Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Some words about this Daisy book
Daisy and the Trouble with Kittens
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Daisy’s Trouble Index
Daisy and the Trouble with Coconuts
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Daisy’s Trouble Index
Daisy’s Kittens Quiz!
Daisy’s Coconuts Quiz!
Test your memory!
Daisy’s Secret Code!
Daisy’s Tasty Toffee Apples
Match the Spanish
Strawberry Milk Lollies
Answers
About the Author
Also by Kes Gray
Copyright
About the Book
Daisy’s in double the trouble this summer!
DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH KITTENS: Daisy is going on holiday to Spain! It’s so exciting! She’s never seen a palm tree before, or played zombie mermaids, or made so many new friends! Trouble is, five of them are small and cute and furry . . .
DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH COCONUTS: the funfair has come to Daisy’s town, and Nanny and Grampy are taking Daisy! She’s going to ride all the rides and play all the games, but she especially wants to win a coconut. Trouble is, it’s not as easy as it looks . . .
About the Author
Kes Gray (Author) was noted by the Independent as one of the top ten children’s authors in the UK in 2003. He is the author of the bestselling DAISY books, including the award-winning EAT YOUR PEAS, and BILLY BUCKET was winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award for Younger Readers.
Nick Sharratt (Illustrator) has written and illustrated many books for children and won numerous awards for his picture books, including the Sheffield Children’s Book Award and the 2001 Children’s Book Award. He has also enjoyed great success illustrating Jacqueline Wilson books. Nick lives in Edinburgh.
To Oliver Edward Andrews
To Minnow.
We miss you.
Some words about this Daisy book:
“Miaow, squeak, purr, yum!”
Mini Moo
“¡Hasta el año que viene, Daisy!”
Angelo
“Spin me faster! Spin me faster! Spin me faster!”
Daisy
“Eat me! Eat me! Eat me!”
Stick of candyfloss
www.daisyclub.co.uk
Chapter 1
The trouble with coconuts is they are the worst type of nuts in the whole wide world.
If I was a monkey living in a jungle that was totally made up of coconut trees, and one of the coconuts on one of the trees asked me to be their friend, then there is absolutely no way that I would say yes. I’d rather be friends with Jack Beechwhistle, who’s the worst boy on earth, than be friends with a coconut.
If you ask me, coconuts shouldn’t be allowed in a funfair. If you double ask me, they shouldn’t even be allowed to grow. Coconuts are too big. Coconuts are too hairy. Plus, if you try to win one, they just get you into trouble.
WHICH ISN’T MY FAULT!
Chapter 2
I was really excited when I heard that the funfair was coming to town. Gabby was the first person at school to tell me. Nishta Bagwhat was second. Daniel McNicholl was third. Fiona Tucker was fourth, I think. Or it might have been Colin Kettle, I’m not sure. So I’ll call it a draw.
Everyone in the playground was really excited about the funfair. Trouble is, everyone was still really excited when we went into class too. Being excited about funfairs in class is against school rules. Because it makes you forget your times tables. And it makes you fidget.
The trouble with fidgeting is it makes your chair squeak.
The trouble with chairs squeaking is it makes your teacher look right at you. Which is a bit of a problem if you’ve just said six sevens are 93.
If you’ve just told your teacher that six sevens are 93, you really want her to ask someone else the next sum.
Trouble is, when Mrs Peters heard my chair squeak again, she asked me two sums in a row. Which is probably against the law. But there was no one around to stop her.
The trouble with nine times eight is it’s an even harder sum to do than six times seven. Especially if there’s a funfair coming to town.
If there’s a funfair coming to town, all sums turn into really hard sums because your brain can’t stop thinking about more important things.
Like funfairs.
The trouble with thinking about funfairs during mental arithmetic is the nines sound a bit like fives and the eights get muddled up with fours.
Which is why I said that the answer to nine times eight was 20.
Which isn’t the right answer either.
When Mrs Peters said it wasn’t even close, everyone in my class started looking at me. Which made me go all hot.
The trouble with going all hot in class is it makes your brain shrink. Which means it’s even harder to do sums in your head.
Luckily for me, Jack Beechwhistle fell off his chair just before I was going to change my mind to 76. Which was a good job really. Because 76 wasn’t the right answer either.
Thank goodness Jack did fall off his chair, because everyone was looking at him now, instead of me. Including Mrs Peters.
Except no one could see him. Because he hadn’t got back up off the floor.
When Fiona Tucker looked down by her feet and told us that Jack was dead on the floor, Mrs Peters forgot about nine times eight altogether. She ran to the back of the class where Fiona and Jack sit and looked under the desk to see if it was true.
But it wasn’t. Jack Beechwhistle wasn’t even slightly dead. He was just pretending.
That’s the trouble with Jack Beechwhistle. He is soooooooooooo badly behaved.
The trouble with pretending you’re dead in class is Mrs Peters doesn’t think it’s a very funny thing to do.
Everyone else in class thought it was funny, but Mrs Peters is a teacher. Which means she’s had her funny bones taken out and replaced with cross bones.
Her cross bones got even crosser when she noticed that Jack had been drawing funfair pictures all over his maths book.
Then she got even crosser than crosser when she noticed that Fiona Tucker had been drawing funfair pictures too.
It wasn’t just Jack and Fiona either.
Nishta had drawn a big wheel on the back of her hand, Harry Bayliss had done a candyfloss tattoo on his arm and David Alexander had drawn a rifle range with exploding ducks right across the top of his school bag.
No wonder no one could get their sums right.
Luckily I’d never been to a funfair before, so I didn’t know what kind of pictures to draw. But I still got told off for squeaking.
Mrs Peters told us that fidgeting and drawing funfair pictures in mental arithmetic was completely unacceptable behaviour. She said that if Pythagoras had spent all his time fidgeting and drawing candyfloss tattoos on his arms, then mathematics would still be in the Dark Ages.
She said that from now on we must start concentrating on the important things in life. Then she said we had to stay in at break time to catch up on our sums. Plus we got banned from even thinking about funfairs for the rest of the day.
But I still did. Only in secret and without fidgeting!
Chapter 3
The trouble with funfair posters is when a funfair comes to town, they stick them everywhere!
When me and Mum went into town after school, I saw funfair posters stuck on the fence down by the roundabout. There were funfair posters stuck on the window of an empty shop in the high street. There were even bits of a funfair poster stuck on the back of a lorry parked outside the baker’s.
It was so exciting!
It got even more exciting when Mum told me that Nanny and Grampy had phoned while I was at school and offered to take me to the funfair on Saturday afternoon! I didn’t even know that my nanny and grampy liked funfairs! I thought they were far too old to like fun things.
Mum said that just because people are over the age of sixty it doesn’t mean they should give up the will to live. She said that, for a lot of people, retirement is the most enjoyable time of life. She said that when you’re Nanny and Grampy’s age you can do anything you want, any time you want to.
Which is a good job really, because Mum would never have taken me to a funfair. Because Mum doesn’t like funfairs at all.
Whenever the funfair has come to town before, my mum has always pulled a grumpy face. As far as she is concerned, funfairs are a complete waste of money. Plus she says the games at a funfair are too expensive and the rides spin you round so much they make you sick.
Sometimes I think my mum should have been a teacher.
Luckily for me, Mum wasn’t invited. I reckon Nanny and Grampy had probably taken Mum to a funfair when she was a little girl and had decided never to do it again. Funfairs are no fun at all if you take the wrong sort of children.
Luckily for Nanny and Grampy, I was exactly the right sort of child to take to a funfair. I didn’t mind if the rides were too expensive because Nanny and Grampy would be paying! I didn’t even mind if the rides made me feel sick, because at least I’d be having brilliant fun at the same time! Plus I was absolutely sure I wasn’t going to be sick anyway.
When I spoke to Grampy on the phone on Friday, he sounded even more excited about the funfair than me! He asked me if I’d ever been in a bumper car, and I said I hadn’t. He asked me if I’d ever been down a helter-skelter, and I said I hadn’t. He asked me if I’d ever been on a waltzer, and I said I hadn’t. He asked me if I’d ever eaten a toffee apple, and I said I had.
But I hadn’t. Only I said I had because it was getting a bit embarrassing. And anyway, I HAD eaten an apple before. And I HAD eaten a toffee before. Only not at the same time. Which is almost the same thing.
Kind of.
Anyway, Grampy said that there were two things that we absolutely must do while we were at the funfair on Saturday.
Number 1: We must win a goldfish!
Number 2: We must win a coconut!
I’d never won a goldfish or a coconut before, so you can imagine how excited I was now!!
When Nanny came on the phone, she said that they would pick me up in the car at twelve o’clock on Saturday and would bring me back at four.
Which, if you’re any good at mental arithmetic, adds up to . . .
. . . FOUR FABULOUS FUN-FILLED HOURS!
Maybe staying in at break time did help me with my sums after all!
Chapter 4
The trouble with normal breakfasts is they can be a bit boring.
So when I woke up on Saturday I decided that instead of having a normal breakfast, I would have a special funfair one. Funfair breakfasts are much more fun. In fact they’re so much fun, you don’t even need to put sugar on them!
To have a funfair breakfast, all you need is two Weetabixes and some Honey Nut Loops. Oh, and a biggish carton of milk with quite a lottish amount of milk in.
Here are my instructions on how to make Daisy’s Special Funfair Breakfast:
First of all, take the first Weetabix and lay it flat on the bottom of your bowl.
Then wedge the second Weetabix up against it like a slide. (The first Weetabix helps the second Weetabix stay in position.)
Next, cover the flat Weetabix with milk. Not too much – just enough to make the milk look like a swamp.
Then, take a Honey Nut Loop in your fingers, place it at the top of the slide, count down from three to one, let go of the Honey Nut Loop and let it roll down the slide into the swamp!
As soon as the loop touches the side of your bowl, you can grab it out with your fingers and eat it!
How much fun is that?!
The more Honey Nut Loops you roll down the slide, the more you get to eat!! It’s simple! Plus, once you’ve run out of Honey Nut Loops you can eat the slide while it’s still crunchy and the mushy bottom of the swamp afterwards!!
Mum said I could have funfair breakfasts every day if it meant I was going to eat that much breakfast for breakfast.
I said I would if I could go to a funfair every day too.
But she said I couldn’t.
So I said I probably wouldn’t.
Chapter 5
It was a really hot day on Saturday, so getting dressed after breakfast took hardly any time at all. I was sure the funfair would be full of bright colours so I decided to wear my brand-new orange shorts plus my brightest coloured T-shirt and socks.
Mum said I looked a bit clashy, but I didn’t care. I think orange, purple and green go really well together.
Once I was dressed, I went into the lounge to practise my screaming. Gabby had told me that some of the rides at a funfair are so good, you can’t stop screaming from the moment you get on!
The trouble with practising screaming is I’m too good at it.
Mum said that if I wanted to practise my screaming I should go and do it outside in the garden.
But after about five screams our neighbour Mrs Pike told me that I should practise in the shed.
With the door shut.
So I did.
Except Tiptoes was asleep in the wheelbarrow.
The trouble with screaming when Tiptoes is asleep in the wheelbarrow is it doesn’t just wake him up, it makes him go totally loopy.
I mean, one minute he was curled up in the wheelbarrow; the next minute he was halfway up the wall, then the other wall and then almost across the ceiling!
I wouldn’t have screamed if I’d known he was there, but it was so dark in the shed there was no way I could see a cat curled up in the shadows.
That’s the trouble with cats. If they wore fluorescent pyjamas when they went to sleep, they’d be much easier to see.
By the time I’d opened the shed door to let Tiptoes out, he’d knocked over the flower pots, the rake, the watering can, the spade, the fork, plus all the seed packets that were on the highest-up shelf.
And guess who had to pick them all up? It wasn’t Tiptoes. It was me!
If you ask me, if a cat wants to curl up and go to sleep in a wheelbarrow he should get his own shed to sleep in. And his own wheelbarrow.
Or at least wear glow-in-the-dark pyjamas.
Or learn to snore loudly.
It was only when I was stretching up high to put the seed packets back that I suddenly forgave Tiptoes for everything. Because all of my really high up stretching and stretching suddenly reminded me of something really important that Dylan had told me at school!
If you’re going to go to a funfair . . .
. . . you need to wear your highest shoes!
Chapter 6
Dylan is the coolest boy I know. He’s two years older than me, which means he’s really experienced. Plus he lives two doors away from me in a house with a three-chime doorbell. AND he’s got a pet snake called Shooter. How cool is that?
At first, when Dylan told me that I needed to wear my highest shoes to the funfair on Saturday, I thought he was joking. But Dylan is far too cool to do jokes. Sometimes Dylan is too cool to even smile.