“Secret family?” spluttered Eric. What on earth was the old man talking about?

“Shush!” shushed Sid as he opened the narrow door to his kitchen.

Inside that little room was a kingdom of creatures. Eric’s eyes widened with delight as he saw:

A one-winged parrot perched on a kettle.

“SQUAWK!”

A baby elephant with an incredibly short trunk.

“HOO!”

A blind seal swimming up and down in a tin bath.

“HOO!”

A giant tortoise with a wicker basket for a shell crawling across the floor.

MUNCH!

A one-legged flamingo toppling over in the corner.

DONK!

A crocodile with no teeth scuttling under a table.

SNAP!

And last but not least a one-armed baboon with the most enormous bright red bottom you’ve ever seen climbing up the shelves.

“HOOT! HOOT!”

Eric’s mouth fell open. He was speechless.

“This is why I can’t have anyone over for tea!” announced Sid.

“Have they all got names?” asked the boy eagerly.

“Yes, of course they’ve all got names! Eric, please allow me the pleasure of introducing them to you.”

The boy beamed with anticipation.

“This is Parker the parrot. You can shake her wing. Be gentle, though, as she’s only got one!”

Eric reached out and took Parker’s one wing in his hand.

“How do you do?” he said.

“How do you do?” squawked the parrot. “How do you do?”

“She speaks!” exclaimed the boy.

“Yes. Lots of parrots do!”

“Parrots do! Parrots do!” came a squawk.

“She talks all right,” began Sid. “She likes to repeat whatever you just said, so it’s not always the most exciting conversation.”

“Exciting conversation!”

“I love her!” said Eric.

“Me too! She’s the first one I got. So she’ll always be special.”

“Always be special!”

“That you will be,” said Sid, tickling the parrot under her chin. “This is Ernie!” he continued, shaking the baby elephant by his unusually short trunk.

“Isn’t Ernie going to grow?”

“That he is. I fear he’s going to eat me out of house and home one day. Here, grab that apple,” said Sid, pointing over to a shelf.

The boy took it, nearly tripping over the crocodile as he did so.

“Ernie’s trunk is too short for him to feed himself. So you have to do it by hand. You can feed him if you like.”

Eric lifted up the apple to the baby elephant and placed it in his mouth.

MUNCH!

“He’ll be your best friend forever now!” chirped Sid.

The boy patted the elephant on his side before giving him a hug. “I hope so. I love him.”

“Don’t make the others jealous!” said Sid. “Come on, you’ve got plenty more friends to meet!”

One by one, Sid introduced Eric to all the animals in the room.

“Sassy the seal!”

SPLISH! SPLASH! went the seal in the tin bath. “She’s as blind as a bat. Well, blinder, really, as bats have that sonar thingummyjig, so we need to take very good care of her.”

“I will,” said Eric, running his fingertips gently along the seal’s soft fur. Although the animal couldn’t see the boy, she could feel him. A smile crept across her face.

“HONK!”

Just then the tortoise loomed into view, carrying the wicker basket on its back.

“What happened to his shell?” asked Eric.

“It got smashed to pieces when poor Totter here was transported all the way from Galapagos on a boat. He’s now got my laundry basket for a shell.”

Eric noticed how the basket was tied underneath the tortoise with string. He patted the creature on its head and said, “Poor thing.”

“Totter’s a fighter. He’ll keep tottering along until way after we’re gone. Some tortoises live well past a hundred!”

DOOF!

The flamingo toppled over again.

“Why does the flamingo keep falling over?” asked Eric. “I thought flamingos could stand on one leg!”

“They can!” replied Sid, righting her. “But they do use their other leg for balance. So, if you’re born with just the one leg, like Florence here, you can’t help toppling over.”

DOOF!

“Oh, there she goes again!” he continued.

Eric reached out and stroked her side as she lay on the floor. “Her feathers are so soft,” he remarked.

“Yes! Perfect for dusting.”

“You what?”

“I use her leg as a pole, and then I pick her up and dust the top of the cupboards!”

Sid couldn’t help but smirk.

“You are JOKING!”

“Ha! Ha! Of course I’m joking! I wouldn’t do a thing to hurt poor Florence,” said Sid, leaning her up against the wall.

“Maybe she needs some crutches to help her get around.”

“That’s a good idea, Eric! Or some tin ones like me! I have tried a few things for Florence – a false leg made out of an umbrella, a bicycle wheel on a harness, all sorts – but nothing’s worked for her yet. Same is true for Colin.”

Eric’s attention turned to the toothless crocodile. “He needs some false teeth,” he said.

“Yes, but I have yet to find any in crocodile size.”

“At least he can’t eat you.”

“No, he’s a teddy bear, really. Aren’t you, Colin?”

With that, the crocodile turned over on to his back.

As he did so, his tail thrashed and knocked over Florence the flamingo once again.

DOOF!

“Colin loves tummy tickles!” said Sid. “Have a try!”

The boy did as he was told. To his delight, the crocodile actually seemed to laugh, by snapping his jaws together over and over.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

“What did I tell you?” asked Sid. “Now, last but certainly not least, not in the bottom department, is Botty! Botty the baboon!”

“Botty must have the biggest bottom I have ever seen!” remarked the boy, as he studied the enormous rounded red thing at the top of the baboon’s legs.

“All right! All right!” said Sid. “Don’t go on about it. Botty is very sensitive about her botty! And it’s not easy having just the one arm.”

The baboon heaved herself up on to the man’s shoulder as he fed her a crust of bread. As she did so, Botty’s bottom poked right into Eric’s face. Now, I don’t know if you have ever had a baboon’s bottom in your face, but, trust me, baboon’s bottoms come very high on the stinkometer.

Eric grabbed a wooden clothes peg from the table and put it on his nose.

“That’s better!” he hummed in that strange voice you have when your nose is pinched.

“That’s funny!” chuckled Sid, grabbing another peg and placing it on his nose. “Now I am sounding silly too.”

Botty the baboon must have been intrigued too, because she grabbed a peg and put it on her nose!

“HONK! HONK!” she honked in a high-pitched honk, clearly delighting herself.

All three laughed.

“HA! HA! HA!”

“So,” began the boy, “where did they all come from?”

“Oh! I, erm, ‘borrowed’ them all from the zoo.”

“Borrowed?”

“Well, stole, really.”

“Why?”

“All these animals have things ‘wrong’ with them. For me that is what makes them special. But no one thought they could survive so they were going to be ‘put out of their misery’.”

Eric’s face turned pale.

“You don’t mean…?”

“I do mean! Miss Gnarl would have been called in to give them a lethal injection!”

“Just like she’s planning to do with Gertrude! We have to stop her, Uncle Sid!”

The old man looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s already eleven o’clock. The zoo closes at five. We don’t have much time!”

Just then there was a sound at the window.

TAP! TAP! TAP!

“Oh no!” hissed Eric, ducking his head.

“It must be the police!”