Sometimes, if you help a fairy in need they’ll grant you a wish.

 

That happened to me when I found a small, plump fairy who had somehow become stuck in our compost bin. When I got her out she said: ‘You can have one wish. What is it?’

 

A thought came to me in a flash. ‘I’d like to change Daddy into a different animal every day for a week,’
I said.

 

‘Alright,’ said the fairy. Then she buzzed her wings and flitted off into the trees.

​

Daddy is a creature of habit. Every morning he sits down for a big breakfast, reads the newspaper and drinks lots of coffee. But the next day, before he could do any of this, I closed my eyes and whispered: ‘Emperor penguin’.

 

I opened my eyes to find a real emperor penguin staring at me from over the newspaper.

 

‘Rebecca,’ said penguin Daddy. ‘I feel a bit odd.’

 

‘I’m not surprised,’ I said.

 

‘Do I look alright to you?’ he asked.
 

‘Definitely …’ I replied. ‘And I think your flippers really suit you.’

​

It took most of the day for Daddy to get used to being a penguin. I explained to him and Mummy all about the fairy and the wish.

 

‘You must stop this right now,’ said Mummy.

 

‘I can’t stop it,’ I told her. ‘It has to go for the whole week. Probably.’

 

‘It’s alright,’ said Daddy. ‘It might be interesting.’

 

‘Well, at least make sure the animals are toilet trained,’ said Mummy.

 

On the second day Daddy tried calling his boss to tell her he wouldn’t be coming into work. He got as far as saying, ‘Hi, Jane, I’m sorry but I’m feeling a bit …’ before I changed him into a sun bear.

 

Daddy was so surprised by this he let out a deafening sun bear screech and dropped his coffee.

 

Mummy had to take the phone and apologise to his boss for quite a long time.

​

On day three, Mummy woke up to hear Daddy say: ‘Sweetheart, don’t be alarmed but I think I’m a dolphin’.

 

He spent the whole day in the bath, happily splashing about and using his sonar on us.

 

‘I can see right inside your bodies,’ he squeaked to me and my sister Emily. ‘Did you know dolphins use sonar to hunt for fish?’

 

Dolphins are Daddy’s favourite animal so he was a bit disappointed when he changed back into a human that night.

​

Daddy was getting into the swing of animal week. The problem was that because he has always been interested in animals, Emily and I would often have to sit with him in the garden as he droned on about whatever animal he happened to be.

 

Often though he would just relax and enjoy his time off work. Like on day four, when I turned him into a lemur, my favourite primate. Daddy spent the day reading the paper or picking nits from his fur and eating them.

 

‘That’s gross, Daddy,’ I said.

 

‘This is what lemurs do, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘If you don’t like what I do when I’m an animal, don’t turn me into an animal.’

 

I couldn’t really argue with that.

​

On day five, Daddy and I were out in the garden while he told me what it was like being a meerkat. Suddenly he stopped, raised himself on his hind legs and yelped, ‘Danger, danger!’

 

We thought he was just showing us what meerkats do, but then we followed his gaze to where our nasty neighbour Mrs Hatchett was watching from over the fence.

 

‘Is that a ferret?’ she said. ‘Do you have a licence for that thing?’

 

Daddy whispered to me: ‘Tell her I’m a quoll.’

 

‘Daddy’s a quoll,’ I said.

 

‘What?’ said Mrs Hatchett.

 

‘No, no,’ whispered Daddy. ‘Don’t say I’m a quoll. Say the animal you’re playing with is a quoll.’

 

‘The animal you’re playing with is a quoll,’ I told Mrs Hatchett.

 

Mrs Hatchett looked really annoyed. ‘Where are your parents?’

 

‘Well, dad’s here and mum’s inside,’ I said.

 

‘What are you babbling about?’ said Mrs Hatchett. ‘I think you’re a bit strange in the head.’

 

And with that, she went back into her house.

​

My favourite animal in the whole world is the unicorn. I know it doesn’t really exist, but on day six it did. Of course, Daddy had to spend the day in the garden.

 

Mrs Hatchett wasn’t happy about this at all. She phoned my Mum at once.

 

‘You’ve got a unicorn in your garden,’ she said.

 

‘It’s not a unicorn,’ lied Mummy. ‘Unicorns don’t exist. Anyway, we have a Unicorn Licence. Don’t you?’

 

‘Hummpff,’ said Mrs Hatchett, before hanging up the phone.

​

On the last day of the spell I decided to go all out and turn Daddy into an elephant. We filled the paddling pool so he could splash around. Daddy kept spraying us with water from his trunk, which was fun. We took turns riding on his back.

 

Then there was a knock on the door. It was the police, with two zookeepers, and right behind them was Mrs Hatchett looking very pleased with herself.

 

‘It’s against the law to have elephants at home,’ said one of the police officers. ‘These gentlemen are from the zoo. I’m afraid they’ll have to take your elephant away.’

 

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But please give him lots of coffee and newspapers every day or he gets in a very bad mood.’

 

We showed the zookeepers to the backyard where Daddy looked at them suspiciously. I noticed one of them had a gun.

 

‘You’re not going to kill him are you?’ I asked. ‘He’s been very well behaved.’

 

‘No, young lady,’ smiled the older zookeeper. ‘It’s a tranquiliser gun.’

 

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

 

‘It fires little darts that will make him go to sleep.’

 

He turned to the other zookeeper. ‘Stanley,’ he said. ‘Try to distract the elephant while I shoot it with the tranquiliser gun.’

 

Stanley nervously went out into the garden and began capering around. Daddy sprayed him with water, drenching him from head to foot. The older zookeeper took aim with his gun and fired. But the tranquiliser dart missed Daddy and hit the younger zookeeper in the bottom.

​

‘Oh, dear,’ said the older zookeeper. ‘You alright, Stanley?’

 

But the tranquiliser in the dart was elephant strength. Poor Stanley was asleep before he hit the grass, and didn’t wake up for three days.

​

The zookeeper fired the tranquiliser gun again. This time he hit Daddy in the leg.

 

‘Ow!’ yelled Daddy. ‘What’s going on?’

 

‘Did that elephant just speak?’ said the zookeeper.

 

‘Impossible,’ I said.

 

‘Blimey, that hurt,’ trumpeted Daddy, before falling down on the grass and snoring loudly.

 

The zookeeper looked at the tranquiliser gun in some confusion.

 

Daddy woke up the next day in bed. Of course, he was no longer an elephant.

 

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘I remember having a trunk. What will it be today? Wings? Fins? Fangs? Please, don’t turn me into anything else, Rebecca.’

 

‘It’s alright, Daddy,’ I said. ‘The magical animal week is over. You did very well, and I learned so much about animals, like the cheetah, the triceratops, the kangaroo.’

 

‘Rebecca,’ said Daddy. ‘I didn’t change into any of those animals.’

 

‘Oh, that’s right,’ I said. ‘We read about them at school. I’m sure the animals you turned into were very interesting too.’

 

Daddy looked at me in a very grumpy way.