A story by Class SA

At Badsey First School

[and Peter.]

[pictures to follow shortly...]

In a zoo, in the middle of England, in a hot hot cage, in a zoo, there lived a tiger.  His full name was Dolphin, but everyone called him Fred.

Fred was bored.  There was nothing much to do in the zoo, except for pacing and prowling around his cage.  All he could do to cheer himself up was scare the children that came to see him.  He enjoyed that, but he was still bored, and he wished he could go away from the zoo, to Africa.

He planned his big journey, and began to put special food in his big bag, ready for the trip.  There were cheese sandwiches, bananas, cakes, biscuits, dead snakes, raw steak, and tarantulas – all his favourite food.  That night, when Fred had been locked in his cage, he stayed awake, and when it was dark, he broke a hole in the glass in his cage with his claws.  He bounced through the hole, and scat out into the night.  But he didn’t run away.  First he crept to the keeper’s house.  The keeper was fast asleep, and snoring, so Fred took all of his keys.  He pulled the keeper, still snoring, all the way to a cage and locked him away.

Then Fred went round the zoo, opening every cage.  All the animals came out, and they ran away, into the town, rushing and roaring.  They went to a shop and ate everything.  The elephants went to another shop, and bought loads of chocolate, and soon all of the animals were full up, with tummy ache.

As they ran, they found their way blocked by a huge giant with big shoes and huge glasses.  ‘You can’t go here’ he roared, ‘this is my land’.

Fred got his magic wand form his bag and waved it.

‘Fishy wishy, go small, go smaller.  Soon you will be as tiny as a mouse!’

The giant shrank down until he was tiny, and Fred ate him all up, spitting out his shoes, his clothes and his glasses.

Fred crept through the long grass, looking for other animals.  He found a bike, and cycled as fast as he could all the way to the beach.

Fred came to the sea, and dived in.  But he could not swim.  He was sinking and spluttering, when a dolphin came swimming and diving along.  She took Fred on her back, and flipped him onto the beach.

Just as he was shaking the water from his fur, Fred heard the keeper coming, and he ran as fast as he could, pouncing up a a tall tree to hide.  At the top, there was a big nest, but as Fred was just about to hide in there, he realised that it was the home of a big black tarantula, and a kissing scorpion.  They were there…..kissing.  Fred and the scorpion looked at each other, and Fred jumped straight down the tree, and ran.

As he ran, he met a crowd of giant blue ants, and leaped over them.

He arrived again at the sea.  Behind him were the ants, the scorpion and the keeper.  Fred had no choice but to jump again into the sea, shouting for the dolphin to help.  She swam over, and took Fred the tiger safely on her back. 

The dolphin swam as fast as she could.  She carried him all the way to Africa.  By the time he arrived, Fred was very tired.  But he was so happy to see the beautiful countryside of Africa.  A man came up to him.

‘Tiger, tiger’, he said.  ‘You have come so far, you must be exhausted.  I will look after you..  Here, come to my home’

The man gave Fred a beautiful place to live, with a big pyramid, some sand to play in, wonderful trees and rocks to explore, plenty of food, and lots of people to scare.  Fred would never be bored again.  He looked out at Africa, and gave a long loud happy ROAR.

As far as we know, Fred is still there, living happily.  No-one knows what has happened to the keeper, but he has not yet arrived in Africa.