so horrible. But he got over it soon and the story was continued.

So Zobe Wan decided to visit the giraffe instead. With a complete absence of withering looks or insults, Jude and Ben agreed that she hopped over to the giraffe enclosure and, unfortunately, forgot to stop, hurtling straight over the fence and landing at the feet of the giraffe.

“Whee,” cried Zobe as she summersaulted gracefully through the air.

“Yeah, as if,” replied the narrators. We’ve already said that you hurtle over the fence. Don’t try to make it sound better.

Zobe hung her head in shame.

Horrified at this terrible turn of events, Jude apologised profusely for being so insulting earlier, promised not to cast any more withering looks, at least for the rest of the story, and both her and Ben forgot about Zobe who was getting to know the giraffe better.

“I’m not too sure ‘bout this apologizing malarkey,” said the giraffe, “seems very out of character to me.”

Luckily, a warden was on hand to give the giraffe a slap, and it shut up.

Ben proudly sent a picture of Zobe with the penguins. It was rather cool, but messed up the story slightly since a lot of effort (well, a couple of lines) were taken to explain how there were no pictures of Zobe with the penguins. Judy considered going back and changing it, but decided better of it. Instead, she sent Zobe on a detour back to the penguins, and then let her hop to the giraffes again.

“Can I summersault gracefully into the enclosure this time?” pleaded Zobe…

“oh, go on then”

Zobe summersaulted gracefully into the giraffe enclosure.

Did anything exciting happen there?

Well, Zobe had her hair nibbled. Lovely!

“We need to include the word rudimentary,” Ben reminded Judy.

“Look, you just have!” said Judy

“Problem solved!”

Having not been notified of this part of the story, Ben had in fact come up with a totally different way of including the word rudimentary...

“I think the giraffe should say it,” he wrote
“He could pull out a dictionary, and look up rudimentary.”

RUDIMENTARY:
"elementary; crude, primitive or makeshift; in an early or arrested stage of development"

“Strangely applicable,” thought the giraffe

"Did anything exciting happen in the giraffe enclosure" asked Jude again, "or shall we leave it on a cliff hanger".

"Definitely a cliff hanger" replied Ben

"Hang on a minute" screamed Zobe, "I'm not hanging off any cliffs."

But it was too late.

Will Zobe escape from dangling by her hair from a cliff?

Where did the cliff come from anyway?

And will Jude and Ben manage to include the words "lithuanian", "muffin" and "rhodedendron" in the next installment?