About the Author

KES GRAY 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.

About the Book

It’s the Easter holidays. Daisy has been given the school hamsters to look after, plus FREE TICKETS TO CHOCOLATE LAND!

Daisy is SO ready for Chocolate Land.

Trouble is, is Chocolate Land ready for Daisy?

More Daisy adventures!

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH LIFE

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH ZOOS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH GIANTS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH KITTENS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH CHRISTMAS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH MAGGOTS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH COCONUTS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH BURGLARS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH SPORTS

DAY DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH PIGGY BANKS

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH VAMPIRES

Published for World Book Day 2016:

DAISY AND THE TROUBLE WITH JACK

Also by Kes Gray:

JACK BEECHWHISTLE:

ATTACK OF THE GIANT SLUGS

DAISY’S TROUBLE INDEX

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The trouble with …

image Chocolate
image Stationery cupboards
image Turning your head round in class
image Feeding hamsters
image Cleaning out Pickle and Pops’s cage
image Pet cats called Satan
image Filling in a form for your mum
image Not having a special letter to take home any more
image Telling Mrs Peters that the wind had blown the letter out of my hand during morning break and a bird had swooped down and carried it off in its beak
image Being told on a Wednesday that you are going to be Hamster Guardian of the Easter Holiday
image Cuddling hamsters too tight
image Breakfast
image Easter eggs
image Liking chocolate
image About eleven chocolate buttons
image Opening my YumYumz egg
image Eating YumYumz straight after chocolate buttons
image Three quarters of last halves of any type of Easter egg
image Mum saying “It’s up to you”
image Easter egg hunts on Saturday
image Fun things to do
image Making one of the most important decisions of your entire life
image Explaining things that are really complicated
image Gabby being Gabby
image Not having thought of something
image Easter eggs being all gone
image Finding out that your best friend forever gets SIX Easter eggs
image Deciding you are definitely going to Chocolate Land and not to Mrs Pike’s baby Easter egg hunt
image Playing tricks on my mum
image Dropping a bag of flour on the floor
image Telling your mum she’s been tricked
image Not knowing if someone is listening
image Mum going stiff, starey and scary
image Having clearing up to do
image Victoria sponges
image Hot cross buns
image Sandwiches and fizzy drinks
image Polite things to do
image Someone saying “I’ll go and get them”
image Being totally sure I’d arrived at Chocolate Land
image Hurrying up and parking
image Doing Chocolate Land
image Jumping on the back of an Easter Bunny
image Moving on
image Special maps
image Chocolate rock climbing
image Winning a chocolate bar
image Writing your name on an Easter egg
image Eating an Easter egg underlined seven times
image Normal face painting
image Warm, runny chocolate that’s gone cold
image Chocolate Land rock concerts
image Not even getting a piece of chocolate guitar string
image Extra jigsaw pieces
image Really liking marshmallows
image Chocolate dolphins
image White chocolate doves
image Very chocolaty surprises
image Trying to get somewhere very special fast
image Someone going “TA-DAH!”
image Talking to strangers called David
image Stirring actual chocolate at actual Chocolate Land all by yourself with your mum
image Someone shouting “RAT!” really, really loudly in Chocolate Land
image Squeezing hamsters too hard
image Being bitten by a hamster
image Flinging a hamster through the air
image Shouting “Pickle!” in Chocolate Land
image Mum going stiffer than I’d ever seen her go before
image Hamster poos falling into chocolate or even being near chocolate
image Throwing away four million litres of chocolate
image Taking hamsters into Chocolate Land
image My mum still being really cross
image Mrs Pike talking to Mum

Have you read Daisy’s other stories?

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CHAPTER 1

The trouble with chocolate is chocolate! If chocolate wasn’t so chocolaty, I would never have got into so much trouble over Easter.

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I mean, why do people even do chocolate Easter eggs at Easter? Before Easter comes along I am quite happy eating strawberry Dip Dab lollies and Crunchy Cream biscuits. Neither of those has got even the teensiest bit of chocolate in them at all. They don’t even say “chocolate” on the wrapper.

If you ask me, the more people make chocolate, the more children will want to eat chocolate. Especially at Easter, and double especially if they let children into the place where chocolate is actually made. The places where chocolate is made should be absolutely closed to children if you ask me. But they’re not. They are wide open, especially if your mum has a special Easter voucher to go to Chocolate Land. And triple especially if your neighbour knows someone who actually works there. WHICH ISN’T MY FAULT!

CHAPTER 2

I wasn’t even thinking about chocolate when my school broke up for the Easter holidays. All I was thinking about was Pickle and Pops. Pickle and Pops are our class hamsters. They’ve been living in our classroom since half term.

When Mrs Peters told us we were getting real live hamsters to live in our classroom, I nearly fell off my chair I was so excited!

As soon as she brought them in to show us, I asked if they could live in my desk. But she said no. Mrs Peters said that school desks were really no places for hamsters – which isn’t true because my desk is full of places that hamsters would really like, especially inside my pencil case. (Once I’d emptied out my pencils and pens.)

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Mrs Peters said that pencil cases were made for pencils and pens to live in, not hamsters, and that if I rolled my exercise books into tunnels, I would spend an extra hour after school flattening the pages out again.

So the hamsters have to live on top of the stationery cupboard instead.

The trouble with stationery cupboards is the one in our class is right at the back of the room.

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Which means if I want to see what Pickle and Pops are doing, I need to turn my head all the way round. And even then it’s not that easy to see inside their cage, because Tamsin Chance and Letitia Sparks’ heads are always in the way.

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Tamsin Chance and Letitia Sparks are the luckiest children in our class because their desk is closest to the hamster cage. They still have to turn their heads round to see them, though.

The trouble with turning your head round in class is Mrs Peters doesn’t like it. Especially if she is teaching you lessons at the same time.

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