Here's a riddle: five cakes are ordered for a birthday party. Five cakes are eaten. But when the guests arrive for the reception, there's no cake left! Just what happened is what we'd like to know.
Yes, the birthday cakes are all gone, confess the people at the Ark, which is celebrating its fifth birthday as a cultural centre for children. Oopps, they say. Sorry, they say. You see, we had another party yesterday, they say. Here, have some 7-Up or a drop of lemonade. They just can't help celebrating at the Ark.
Happy to be here for the party because he loves the place (with or without the cake) is Eoghan Farrington (11), from Baldoyle, a pupil at Northbay School in Kilbarrack, who has come with his father and mother, Joseph and Cathy Farrington.
Phil McCaughey, administrator of the centre, and Martin Drury, its director, explain that up to 24,000 children of all ages visit them each year, not to mention the adults. Humph. The hungry savages.