Old McDonald had a problem. A very fluffy, very baa-d problem. His prize-winning lambs, fluffy clouds of wool named Snowdrop and Cottonball, had vanished! All that remained were a few scattered tufts of wool and an unusually large number of cheeky jackdaws squawking obnoxiously in the barn.
“Percy!” Old McDonald bellowed to his perpetually bewildered sheepdog. “Have you seen those lambs?”
Percy, a dog whose intelligence was inversely proportional to his fluffiness, merely wagged his tail and licked a particularly intriguing mud puddle.
Suspicion fell immediately on the jackdaws. They were always up to no good, those feathered fiends. Old McDonald, a man of action (and slightly unhinged by the loss of his prize lambs), donned his detective hat (a slightly soiled straw hat) and investigated.
He found a trail of tiny, perfectly formed wool balls leading from the barn to the tallest oak tree. Climbing cautiously (and muttering about thieving birds), he peered into the crow’s nest. There, nestled amongst twigs and feathers, were not one, but two miniature, woolly balls… but not Snowdrop and Cottonball.
Instead, two perfectly crafted, jackdaw-sized replicas of the lambs, fashioned from expertly pilfered wool, were nestled amongst the twigs. A tiny note, written in what appeared to be elegant bird-droppings, read: “We’re keeping the originals. Consider this…lamb-napping insurance!”
Old McDonald stared, speechless. The audacity! The craftsmanship! The sheer, unadulterated cheek of those feathered criminals! He sighed, scratched his head, and then burst out laughing. He had to admit, he’d never seen anything so hilariously audacious. And, he had to admit, the little lamb replicas were rather well-made. Perhaps he’d even enter them in the county fair next year under the category “Most Creative Bird Project.”
