It was her plan that had caused her to take extra precautions. She had found a way to get out of her cage. She couldn't wait to try it tonight, but she had to wait until she was sure the zookeeper, Dorothy, and her assistants were either gone or in the zoo's main office. If they were making their usual rounds they'd see her for sure.
It wasn't that she didn't like the zoo - on the contrary - it was a great place to live! She was fed regular meals, without having to do any work. She had friends from all over the world, of varying species (human included) and everyone was so nice. She always liked entertaining the visitors to the zoo. But she did miss the big outdoors sometimes. She wanted just a little freedom. She thought if she could just sneak out at night once in a while she would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of her days in the zoo.
Raccoons are naturally curious creatures. And so agile with their hands and feet. Emily, of course, was no exception. One day while she was snooping around the back of her cage she figured a way to open the cover to the drain pipe. Once the cover was removed she could squeeze her flexible body through the pipe (you wouldn't think this were true if you saw her but she could make herself quite thin, when she needed to) and out the other end. It quite surprised her, actually, that she could get out of her cage so easily, but suddenly she started thinking about all that she might do.
"Well, I could go on adventures" she thought, "I could take a walk in the woods. I could explore the neighborhood."
Little did Emily know, she'd be doing a lot more than that!
Her first thought was to run off into the nearby woods that neighbored the zoo - but then she thought of her other friends at the zoo. She was lucky to have had a chance to meet many of them when the zookeeper would bring them together for special zoo events. Flora, a young doe, had been her first friend and the friendship had really developed over the year they had both been at the zoo. Flora had been lucky, she was found as a small fawn nearly dead from being caught in a trap. A nice person who found her brought her to the zoo in the hopes that she could be nurtured back to health. She was so young at the time, and so helpless. But the zoo had been able to save her. By the time she was healthy again she was too inexperienced in the wild to be returned to it, so she was kept at the zoo. When she and Emily met they became immediate friends. Emily too had been a baby when she was brought to the zoo, so Flora and Emily grew up there together.
Emily's thoughts turned to Flora once she was outside her cage. She had known it would be fun to explore, but wouldn't it be even more fun to explore with someone else?
Emily crept silently to Flora's cage - would her friend be awake? She knew that deers were by nature nocturnal, but the zoo schedule had a tendency to alter an animal's natural wake-sleep cycle. Still, animals can be quite flexible in this way, altering that cycle themselves without much difficulty when conditions require it. When Emily finally arrived at Flora's she only had to whisper to have Flora awake.
"Flora, it's me." Emily whispered.
"Emily, what are you doing out of your cage?" questioned Flora.
"I found a way to slide out the drain hole - want to go on an adventure?" said Emily matter-of-factly. "I think I can figure a way out of your cage for you."
The cages for animals such as deer, animals that did not have hands, did not have as elaborate a locking mechanism as cages such as Emily's. The person who designed the cages knew that raccoons could open simple sliding locks, but that deer could not. They hadn't planned on having a raccoon help a deer out of her cage!
Once Emily swung the cage door open, Flora just stood there. She was so surprised and stunned by the turn of events she couldn't bring herself to move. Of course, she had been out of her cage many times during daylight hours. For special shows and events that the zoo held. Sometimes she even got to ride in a special trailer to a school or museum when they held special programs about animals. But she had never been out of her cage without a human around! This got her thinking.
She quickly quizzed Emily. "What if something happens to us? Who will watch over us while we're outside?"
"Oh, we can take care of ourselves - you know all of our ancestors have done that!"
"I know, I forget some time that my mother and father did just fine in the woods."
Flora stepped hesitantly outside her cage. And off they started on their adventure.
The month was October, and much of the wood's cover was starting to change color and fall. The noise of the rustling leaves startled Flora at first. She worried that someone would hear and find them out there.
"There's no one out here *to* hear!" suggested Emily, who found the rustling noise a delight. Despite her friend's concerns, she even made some attempts at piling the leaves up and jumping into the pile.
"There may not be any humans, but what about other animals?" asked Flora.
Emily hadn't considered this! All along she had been worried that the zookeeper would find them. And of course, once they reached the woods it would be unlikely that that would happen. But the thought of other animals finding them had not entered her mind.
"Oh, I'm sure they'll think we're just a couple of animals that live out here and leave us alone," suggested Emily.
"I hope you're right," was Flora's concerned reply.
The moon was in it's second quarter, not quite full, but big enough to provide light to see by. Certainly enough light for animals whose eyes were especially adapted to see during the dark hours. Emily and Flora easily made their way further into the woods stopping to check this log out, or look under that rock (Emily, of course, did most of the lifting). Flora even found herself bounding over a few boulders just to test her legs.
They wandered a bit more, tracing the path of the stream, before they sat down under the starry sky and talked. Their new found freedom was exhilirating and they could hardly keep from interrupting each other as their discussion continued.
"I think this is a grand adventure!" Emily squealed.
"Oh, I'm just glad you decided to include me." Flora said.
"Of course, I wouldn't go anywhere new without my best friend!"
In the wild, such animals would be much more adapted to nightly adventures. But since both Emily and Flora were zoo residents, their sleep time was always at night - they had to be up during the day to amuse the zoo's visitors.
The night progressed, the temperature dropped and dew started to form on the leaves of grass and the branches of the trees above the sleeping pair.
To Be Continued...