Zoo Mix-Up

It was a windy Monday morning at Sunshine Zoo. Zookeeper Zack carried a big stack of animal signs to wash them. WHOOOOSH! A big gust of wind blew through! "Oh no!" cried Zack. The signs flew everywhere, landing all over the zoo—PLOP! PLUNK! CRASH! He grabbed the signs and stuck them up as fast as he could—but in all the WRONG places! Zack dusted off his hands. "There! All done!" He hurried to open the front gates just as a school bus pulled up. Soon, a group of excited kids tumbled out with their teacher, Miss Lopez. "Welcome to Sunshine Zoo!" said Miss Lopez cheerfully. "Let's meet the animals!" They walked to the first exhibit. Miss Lopez read the sign. "And here we have... the beautiful flamingos!" The kids looked into the exhibit. Their mouths dropped open. THUMP! CRASH! BOOM! The ELEPHANTS were trying to stand on one leg like flamingos! One elephant lifted her huge leg up. She wobbled... she teetered... TIMBER! She fell right into the water! SPLASH! Another elephant was balancing perfectly—for exactly two seconds. Then—THUD!—down he went! The kids burst out laughing. "Those aren't flamingos!" they giggled. "How strange!" said Miss Lopez, scratching her head. "Let's try the next exhibit." They walked to the zebra area. Miss Lopez read the sign: "Here are our colorful parrots!" The zebras were all sitting on tree branches, flapping their legs like wings! "HELLO! HELLO!" squawked a zebra, flapping harder. "Those aren't parrots!" said Miss Lopez. "THOSE AREN'T PARROTS!" repeated all the zebras together. FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! One zebra tried to fly off the branch—and just fell straight down! PLOP! Miss Lopez pulled out her guidebook and flipped through the pages frantically. "This doesn't make any sense!" They arrived at the hippo pool. Miss Lopez rubbed her eyes and looked at the sign again. "And here are our bouncy kangaroos!" BOING! BOING! SPLASH! The huge hippos were trying to HOP! They bounced up and down—THUD! THUD!—shaking the whole ground! One hippo tried to jump really high. BOING! She went up about two inches and landed—SPLASH!—in the pool, soaking everyone! The kids were laughing so hard they could barely stand up! "One more exhibit," said Miss Lopez, looking completely bamboozled. They reached the lion area. The sign said: "Meet our waddling penguins!" Inside, the big fierce lions were waddling around on their back legs! One lion lay on his belly and slid across the rocks. WHOOOOSH! Another lion tried to dive into the water pool—BELLY FLOP! A smart girl named Emma looked at the sign, then at the lions, then back at the sign. "WAIT A MINUTE!" she shouted. "Lions don't waddle! Penguins do! I know what happened! All the signs are MIXED UP!" The kids looked at each sign, then at each animal. "She's right!" they all shouted. Miss Lopez gasped. "Oh my! We need to fix this right away!" The kids raced around the zoo together. They carefully took down each wrong sign. "This elephant sign is SO heavy!" grunted two kids, carrying it together. "The zebra sign goes here!" shouted another, matching stripes to stripes. One by one, they put every sign back where it belonged. The elephant sign went to the elephants. The zebra sign went to the zebras. The hippo sign went to the hippos. The lion sign went to the lions. Perfect! When they finished, all the animals looked so happy and relieved! The elephants trumpeted proudly. TOOT! TOOT! The zebras galloped around their field. The hippos swam gracefully in their pool. The lions roared their mighty roars. ROOOAAR! "You know what?" said Emma. "The animals are so much better at being THEMSELVES!" All the kids agreed. Every animal was special just the way they were! Zookeeper Zack came running over. "Thank you for fixing my mistake!" he said. The kids cheered. It had been the funniest—and most mixed-up—zoo trip ever! The End.