The summer flew by, with lots more weekends at the zoo and lots more trips to see Daisy at the reptile house. Daisy would always give Tom and Sophie updates about the snakes in quarantine.
Tom would ask about the baby long-nosed vipers and Daisy would tell him how long they were now and how many mice she had fed them that week.
Sophie would ask about the Antiguan racer and Daisy would talk about the Antiguan rescue project and how the zoo wanted to reintroduce their racer back into the wild.
Then one day Daisy turned to the children. ‘The snakes will be out of quarantine in a fortnight, you know,’ she said. ‘We’re going to throw a big party and introduce them to the world. Want to come as guests of honour?’
Tom and Sophie couldn’t believe their ears. ‘Yes!’ they said.
‘So,’ Daisy said, ‘it’ll be an early-evening thing. We’ll invite the press and lots of VIPs. We’re making new enclosures for the snakes now. The reptile house is about to get a lot bigger!’
That evening, Tom and Sophie talked to their parents about the snake celebrations.
‘Daisy says we’re going to be guests of honour!’ Sophie said.
‘That’s great news,’ said Mrs Nightingale. ‘Me and your dad are on duty that evening, so we can all go together.’
‘Can we stay late?’ Tom asked. ‘You know, really late. Like midnight!’
‘It finishes at nine, Tom,’ Sophie said. ‘What are we going to do for three more hours?’
The following Saturday, Tom and Sophie were watching the penguins being fed when Daisy tapped Sophie on the shoulder.
‘Hey, you two,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a TV reporter coming to talk to me at lunchtime. He wants to meet the people who found the snakes. That means you!’
‘TV?’ Sophie said, looking suddenly nervous. ‘We’re going to be on TV?’
‘What show’s it for?’ Tom said. ‘What channel’s it on?’
‘I don’t know – it’ll be for some news programme,’ Daisy said. ‘BBC or ITV, I suppose.’
‘Wow,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll be a national hero. Maybe even a national treasure.’
‘I need to put on a different top,’ Sophie said, ‘and sort my hair out.’
‘Whatever makes you happy,’ said Daisy. ‘See you at the reptile house at one.’
They raced back to The Ark, got ready in record time and arrived at the reptile house at exactly 12.45, looking very smart and very excited.
‘Right, I’ll do the first bit,’ Sophie said, ‘about the man in the boat.’
‘And I’ll do the next bit,’ said Tom, ‘about finding the cobra.’
‘OK, then I’ll do the bit about the vets and the fire engine arriving.’
‘But hang on, that means you get two bits and I get one.’
‘But you’re doing the finding the cobra bit,’ said Sophie. ‘That’s the best bit.’
‘So doing the best bit is the same as doing two boring bits?’ Tom asked.
‘Yes,’ Sophie said.
‘I suppose that does make sense,’ Tom admitted.
‘Hello, you two,’ Daisy said, appearing in front of them. ‘Worked out your story?’
‘Yes,’ they both said.
‘This is Martin,’ Daisy said, gesturing at a man in a suit. Behind him there was a cameraman, and a woman holding a fluffy microphone on a long stick.
‘So these are the children that saved the day,’ Martin, the reporter, said. ‘Lovely. Let’s do the interview over there. With that big snake behind you.’
‘That’s a Burmese python,’ Tom said. ‘It’s one of the six biggest snakes in the world.’
They went and stood in front of the python’s vivarium.
The reporter began by talking directly to camera.
‘In just a week’s time, the reptile house at London Zoo will be transformed. A dozen new snakes will join the permanent collection. But what’s interesting is how these snakes arrived here. They were found by two young children, Tom and Sophie Nightingale, after they were abandoned on the Regent’s Canal by a notorious animal smuggler. The smuggler is now safely behind bars. Tom and Sophie, however, are with me here now. Tom, Sophie, hello.’
‘Hello,’ said Sophie.
‘So we were coming home from school and we saw this scary-looking bloke with a snake round his neck,’ Tom began.
‘Whoa right there, Tom,’ the reporter said. ‘Let me get a question out first.’
The woman with the fluffy microphone lowered it to the ground.
‘Oh, OK,’ Tom said. ‘Do I have to say that bit again then?’
‘In a minute, yes,’ said the reporter, gesturing to the woman with the microphone.
‘OK. So, Tom, Sophie, tell me how you came across this sack of slimy snakes.’
‘Snakes aren’t slimy,’ said Sophie quickly. ‘Their skin is dry and smooth.’
‘OK, OK,’ said the reporter. The woman put down the microphone again. ‘Don’t worry if I make mistakes. Just answer the questions as best you can.’
‘You can’t call snakes slimy though,’ Tom said. ‘Mum will never forgive us. By the way, can we say hello to Mum and Dad on the telly?’
‘Maybe, yes, at some point,’ the reporter said, looking slightly impatient, ‘OK, how about slithery snakes? Is that OK?’
Tom and Sophie looked at each other.
‘I suppose they DO slither,’ said Sophie.
‘Unless they’re sidewinders,’ Tom said.
‘That’s true,’ said Sophie, ‘but even they slither sometimes.’ She turned to the reporter. ‘Slithery is acceptable.’
So the reporter started again. Sophie went first, talking about the man on the boat. Tom talked about his face-to-face encounter with a king cobra.
‘And now they’ve got a new home here in the zoo,’ the reporter concluded. ‘Those snakes are very lucky to have met you two.’
‘We’re lucky we met them!’ Tom said.
‘Snakes are mind-blowing, seriously!’ Sophie exclaimed.
Tom and Sophie both talked for another five minutes, raving about all the amazing things they’d discovered about snakes, while the reporter and the cameraman and the boom mike operator watched and smiled.