Chapter 25: The Keys
The next day, all the animals were waking up. It hadn't been a quality night's sleep for Diddy and Dixie; the spaces where they had to sleep were very uncomfortable, but still, they were enough for a restful sleep.
Suddenly, the door of the room opened, waking up the two kongs in an instant. The people entered, again with pillars of food behind them and, as the day before, they distributed it to each of the animals. The food was the same, so Diddy had to forcibly eat it, while Dixie still carried bananas in her backpack. Upon completion, the employees left the room. A multitude of human voices could also be heard again outside the zoo.
"Did you sleep well?" Diddy asked Dixie as he saw her reach his cage.
"No," Dixie replied, rubbing her head. "The hiding place was very narrow... Do you want bananas?"
Dixie gave Diddy a couple of bananas and sat next to his cage while they ate. As she looked around the room, she noticed something that caught her eye instantly... By chance, the employees who were recently there had left the front door open, which lit Dixie's mind.
"Diddy, look!" she pointed to the door, and Diddy turned to look.
"You're not thinking about going there, are you?" Diddy asked, catching Dixie's idea.
"And where else could I go?" said Dixie, shrugging. "Maybe I'll find the keys so I can open your cage."
"But what if those people catch you?" Diddy exclaimed worriedly.
"I'll know how to hide well, don't worry," Dixie replied without taking her eyes off the door.
Dixie immediately walked to the door and took a look outside. There was a wide hall with some doors to the surroundings, and a staircase could be seen at the back that led to the upstairs.
"Hey, Trixie girl," an elephant who was caged near the door called her. "I hope you don't think about walking through that door or you'll end up just like us."
"I just need some keys," Dixie replied.
"The only ones who have those keys are those three tamers. Do you know what danger it entails to do that?"
"But I'll never get Diddy out of here without doing anything," she replied and, without arguing further, walked through the door and began to walk stealthily through the new room.
Dixie looked at every corner of the hall: this one had a refined look with decoration accessories and elegant paintings. Suddenly, footsteps were heard coming towards where Dixie was, so she immediately ran to the staircase. Then, a group of assistant employees passed by.
"Hey! But who left this door open?" one of them exclaimed, instantly closing the door to the animal room.
Dixie continued to go upstairs to see what was above. But then, she was paralyzed when, a few centimeters in front of her, a human leg and another prosthetic leg appeared. She looked up, fearing that she had failed so quickly in her search; it was one of the tamers... Fortunately, he was reading some sheets of paper that served to cover Dixie's presence. She immediately slipped away just as the tamer raised his head and went downstairs. For a moment, Dixie's breathing had quickened as she reached the next floor.
The atmosphere of the upstairs was also quite elegant, it also had large paintings and shelves. Dixie, out of curiosity, took a quick look at everything that was hanging on the wall, where it could see several magazine and newspaper covers about the circus and the zoo, with titles such as: "Zoovlaki, awarded to the best", "We visited the Zoovlaki Zoo, an amazing place", "The Great Circus of the Zoovlaki Brothers, an attraction not to be missed", "To the best and most impressive circus in the city", in addition to current and old photos of the place. There were even pictures of the three tamers when they were younger and with all their limbs complete, but they also looked different... Dixie looked at them in detail and with a gesture of strangeness. Later, she saw another article titled: "Award to the Owens brothers, known as the 'Zoovlaki' Brothers", accompanied by a subtitle: "Brand, Brett and Fred Owens, famous for their Zoovlaki Circus", which seemed to mention the names of those tamers.
She continued walking until she saw other old magazine pages with titles as: "The Owens 'Zoovlaki' Brothers and Their Pets", along with another old photo of the tamers, accompanied by what appeared to be two more tamers, and carrying several little primates. But that old news became darker when later there was a page titled: "Two of the Owens brothers died in an accident: Bill and Bert Owens".
Suddenly, footsteps could be heard going upstairs, so Dixie ran aimlessly through the corridors nearby. She stopped instantly when, at the end of a corner, a group of employees were coming. She ran in the opposite direction and, to bad luck, everywhere she went there were people. Dixie was thinking that maybe it was a bad idea to go out and tour the interior of the building. But she couldn't give up; she had to find a way to get those keys anyway.
While hiding on a bookshelf, waiting for a group of employees to pass, she saw a semi-open door at the end of the hall; this one was larger and had a sign that said "Management and Administration." When there were no more people nearby, she went to that door, looked cautiously and tried to enter through the narrow space that was, trying not to move or sound it.
Upon entering completely, she saw that it was a large room with several shelves filled with a pile of books and papers. There were also a lot of photos on the wall, almost all of animals and tamers and, as it was seen a few minutes ago: there were photos, not of three, but of five tamers, of which two of them weren't in that world anymore. She even reached to see a small text in one of the photos, where those five tamers were named: Brand, Brett, Fred, Bill and Bert, the first three being already known.
Suddenly, Dixie stopped when she looked straight ahead: there was the one-eyed tamer sitting in a chair next to a desk; he was right in front of her and, if it weren't for the fact that his head was down leafing through some magazines, he would have already found her out. Without making a single noise, Dixie crawled on the floor and went behind the shelves where, through an empty space of the same, she could better observe the tamer, who apparently was the leader among the three and head of the entire zoo. The man was looking at the magazines, and next to him was a dish with remnants of the same meat skewer meal they were seen eating the day before; Dixie assumed that it was the so-called "zoovlaki" mentioned by the animals.
For several minutes, nothing interesting was happening there. The tamer didn't even stand up, much less there was any trace of a key. Suddenly, the front door resounded, giving Dixie a little scare.
"What's up, Brand?" the other two tamers appeared, greeting the one-eyed man as they passed into the room.
"Just having lunch too," replied the one-eyed tamer, smiling at them. "I almost ran out of lunch; These days have been very heavy."
"It's true, we must also see how we manage the plan of mec-"
"Silence! That's not talked about here," the one-eyed man whispered to them between his teeth. "Or speak it quietly."
"Ah, that's right... Better not to mention that topic."
"Although in any case, it has already been sent to be launched so that it's ready in the coming months, with at least forty more copies, apart from the first ones that have already been made. So, well... only that I can tell you, let's switch to the topic of tonight's performances."
Then the three men talked about the next circus performance and the training of the animals. In addition to that, the two last-arrived men had also brought a dish with that meal. Dixie just looked at them strangely from her hiding place, while wondering how much the tamers liked to eat that. Even, remembering what the circus animals had told her, she was disturbed by the idea that it was true that those tamers prepared such food with their animals.
While listening to their conversations that she didn't understand at all, Dixie realized that next to her was a camera, which caught her attention: it was different from the ones they had on DK Island, since it looked more modernized. Next to it, there were also several cartridges with photographic rolls containing the same photos that were shown in the previous night's function. Dixie began to inspect the camera better and turned it on. While playing with all the buttons it had, she accidentally pressed the capture photo button, causing it to sound and emit a light. Dixie dropped it instantly, and at the same time caught the attention of the three tamers.
"Say what?!" they exclaimed in fright. "And what was that?!"
For a moment, Dixie felt that she was found, so she immediately ran to another bookshelf. The three tamers went to where she had been to investigate what that photographic light and sound had been. Luckily, they didn't get to find Dixie.
"But what the heck was that?!" exclaimed the one-eyed tamer.
"It's the camera!" said the one-armed tamer, picking up the camera from the ground. "But how did it activate itself?"
"Check the pictures, Brett!"
The three tamers began searching in the camera, while Dixie was hidden behind other shelves. She was tense and not knowing what to do now... until she saw an object on the floor, under the desk of the tamers... It was the keys! It was the perfect time to catch them, as the three men were distracted by the camera. Dixie scrolled through the shelves until she could reach the desk.
"How the heck did the camera photograph us?!" the three wondered when they saw in the roll of the camera a blurry photo of themselves, which Dixie had taken by accident.
"Very strange!" exclaimed the one-armed tamer.
Dixie was on the side of the desk and began to reach out so she could reach for the keys.
"Huh?! What's that under the desk?" the one-eyed tamer exclaimed suspiciously, pointing exactly to where Dixie was.
Dixie froze instantly, without even looking up; she clearly felt that she had been seen by the three tamers, so she became more tense and looked up little by little.
"Oh, they are my keys," replied the tamer of the prosthetic leg, going to pick them up.
"Geez, Fred!" the one-eyed tamer exclaimed. "You always drop your keys."
Dixie felt a deep relief to see that she was not found out, but in turn, she felt a great frustration, since the tamer took the keys and she lost her chance to get them. Then, the three tamers headed back to the desk, so Dixie had to hide behind the shelves again.
Suddenly, she could see that a desk drawer was partially open and there were other keys! But it would be riskier to reach them, since the three tamers were crowded around. Still, Dixie plucked up the courage and tried to find a way to get there. She climbed down from the bookshelf and crawled stealthily to the desk. She stopped behind the chair where the tamer was and, very carefully, reached out to open the drawer more and try to grab the keys... but to her bad luck, the one-eyed tamer, by involuntary action, slammed the drawer shut and almost caught Dixie's hand.
"Hey, here were my keys too," said the tamer, opening the drawer again and taking the keys in his hand, then putting them in his shirt pockets.
A minute later, the three tamers left the room, leaving the door closed. Dixie couldn't contain her frustration at not being able to get the keys; that would be the only way to get Diddy out of that place... And, as if that were not enough, now she was locked in that room.
Luckily, there was a high window on the wall facing out into the hallways, so Dixie climbed the shelves and, with the help of her hair, was able to reach the small window to leave quietly… But now, the problem was that she had lost sight of the tamers and, consequently, the keys.
Diddy was still locked in the cage. He had never felt so bored; it was too overwhelming to spend caged for long hours. In short, he no longer felt good in that circus/zoo; he just wished he could close his eyes and wake up again on DK Island, or go back in time four days ago and better have stayed at home or at least gone somewhere else. He cursed Jemky and the group in his mind as well for causing such conflicts between him and Dixie... although he also regretted what Dixie told him the night before.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps inside the room; it was Dixie coming back and entering through one of the high windows.
"Did you get the keys?" Diddy asked, hoping for an affirmative answer. But seeing Dixie's frustrated face, he noticed the opposite.
"No," Dixie complained. "I had them so close a couple of times but I didn't make it."
"We told you it wasn't easy, girl," said a zebra from his cage. "Those tamers take care of those keys as their own lives."
Diddy looked down upon hearing the answer; it was also frustrating for him to remain locked up. Still, he didn't want to make Dixie feel guilty; he realized how she had gotten there and crossed the city to get to the zoo for him, and she was still looking for a way to free him so they could return to DK Island together. On that side, Diddy felt somewhat better; had he known that Dixie would do something like that for him, he surely wouldn't have been sad for her in previous days.
"Don't worry... We'll get out of here for sure," Diddy said, smiling and placing a hand on her shoulder through the bars. "We'll already find some way; we just have to survive a little longer."
"I hope so," Dixie replied, lowering her gaze.
Several hours passed, with nothing to do. The only thing to distract themselves was to talk to all the animals although, to tell the truth, they were not so cheered up to have long conversations. Dixie also told Diddy everything she had seen while exploring the building inside and her attempts to get the key.
There were long and stressful empty hours. Until later, a group of employees entered with the piles of food, and began to distribute it to each of the animals. Dixie, on the other hand, had no more bananas reserved, so this time, Diddy gave her half of his food, despite the poor quality of it.
"In a few minutes there will be training again, little monkeys," an elephant announced.
"Oh, great," Diddy replied wryly.
Just like the day before, minutes later, the employees re-entered, took the rolling cages again and began moving the animals to take them to the training room. Dixie, therefore, also followed them stealthily.
They all went to the training room. The cages were ordered, and employees walked next to them to keep an eye on the animals. Dixie kept hiding behind the cages, and hoped to get another chance to get the keys, as the tamers would be nearby.
A few minutes later, the three tamers arrived, with whip tied to their clothes and with all their hard attitude to train the animals. Diddy was scared to see them again and felt his whole body tremble just thinking about when his training turn came.
The tamers, as the day before, also brought in their hands the same plates of meat skewers while they were finishing eating it; that food seemed to please them too much as the animals had told.
Minutes later, training was to begin. The first to train would again be the felines, so the three men went to their cages.
"Geez, my keys!" the one-eyed tamer exclaimed as he rummaged through his pockets. "Oh, yes, I left them saved on the desktop again."
"Take it, use mine, Brand," said another tamer, handing him his keys.
Those words caught Dixie's full attention. The three tamers, along with several employees, were in that training room, therefore, in the building there would be no one... The keys! They had just mentioned that one of them was on the tamer's desk.
As the tamers began training the felines, Dixie began crawling very stealthily under the cages, and then left the training room. No one could see her anymore, so she ran to the front door of the room where the animals rested, which, luckily, was open again.
There was no human presence in the halls of the building, so Dixie made the same journey to reach the tamers' office without problems. When she managed to enter, she immediately went to the tamers' desk and checked the drawers... Her green eyes began to glow when she finally took what she was looking for.
"Yes! We'll get out of here!" she whispered with a big smile and jumping with excitement as she finally held the bunch of keys in her hands. This time, it was so easy that even she couldn't believe it.
Dixie took the road back, all excited to finally be able to leave with Diddy from that place. She went back to the training room and hid behind the cages again. She wanted to inform Diddy, but she couldn't release him yet, since at that time there were the employees next to the cages as strict supervisors.
But in the meantime, the scenes that were seen in front... were of the tamers training each group of animals, beating them with constant lashes and often threatening them if one put up resistance.
"Stupid bear! Get moving!" exclaimed the one-armed tamer, giving a lash to one of the three bears that were training later.
The bears were clearly tired while the tamers held them at whip point. They were forced to stand on two legs for long minutes on balls, and another of them was mounted on a bicycle rolling around the track; among the three, the latter was the one who was most exhausted and in turn the one who was receiving the most lashes.
"This bear is useless! Accelerate faster!" exclaimed the tamer before giving him a strong lash in one of the wounds of the small bear that made him growl with pain.
"IDIOT TAMER!" shouted aggressively the little bear which, to human language, sounded like loud growls.
"Hey! No growling, little bear!" replied the tamer before whipping him once more.
"Insolent!" added another bear standing on two legs furiously, seeing his brother being whipped.
"Silence you too!"ordered the tamer of the patched eye beating him.
The three bears were noticed furious and quite stressed that they began to growl at the three tamers without stopping.
"Shut up right now or we'll shut you up!" the one-eyed tamer shouted at them, whipping the three bears.
Suddenly, the three little bears got off on dry land and began to corner the tamers, until a few seconds later, they growled and lunged wildly at them.
"STAY STILL! STAY STILL! NOOO!"shouted the tamer of the prosthetic leg, trying to flee from two bears and pushing them away with the whips.
Meanwhile, the one-armed tamer was being cornered by the other bear. The employees began to scream in terror at the scene that was suddenly assembled. Diddy and Dixie, in different places, covered their eyes and at the same time without stopping looking. When suddenly, one of the bears began to scratch the tamer, while the rest of the animals only looked attentively at the scene and were worried about what the bears were doing, since when an animal rebelled in that way, the tamers used to apply cruel measures of punishment... or worse.
Suddenly, the bear that was cornering the one-armed tamer gave him a long and wild scratch on his other arm that remained, it was so strong that it made the man scream in pain and did not even have his other hand to hold the wound.
"STAND BACK!" the one-eyed tamer appeared with a rifle in hand and, without letting a second pass, began to press the trigger and fired in the direction of each of the three little bears.
Instantly, the three bears began to stagger from side to side and doze, until finally... they fell to the ground and all stood motionless.
All the animals, including Diddy and Dixie, were paralyzed upon seeing the scene of the massacre.
"Did you kill them?" asked the tamer of the prosthetic leg to the one with the patched eye.
"No, I shot the sedatives, they'll wake up later," replied the one-eyed man, relieving the rest of the animals entirely. "But which one attacked you, Brett?!" he asked with a stern attitude to the tamer who had been scratched.
"It was this," replied the one-armed tamer, pointing with his one bruised hand to the bear lying near him.
The one-eyed tamer cast a stern glance at the bear and re-prepared his sedative weapon. Then, without thinking at all, he aimed at him and began to shoot him mercilessly repeatedly, with which the bear was intercepted by several darts.
"To that one I did so," said the one-eyed man coldly, before blowing out the weapon of sedatives. "We won't present the number of the brat bears tonight."
The employees gathered and began moving the two sleeping bears to their cages, while the other was taken away. Other employees went to help the tamer of the injured arm. Then, the other two tamers continued to train the rest of the animals.
The animals that were still caged cursed and roared as much as they could toward the three tamers. Although they were already accustomed to seeing such scenes, none left them alone and deeply outraged them. For their part, Diddy and Dixie were all horrified by the scene they had just witnessed; now they were sure that those circus tamers were complete criminals who had no mercy and didn't care what animals they hurt. The impact was so strong that even Dixie lost her excitement of having gotten the keys momentarily.
After long hours of training, just like the day before, the employees began to prepare the animals for the circus performance in all their colorful costumes. At the end, they were all transferred to the dressing rooms of the circus. They were all, except for the bears, since they left them stored due to the event that occurred that afternoon.
It was already later compared to the previous day, so the other circus performers arrived immediately to prepare in the dressing rooms. Dixie still had no chance to get Diddy out of there with human presence in front of her at all times.
The performance began and the stands were again full of people eager to see the show. The tamers were giving the welcome, including the tamer of the arm injured by one of the bears. The technicians were preparing the lighting and projecting back the images of the animals being apparently well treated by the tamers. The human artists gave their show of exotic acrobatics and, of course, the animals performed their numbers, although to tell the truth, they were very low spirits as a result of the event that occurred during the training of that afternoon.
One more night, the circus performance had finished and, late at night, the animals were returned to their respective cages in their main room. Afterwards, all the attending employees left the venue.
"Hey... what happened?" asked one of the bears already awake along with the other, noticing that one of them was missing. "Where's Berny?!" he exclaimed, referring to the missing bear.
All the animals present, including Diddy and Dixie, looked at them very sadly, as none wanted to give them the fatal news.
"Well, he is…" an elephant dared to tell with difficulty. "Your brother is…"
"You know…" continued a rhino. "It happened to him what happens to everyone who attacks those monstrous ones... And your brother almost shattered the one-armed tamer's other arm."
"No…" the little bears, paralyzed at the announcement, pronounced. "No, why?! Why always us?!"
The pair of bears that now remained, immediately burst into tears, being then accompanied by the rest of the animals.
"I'm so sorry, little friends," said an elephant, wiping away a few tears too.
"He didn't deserve that," added a zebra also with tears in his eyes. "He just wanted to get free... just like all of us."
Suddenly, the atmosphere became depressing. All the animals accompanied the little bears in their grief and began to cry too. They had already mentioned that it was common for those tamers to end the life of one of their animals, but even so, when that happened, it was a situation that put them in mourning.
Dixie, who was next to Diddy's cage and watching the mourning of all the animals, also could not contain herself and a few tears escaped; that event moved her too much and to have seen it live was very heartbreaking. Seconds later, Diddy also joined in and began to fill with tears in his eyes.
After several minutes of mourning, more than half an hour of absolute tranquility passed when the animals began to fall asleep. Diddy and Dixie were still awake, too sad upon seeing the depressing life those animals had. Suddenly, Dixie remembered something very important to announce to Diddy.
"Uhh... Diddy."
"Yeah?"
"I have... the keys," she said, pulling the bunch of keys from her backpack. Despite the bad events they witnessed that day, she smiled a little at him. Diddy was amazed and began to smile little by little.
"What?! That's great!" Diddy exclaimed, cheering up a little. "You got them, Dixie!"
Both smiled again when they saw that at least, they would have a way to leave that horrible place. Dixie got up and started trying each of the keys to see which one was correct, until finally... one matched. Diddy slowly pushed the door open completely; finally... he was free of those bars. As soon as he came out, he looked at Dixie for a few seconds, and soon went to hug her.
"Dixie!" he exclaimed with great emotion. Deep down, it was something he wanted to do as soon as he met her again.
"Diddy!" she exclaimed, reciprocating the embrace with joy.
"I missed you," Diddy said when they separated, but then he took on a normal tone again. "I mean... I missed going outside and-"
"I missed you too, Diddy," Dixie interrupted with a few small laughs.
Instantly, Diddy tried not to blush; it had been a few days since that hadn't happened to him, so he changed the topic immediately.
"Uhh, well, now what?"
"We'll try to get out there. Follow me," Dixie pointed to the small high window through which she first entered that room.
The pair of kongs came down from the cages area, and went to a corner where some old boxes were in the room. Upon arrival, both began to pile up these cardboard boxes to reach the high window and finally be able to leave. Then, they started climbing them, until Diddy stopped and looked back... observing for the last time the room full of caged animals with whom he lived for a couple of days.
"Do you think... that they'll be fine?" Dixie, who was looking at the same thing, said.
"Uhh... Well... Not really, but... this is where they live, isn't it?" he replied insecurely.
They stared at them for a while longer, until finally, they continued to climb the boxes until they almost reached the window. Being already up, Dixie didn't stop being chased by doubt about whether the animals would be okay... Suddenly, she looked at the bunch of keys she still carried in her hand.
"Hey, Diddy," she called him, and Diddy turned around. "I was thinking if…"
"What's going on?"
"Well... We have the keys... of all the cages and…"
"Are you thinking about…" Diddy began to grasp Dixie's idea. "I don't think so, Dixie. It would be crazy!"
"Well, yes, it's that. Just look," Dixie added, "the life these animals have is horrible, so… what if it's our chance to... save them?" she said, getting the keys up and smiling a little.
Diddy looked at her somewhat strangely at first; such a sudden plan was not expected, which generated many doubts.
"But do you know the chaos that will be generated?" Diddy replied with some concern. "I mean, this is a city, how are we going to get them all out of here?"
"Diddy…" she said, placing a hand on his shoulder and speaking earnestly. "Have you noticed how cruel that life they have is? It's true that it would be crazy to get them out, but I think that having the opportunity to help them and not doing it would be... terrible too."
Diddy was silent for a few seconds and looked at all the animals again. He remembered the prison they lived being locked in a cage, all the mistreatment they suffered in training and, finally, that tragic event they lived that afternoon and that was only one of the many that occurred frequently there. He finally remembered every word Dixie had just said, and after a few seconds, he placed his hand on her shoulder as well.
"Well... we can try!" he said with a smile and shrugging.
Dixie widened her eyes as they glowed and a big smile was drawn at Diddy's positive response.
"Yeah!" she exclaimed, jumping for joy.
Suddenly, Dixie hugged Diddy by surprise and instantly gave him a kiss on the cheek in excitement... But then, she blushed a little and tried to regain her normal posture.
"Uhh... Well. So, let's tell those animals," Dixie said, trying to hold back her nerves, before heading to the animal cages again.
But on the other hand, Diddy was all paralyzed; his heart raced instantly and he got a color on his face that could be said to be similar to that of his clothes. He forgot everything for a moment as a broad smile appeared on his face, accompanied by several thoughts hovering in his mind about... Dixie.
"Hey, wake up!" Dixie whispered in the middle of the cages.
Diddy reset back into what they were and headed towards where Dixie was.
"Hey, Dixie, wait!" Diddy said, taking her arm. "We still need to plan it well."
"You're right," Dixie replied. "This is a city, isn't it?"
"First we must think about when we'll get them out," Diddy said thoughtfully. "If we do it now, it's going to be complicated."
"How about tomorrow just before the show?" Dixie suggested.
"Yes! It sounds good. That way they won't scare people and everything will be clear."
"Agreed. Let's tell everyone right now."
Diddy and Dixie began to whisper and make little noises in each of the cages. They didn't want to wake them up, but it was a topic that had to be talked about right then and there.
"Hey, everybody! Wake up, we have to tell you something," they both whispered to the animals.
One by one, the animals opened their eyes again, all with a face of interrupted sleep.
"Huh? Look, the monkey Diddy came out of his cage!" announced an elephant standing up, to which the rest joined in amazement and began to murmur.
"Yes, I managed to get him out of that cage," Dixie said smiling, waiting for a reaction from the animals, but they still didn't change their faces of exhaustion.
"That's right, we won't be here anymore... And neither will you!" Diddy added, smiling firmly.
"We're going to get you all out of here!" Dixie announced, holding up the keys and showing them to all the animals.
"What?!" everyone exclaimed in unison, astonished to see that Dixie had managed to obtain the keys from one of the tamers.
As expected, none seemed to believe it; they were so shocked, as obtaining the keys from those tamers was almost impossible.
"That's right, we want to release you all," Diddy added, maintaining his attitude. "But we need your help. Tomorrow night, before the last performance starts, will be the best time to do it. What do you say?"
A few seconds of silence passed as the animals looked at them with a face of weirdness, as if they wanted to tell them that the two were a pair of crazy ones giving a utopian explanation.
"Wow... What a good joke," an elephant told them with a forced smile.
Suddenly, the rest of the animals began to murmur similar things, downplaying the proposal, which disappointed Diddy and Dixie.
"Hey, it's serious!" Diddy exclaimed, catching everyone's attention.
Everyone fell silent; they hadn't reacted the way Diddy and Dixie expected.
"But wait, wait a minute... Really... are those the keys?" a gorilla asked them, very incredulous.
"Yeah! Look, I'll prove it to you," Dixie exclaimed.
Dixie reached for one of the keys, which had numbers marked for each cage, and then opened the cage where the gorilla was.
Suddenly, the other animals changed their faces as they saw how the gorilla proceeded to slowly peek out of the cage. The gorilla, when putting his feet out of the cage, and without tamers nearby, showed a certain sense of freedom that he didn't seem to have for a long time.
"Have you already seen?" Dixie pointed to the gorilla.
Then, Dixie proceeded to open more cages and, therefore, the animals gradually peeked out of them, until finally getting out; it was a new sensation for most of them.
"We are… out of the cage," said an elephant without recovering from the astonishment, before repeating it aloud. "We are out of the cage!"
Suddenly, the whole herd of animals reacted and their faces changed in their entirety. For the first time, they could be seen smiling for real, so much so that they began to roam and jump around the room like toddlers in a preschool.
"WE ARE FREE!"they exclaimed with an emotion never before seen in them.
"Yeah, yeah, but wait!" said Diddy trying to calm them down, but they wouldn't hear him because of the excitement of the novelty at the time. "Hey, listen to us!"
"Listen to us please!" exclaimed Dixie, waving to everyone.
The animals immediately stopped and looked in the direction of the two kongs.
"Well... it's that we still have to plan how to get out of here," Dixie added. "First go back to your cages, one of those men could come and they can see you all."
"Oh... It's true," they all murmured as they returned to their respective cages.
"Are you really going to get us out of here?" asked an elephant with a face of excitement never seen before. To this were added the other animals.
"Can we finally leave this horrible place?"
"Yes, but listen first," Diddy said. "We can't take you all out now because the doors are locked and we don't have the keys for those, so tomorrow-"
"Wait a minute!" a lion interrupted suddenly. "But if we got out of here... where would we go?"
Suddenly, the faces of the animals changed again before that mentioned doubt. Everyone began to wonder to each other: what would they do after they left. Their expressions again became doubtful as at the beginning.
"It's true, we have nowhere else to go."
"What will we do next? What will we eat? Where will we live?"
"By the way, out there it's very dangerous, those humans hate us and scare us."
"I've never lived as a wild animal."
"Forget it, little monkeys. It's a huge risk... Anyways we'll die here, as one of us dies every week or every month."
The animals murmured and, as if the emotion had lasted only a couple of minutes, they began to make gestures of rejection towards the proposal. Diddy and Dixie were also discouraged, because they had not thought of that part of the plan: many of these animals, upon spending almost all their lives there, didn't know how to survive in the outside world.
"Listen, but do you want to continue living here? With those cruel tamers?" Diddy told them, trying to encourage them. "I mean, just look at how you live in this place: being manipulated like puppets for people's entertainment."
"And by the way," Dixie added, "you shouldn't be afraid of the human people out there; they might fear you instead. Tamers may be like that, but people there cannot. I say this because when I arrived in the city, almost everyone feared me, and that I'm of small size... Now look at yourselves, surely you will fear them more since you are much bigger and stronger."
"You are by nature very strong," Diddy continued. "If everyone unites, you'll be able to get out of here anyway, even with everyone united you all are a thousand times stronger and rougher than those three miserable tamers."
"You must bring out your wild animal spirit that those three wretches took from you!" Dixie concluded.
The animals were silent for a few seconds, looking strangely at the pair of little kongs… Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working; they were not convinced by that idea.
"You'll have to excuse us, little monkeys, but we can't," said a zebra without taking any importance. "If you want to leave, you go; as you are small, it should not be complicated for you to leave here."
The animals were not convinced and continued to murmur in a negative way. Diddy and Dixie couldn't believe how it had truly taken away the natural animal spirit from all the animals in that place.
"No, wait!" one of the little bears suddenly exclaimed, to which they all turned to see him. "I think this pair of monkeys is telling the truth."
"What are you talking about?!" replied a lion looking at him strangely.
Suddenly, the rest of the animals made some gesture of strangeness before the posture that the little bear was taking.
"That is, it's true that we won't know what to do next," continued the bear, "but... they are giving us a chance to get out of this prison. This life we have is not natural, our life should be out there, away from all those people, don't you remember when we lived in forests, jungles or savannahs? We were free, until those monstrous ones took that freedom from us. Those who still remember their families, don't you remember how strong they were? We should also carry that strength, but we haven't shown it out, and now... it may be time."
"And just look at us," added the other little bear, apparently taking the same stance as his brother. "Today it was the turn of one of our brothers to leave forever; this may already be normal every month, but this is how all of us will end up if we are still here. And I say that... if we have the opportunity to leave here, I would rather die on the run from a prison, rather than die at the hands of those three wretches. If we stay here, we are doomed to die anyway! So, Diddy, Dixie... the two of us, we accompany you... I'll do it for our siblings who are no longer here."
The whole herd fell silent; no one knew what to say, and each was now undecided about whether to join the proposal or not. Several seconds of absolute silence passed, while Diddy and Dixie were still waiting for everyone's answers.
"I'm joining too," added an elephant earnestly after a while.
"So do we," said the tigers.
"To teach those monstrous ones a good lesson!" a lion exclaimed. "I'll also join."
The rest of the animals were joining one by one, until finally, they were determined towards the proposal. That made Diddy and Dixie be happy and jump with excitement.
"And... how and when will we get out of here?" an elephant asked Diddy and Dixie.
"We were thinking the ideal time would be before the show starts," Diddy replied.
"Yes, there will be no people there and we can all leave calmly," Dixie added.
"And what if we also release the zoo animals out there?" suggested a gorilla.
"I don't think so, they do have a better life," replied a tiger.
"But they'll have the same fate as us anyway, I come from there," replied a zebra.
"Then we'll get them out too," Diddy said. "We just have to tell them about the plan."
"It won't be necessary, they'll also want to come with us at that time," commented a rhino.
"Wait, what if those tamers shoot us as we fled?" added a fearful zebra.
"Well, we'll kill them first!" exclaimed a lion full of anger.
"No!" replied a tiger firmly. "That would be in vain. It's better that, while they are alive, they see how we, their sources of fortune, mock them by escaping."
"Exactly, and also other humans in such an Animal Control Unit would end up killing us if we harm people," added an elephant. "They'll have no mercy on us if we do that!"
"But what are we going to do so they don't shoot at us?!" replied the zebra.
All the animals began to wonder among themselves how they would escape safely and avoid failing in the attempt, since after all, those tamers were almost always well equipped with their weapons when they had animals nearby and wouldn't hesitate to act if necessary.
"Hey... I think I came up with something," Dixie said with a smile.