The Animals Escape the Zoo

One fine day in early May, the animals escaped from the zoo. They'd planned it meticulously, of course. They had spent weeks preparing. The meerkats slunk out of their enclosure and stole all of the tranquilliser darts from the store room, and chewed holes in all the nets. The vervet monkeys stole a set of keys from a zoo keeper and hid them in a hole at the top of a tree. Meanwhile, sparrows helped spread the word from cage to cage, and each enclosure leader began to strategise their escape plan.

The day of the escape, the zoo keepers noticed that some of the animals were behaving rather strangely, but they didn't give it much thought. They were animals, after all. You can't rationalise animal behaviour based on human standards. The armadillos were looking a little shiftier than usual though. And the flamingos. There was something in their eyes... it looked like they knew something the keepers didn't. They did.

At midday on the dot, the vervet monkeys let themselves out and stealthily scampered to the gazelle enclosure. The first thing the keepers knew about the breakout was when they saw a gazelle leap past the staff room with seven grey monkeys riding on its back like little furry jockeys. "Quick! Get the tranquillisers! Animals on the loose!" Walkie-talkies were going off all over the shop; but it was much too late to spread the alarm. The gazelle-riding monkeys had already ridden round and opened enough enclosures that they were followed by a veritable army of domestic beasts turned wild. And the tranquilliser guns were all mysteriously empty...

The terrified public fled, screaming, terrorised by the oncoming wave of roaring lions and gorillas pounding their chests and baring their teeth. Grown men cried and children cheered; Mothers wailed and babies giggled. All the while, elephants and giraffes and llamas and zebras were rampaging through the zoo, primates of all sizes riding on their backs and wielding sticks and stolen umbrellas. It was chaos. The keepers tried in vain to catch the penguins in big nets, to no avail; the nets had been chewed through. En masse, the animals left the premises, spilling out into the streets of London. All but the fish. And the tortoises. And the slow lorris (a keeper tickled him into submission).

As soon as they'd escaped the zoo, the animals dropped their scary wild beast act. It was only really necessary for the escape. Now it was time to have some fun! They hopped on buses or walked leisurely down avenues, heading for the city and all the exciting new sights and sounds.

The gorillas and ostriches made a beeline for Oxford street, where, joined by the zebras, they had a whale of a time in big Topshop. The llamas stuck to Urban Outfitters, because they were pretty alternative. The elephants and rhinos headed for the Tate modern, and the Komodo dragons and crocodiles went to the natural history museum to check out their ancestors. The big cats opted for a trip to Harrods, where they sampled some choice smoked salmon and caviar. Meanwhile, the monkeys went to the Rainforest Café and ordered Rasta Pasta, and the hippos headed to Camden to get some tattoos.

At the end of the day, after a ride on the London Eye and a boat trip down the Thames, they headed home on their all day railcards. The keepers were very angry, but worse, above all, they were disappointed. All the animals were all grounded for a month.