Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [19]
'Don't you dare stop asking me to do this stuff though,'
Amy continued. 'I'm good at this. Just you wait and see.'
As she spoke, Amy slipped in a large pile of elephant dung. She glared up at the Doctor, who backed away laughing.
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'I'm not saying anything.’ he told her. 'Look at me, not saying anything. See me, absolutely not pointing at you and laughing.'
Amy tried to ignore him. 'Hurry up. They're distracted, aren't they? Come on. Sonic away. Get those locks open.
Let's go!'
While Amy cleaned herself up, the Doctor clicked the screwdriver and, with a thunder crack, the doors of the Zoo blew open with an enormous bang.
The Doctor grinned, looking stupidly pleased with himself. I didn't know it could do that! Sonic energy excites the hydrocarbons in the oil in the hinges, and - Boom! Instant access. Just look at it.'
Amy was aghast. 'All of New York will have heard that!
What was the point of me distracting them?'
'You've been in Leadworth too long, Amy Pond. Big city like this, they'll think it's someone celebrating New Year.
Always a New Year for someone...'
Inside the Zoo, the elephants were uneasy. Flappy the Elephant (named by a children's TV programme) had been perplexed when his usual afternoon visit had been abandoned and men clad in black baseball hats had unloaded a strange and new kind of animal.
Flappy had learnt to be glad whenever new animals arrived, especially elephants. He'd been a bit lonely since Elephunk the Musical Elephant had
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gone to Philadelphia Zoo, and he wanted someone to talk trunk to trunk with. But this new animal was different...
The zookeepers hadn't been pleased when it arrived.
There had been shouting and screaming and tones of voice Flappy normally only heard if the goat's head butted a child.
And then when he had finally seen the creature unloaded, he'd been deeply suspicious.
It wasn't the colour that seemed odd: in his short life, Flappy had seen creatures of all kinds go past. It was the smell. The new woolly thing in the next cage smelt clean, almost like it was new. It didn't smell like an actual animal. It smelt more like a load of washing, or the boiler suits worn by the keepers every second Monday. Flappy had tried to communicate this to his favourite keeper, but she'd simply given his trunk a rub and fed him a banana. And now that the woolly creature had woken up, it was behaving even more oddly, pawing at the ground, and walking in strange concentric circles.
Flappy wasn't to know, but the Polar Woolly Mammoth was doing something very akin to pacing out the dimensions of the cage.
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Chapter
8
The Doctor and Amy crouched low and stepped quietly into the Zoo. The locks were red hot and smoking in the evening air.
To get to the enclosure" they had to sidle past a little hut where the crying security guard was holding an ice pack to his bruised head while his friend was busy putting plasters on his injuries.
Safely past the hut, the Doctor and Amy ducked off the main track and crept along behind the enclosures. This was the secret part of the Zoo where the keepers stored the animal food and the old, smelly hay. These shortcuts from the main path zigzagged through the Zoo, and unwittingly the Doctor and Amy stumbled out onto one of the main walkways.
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As a crowd of naughty school children went past, Amy saw someone headed straight for them and pulled the Doctor back. She was too late: a zookeeper returning from her rounds stopped to talk to the Doctor.
'Hey, mister, nice bow tie.'
The Doctor turned to Amy, grinning triumphantly. 'See! I told you it was cool. Just you wait and see, they'll all be wearing them soon.'
Amy pointed over the Doctor's shoulder where the keeper was still waiting to talk to the Doctor...
'School visiting time is over now, sir,' the keeper continued. 'Would you be so kind as to fetch your class from the petting zoo. It's closing time.'
Amy struggled to keep a straight face.