SHE THINKS SHE'S A TIGER!

Shall I tell you a story? Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let's begin...

Sophie is a little girl just about to sit down to tea with her mother when there is a knock at the door. They wonder who on earth it could be. Is it the milkman? No, he's been. Is it the delivery boy? No, he's been too. Is it Daddy? No, it's too early. Sophie opens the door. My word! It's a tiger, and he's angling for an invitation to join them for tea. Of course, Sophie's mum takes it in her stride. In comes the tiger. Sophie thinks he's great. This tiger is gorgeous. Even I think so. He's got a lovely, long, curving tail that wraps itself around the table leg, the chair or Sophie's shoulder. He's friendly. But he's greedy too. He eats all the sandwiches. He eats all the buns. He eats all the cakes. He drinks all the milk, tea and juice. Things are beginning to get rather worrying.

And that naughty tiger doesn't stop there. He eats Daddy's tea too; right from the saucepans on the stove. He eats all the food in the cupboards and downs all the milk from the bottles. He drinks all the water from the tap. When everything that can be eaten has gone, he leaves. Just like that. But he does say "thank you for the lovely tea", so I suppose he's a polite tiger at least. Sophie and her mother are worried. Sophie can't have a bath - the water's all gone. I'll tell you a secret - I love this part of the story and so do all the many children to whom told it, not least my own. We're not quite sure what to think. No water in the tap at all? Could a tiger really do that? Equally worrying for Sophie and Mummy is that there is no supper for Daddy, either. What shall they do? Just then, Daddy comes in. Sophie and her mother tell him all about it. "Never mind," he says, "we'll go out for dinner." And they do, it's late and, "all the street lamps were lit, and all the cars had their lights on, and they walked down the road to a cafe". Oh, it was magic for Sophie, being out past bedtime with her mother and father, all thanks to her visiting tiger. They have supper and Sophie gets ice cream too. In the morning Sophie and her mother go shopping to replace all the food that the greedy tiger ate and they don't forget to buy a LARGE tin of tiger food in case he should ever call again..... "but he never did".

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr