Zoo Mix-Up

It was a busy morning at Sunshine Zoo. Zookeeper Zack had forgotten his glasses at home! Everything looked blurry. A school bus was arriving any minute! Zack grabbed the animal signs to put them back up. He squinted at them. He couldn't read them clearly! "Close enough!" he said, sticking them up quickly. But he put them in all the WRONG places! "Done!" Zack dusted off his hands just as the bus pulled up. A group of excited kids tumbled out with their teacher, Miss Lopez. "Welcome to Sunshine Zoo!" said Zookeeper Zack cheerfully. "Explore the zoo, meet the animals, and have loads of fun!" Excited, the children 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 standing on one leg like flamingos! One elephant lifted her huge leg up. She wobbled... she teetered... TIMBER! She fell right into the water! SPLASH! 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. "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. He just fell straight down! PLOP! Miss Lopez's jaw dropped! She 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 HOPPING! They bounced up and down. THUD! THUD! The ground shook! One hippo tried to jump really high. BOING! She went up about two inches and landed - SPLASH! - in the pool! Water soaked 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. 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 with a parrot on his shoulder. "Thank you for fixing my mistake!" he said. The parrot opened its beak. "OOH OOH AH AH!" it said like a monkey. Zack sighed. "Some are still figuring it out." The kids burst out laughing. Best zoo trip EVER! The End