Due to Corona virus the zoo animals were currently looking after themselves. Apart from the gorillas, Warren the warthog and Frankie the flamingo’s rather annoying cousin Florence, who had found the deepest, leakiest paddling pool ever invented to wallow in, it was all going pretty well.
Meanwhile, Frankie the flamingo and Clarence the crab were sitting in the ‘Big Cats’ enclosure soaking up the sun. Frankie had finally decided she should get round to fixing the toilet which was making funny gloopy sounds whenever it was flushed, but right now she was a bit busy…
“Do you remember when I said that the best way to stop you getting poo on your head when it rained was that either we all should all stop pooing or that you should go on holiday to Spain?” giggled Frankie? “Yep,” replied Clarence, very engrossed in sorting out his surgical mask. “I do.” “And then do you remember I came up with another idea which was to stop the rainwater getting into the drain in the first place and that was the one you chose?” continued Frankie excitedly. “Yep”, replied Clarence, wondering whether he should make himself a cloth mask instead. “And then”, continued Frankie I remembered all the brilliant things the zoo was doing to collect rainwater and using it for all sorts of things, like filling up my flamingo pool, washing the baby gorillas, and watering the tomatoes?” “Yep”, replied Clarence wondering whether Frankie understood quite how big 2m distance actually was, what other PPE he should get, and where exactly this conversation was going. “Well … how about using the rainwater to water those sunneryflower things?”
“???****!!!” replied Clarence, now very confused. And then he remembered. Two days ago when he had been trying to persuade Frankie to solve the mysterious case of the frog in the toilet cistern, Frankie had shown him her latest idea for a TV script called ’Five things you didn’t know about sunflowers’. It went like this…
Number 1.
They grow on the sun. That is why they are called sunflowers.
Number 2.
You have to go on a rocket into space to get them which is soooooooooooooooo coooooooooooooooooooool!
Number 3.
The sun is very very hot and your rocket would melt if it got too close to the sun.
Number 4.
They need a lot of water because the sun is very very hot.
Number 5.
The astronauts who pick them would burn into a tiny crisp because the sun is very very hot, over a billion degrees.
