Illustrated by Laurie Rosenwald
THE CHEETAH NOMINATED himself to lead the Uprising of the Animals, because he was the fastest of them all. “We are going to overthrow America first,” the cheetah explained, “and Americans admire speed and stand in fear and awe of it. With all due respect to Leo,” he went on, bowing to the lion, “MGM and Androcles have made him a little silly. As for Rhino,” he added, bowing to the rhinoceros, “everyone knows that a movie actress not long ago took a snapshot of him in the African jungle and nothing happened.”
“I should like to place myself in nomination,” said the monkey. “After all, Man sprang from me, and I am not afraid to spring at him. Furthermore, the Uprising was my idea.”
“To Man you are a comic,” said the cheetah, “who drinks milk from a bottle while riding a tricycle. You are associated with monkey business, shines, and doodle. The elephant will attack first,” continued the cheetah, who considered himself elected, “knocking down doors, upsetting buses, breaking the center of Man’s line, and then we fleet-footed cats will follow, myself, and the tiger, and the black panther, and the jaguar, and the mountain lion, and the leopard.”
“I could divert the attention of the enemy,” said the seal, “by balancing my billiard cue and playing ‘Three Blind Mice’ on my auto horns.”
“America’s attention is always diverted by something,” said the cheetah, “usually by the nervous suspicion that the greatest threat to America is America. Fortunately, at the moment, the enemy is interested in three absorbing things: the latest international romance, the latest Mathilda Madison movie, The Naked and the Scantily Clad, and the latest confession recantation, ‘I Lied When I Said I Lied When I Said I Lied.’”
“It’s easy to beat the Americans on paper,” put in the monkey, “but nobody has ever beaten them on anything else.”
“Listen,” said the cheetah, who hadn’t been listening, “and I will brief each of you on the part he must play. We will leave the slow moving animals out of this, the turtle, the porcupine, and the skunk. Then—”
“Point of order, point of order,” objected the skunk, and he kept on objecting, but nobody listened.
And so the animals made their plans to overthrow the rule of Man, beginning with a concerted attack on New York. The fleet-footed, quick-minded cheetah rehearsed everybody in the strategy and tactics of the Great Assault. A vote was taken to see if everybody agreed on the plan of campaign, knew what he was supposed to do, and was ready to die for dear old Jungle. All the animals finally voted in favor of the Uprising and the way it had been planned, except the owl. The other conspirators turned their heads and stared at him. “Only one thing stands in the way of our success,” said the owl.
“And what is that, if I may be so bold as to ask?” inquired the cheetah mockingly.
“The fact that we are all confined here in Central Park Zoo,” said the owl, “and can’t get out.”
Nobody else had thought of that. There was a long silence. “It’s a catch all right,” said the cheetah grudgingly.
“It’s a drawback,” admitted the elephant.
“It places a considerable obstacle in the path of our undertaking,” agreed the monkey. “I’m glad I thought to bring it to your attention.” Before long everybody began believing that he was the one who had pointed out the flaw in the plan. The cheetah crawled back farther into his cell and lay down.
When the night keeper of the zoo made his final rounds everybody was locked up safe and sound as usual. “Here it is midnight,” he said to himself, “and they’re all awake. I wonder why.” The keeper was wrong. They weren’t all awake. The owl was fast asleep, dreaming of catching mice caught in a trap in a cell in a jail.
MORAL: Stone walls a pretty good prison make and iron bars a cage.