Zoo You Know

PROMPT ▼

Prompt: Using one of the following prompts, write 250-750 words of a nonsense story about a day you spent at a: zoo, circus, garden, or haunted forest.

Written for "The Whatever Contest." "The Whatever Contest -- Closed for Now" 

Word Count: 712


Mrs. Minocher didn't know it, but her Kindergarten class was hatching a plot.

The plot egg was in a nest in the corner of the classroom, unbeknownst to Mrs. Minocher. It was hidden behind the stack of Lego boxes and other ends-and-odds. The Kindergarteners kept it warm with Usha's scarf, and, just to be on the safe side, they watered it every day, too.

The plot egg hatched in 23-and-a-half days, as the kids had known it would. The baby plot that emerged said: "On your visit to the zoo, set the animals free. Animals are meant to be free."

I happened to be at the zoo when Mrs. Minocher, four volunteer Moms, two involuntary Dads and twenty-seven bright Kindergarteners trooped in. So as not to alarm the animals by all barging in at cages together, they divided in to three groups - nine kids and a few adults in each group.

Now, in each group, unbeknownst to the teacher, the volunteers and the involuntaries, there was a designated communicator. The designated communicator was a Kindergartener who had a walkie talkie up her / his sleeve, to communicate with the other groups.

So, when her walkie talkie buzzed, Amisha hissed, "Reading you, agent X, what's the scene?"

"We got the keys to the ape house and are headed there."

"Okay, my group is for the birds. Over and out."

The birds and the apes weren't happy to be freed so close to lunch time. The cook had promised spaghetti and cheese that day, and they'd rather have escaped post-lunch.

"You'll be too sleepy after lunch to escape anywhere," said agent Z, knowingly. "You'll eat so much spaghetti, you won't be able to move."

Reluctantly, the apes and the birds escaped.

They mingled with the visitors. Wherever they could, they charmed a lady or gentleman in to giving them some popcorn, peanuts or even a chocolate cake or two.

The zoo-keeper was mildly astonished at seeing birds and apes in such abundance in the pathways and at the cafeteria. "I suppose they've escaped," he thought. "Well, birds should be free, and apes are best out of cages." With this thought, he went home to tell his wife to make sure she baked some cookies that night. Watching escaped apes and birds had made him hungry. (I know this because the wife is a friend of mine and she called on my cell phone to ask me if I was at the zoo and had the birds really escaped, if so could I tell the pigeons and owls that she had mail to deliver to her Muggle cousins and Wizard friends and could they please contact her before flying away.)

(In a normal story you wouldn't have that much in parenthesis but this is a nonsense story.)

I told the pigeons and the owls, but they said they hadn't escaped only to deliver mail. So I told them about the cookies and all of them flocked to the house of the wife of the zookeeper (which is also his house).

The Kindergarten kids then freed the kangaroos, who jumped away immediately.

The giraffe was happy to be free. He didn't like spaghetti. He wanted to go to Africa and eat leaves from tall trees. So he ran away quite happily. He had a passport and visa, so he ran straight to the airport where some passengers bought him a ticket for the next flight to Africa. He took up two seats and the aisle but nobody minded except the air-hostess who kept tripping over him.

They freed the elephant, they freed the lions and the tigers.

Soon, all the cages were empty.

"We can't have empty cages, they look so lonely," the zookeeper thought.

He and his wife wondered what to do with all the lovely empty cages. They had a meeting with the Kindergarteners. They decided that naughty grown-ups should be locked in there.

Now, Agent X, Y and Z are in charge of the zoo, assisted by lots of volunteers and involuntaries. The zookeeper and his wife are Chief Humans-in-Assistance. All naughty grown ups are locked in the cages and every November, Santa Claus visits the zoo to update his 'naughty' list.

So don't be naughty, or you won't get a gift from Santa.