She really was a beautiful baby, with a beaming smile and a few tufts of blond hair. I thought, however, that the cat whiskers were rather out of place on her sweet face – until someone explained to me that her father was a gorilla.

Whatever her parentage, I agreed to babysit her on a boat for a couple of hours. This would be no trouble at all, I claimed.

I was wrong. The baby mysteriously turned into a long blue balloon, then a gust of wind took her from my arms and swept her out to sea. How would explain this to her loving parents?