Daisy and the Trouble with Life (9 page)

Trouble is, whenever I say, “COMING READY OR NOT!” I can never find her anywhere. Not even when I've counted to a hundred in tens instead of ones.

Last time we played hide-and-seek at Gabby's house I was looking for her for ages. In the end I had to give up. And guess where she was?

In the laundry basket with all the smelly socks.

I told her that was cheating because I would never hide in a smelly place like that and so it didn't count and she'd have to hide again.

So she did and then I couldn't find her AGAIN! Even her mum couldn't find her.

That's because Gabby wasn't in the house, she was in the shed. Which is cheating too.

The
trouble with people who cheat at hide-and-seek
is they never admit it.

Especially Gabby. Sometimes, if she's been really cheating a lot, I tell her I'm never going to play with her again.

Trouble is, she always shares her sweets with me, and she's always really good fun too. It was Gabby who taught me how to jump up and down on the sofa and shout, “Howzatcowpat!” at the same time. The first time we did it round her house on her mum's big leather sofa. Now we do it on my sofa too! Only when my mum's not looking though.

Actually. Thinking about it . . . Maybe I should have a little bounce on our sofa right now. Just to see if I really am getting better. I'll do it extra quietly and I'll whisper “Howzatcowpat” instead of shouting it . . . just in case Mum hears!

Why don't you have a go on your sofa too? This is how Gabby and me do it.

Twenty whopping bounces and ten Howzatcowpats without laughing! That's really good! Gabby can never do more than six Howzatcowpats without laughing.

The
trouble with laughing
is it can make lemonade come out of your nose. Not when you're doing howzatcowpats – when you're in restaurants.

Once, when me and Gabby were at Pizza Heaven with my mum, Gabby stuck two marshmallow flumps in her ears and pulled a really funny face.

Trouble is, I'd only just taken a drink of my lemonade, so when I laughed, my lemonade didn't go down the right hole. It went up all the wrong holes instead. Then my nose started fizzing and my eyes started watering and my mouth started choking.

Well, sort of choking and laughing at the same time, which is a really hard thing to do.

In the end, my mum had to call a waitress to help her pat me on the back. They made me stand up at the table in front of everybody.

The
trouble with someone patting you on the back
is, if they don't do it hard enough, it doesn't do any good at all, and if they do it too hard, it makes you sound like a seal.

No one had ever heard a seal in Pizza Heaven before, so everyone stopped eating their pizzas and looked at me.

Then Gabby got two dough balls and pretended my eyes had popped out and fallen onto the table, which made me laugh even more.

And choke and splutter.

In the end the manageress came out and took me to the toilets and made me drink a load of water out of the tap. Mum had to rub my back for about ten minutes before we could go back to our table.

Flumps are banned when we go to Pizza Heaven now. And dough balls.

We're still allowed lemonade, but only if we don't blow bubbles with our straws.

Which reminds me, I need to drink some more water. Mum says if I drink lots of water today, it will help flush all the dib-dab germs away.

Back in a minute!

Have you ever blown bubbles in your lemonade with a straw? It sort of still works with water and it's quite good in milk. But lemonade's the best.

I tried to do it in a really thick milkshake once, but my mum told me to stop being silly.

The
trouble with being silly
is it can give you scabs.

Not silly with straws – silly with skipping ropes.

At school the other day Gabby and I were doing skipping with Liberty Pearce, except we weren't doing the skipping, Liberty was. Gabby and me were doing the rope.

Anyway, Liberty said she was the best skipper in the school and she said she was the fastest. So Gabby and I went faster with the rope because we thought Liberty wanted us to, but when we switched to super-speed, Liberty wasn't ready, so her legs got caught up in the rope and she fell over and scraped her knees. And she made holes in her tights and she got scabs.

Mrs Donovan said that Gabby and I had been very silly with the rope and that Liberty wasn't a kangaroo and couldn't possibly jump that fast or high. We had to write “We will not be silly with skipping ropes” ten times on a piece of paper during morning break the next day.

Another time Gabby and me were silly with the hosepipe in my garden. No one got scabs, but we did get told off by Mrs Pike. It was a really hot day and Mum had got the paddling pool out of the shed for Gabby and me to play in.

The
trouble with paddling pools
is you have to blow them up with a pump.