Spinning

Spinning, A Short Story by Alex Joshi

The eyes of the frog bore into the giraffe as the fairy floss melted on it’s tongue. The humans were nearby.
“Move.” Hissed the frog. “Move!”
The frog hopped further down the dark alleyway, his giraffe fellow following behind, his long pace easily keeping up with the frog’s comparatively short hops. They were almost out of the zoo, passing by the humans as they made their escape.
The plan was devious, and the two animals executing it were infinitely more so. The frog came from a military background, serving as a commando in the SAS before being kicked out for bad discipline and the giraffe was part of the Italian Mafia.
The giraffe ducked his head as the two escapees exited the zoo grounds, making way into the dark city, into the cover of the night. Behind them, sirens wailed, and the frog grinned.
“Almost there. The monkey should be around the corner.” He said, smiling. The giraffe said nothing, but smiled.
The monkey was another escapee of the zoo, being one of the greatest criminal masterminds the decade had seen, and had a speciality in stealing cars, and, after he was done with them, disposing of them discreetly.
“Hey! There they are!” A zookeeper made his way around the corner, catching sight of the two fleeing animals.
“Damn it! If you hadn’t insisted to get that fairy floss, we would be out and away by now!” The frog yelled angrily, picking up his pace.
The giraffe said nothing, silently keeping his stride.
“Left!” The frog said, turning down into a dark alleyway. Before them, a van opened it’s doors.
“What took you so long?” The monkey said, barely concealing his anger. “The rendezvous was ten minutes ago! Giraffe, you may need to duck your head.
The frog got into the passenger seat and the giraffe clumsily folded himself into the van, which, as big as it was, was not large enough to hold him.
“We-” The frog started, but the giraffe stuck his head through and prodded him angrily. “We ran into some zookeepers. Had to take a slightly different route.”
“Right.” The monkey said, and started the car, moving out onto open road. “Did they see you?”
“Yes.” The frog answered.
“Damn!” The monkey swerved past a small pink volkswagen beetle. “I suppose your delay had an affect on that? If in doubt, stick to the plan!”
“That was not going to work!” The frog replied angrily.
“You could have compromised the entire operation!” The monkey glared at the frog, then at the giraffe. “Is that fairy floss? I swear, if you nearly compromised the operation, for fairy floss, I will-,”
“What would you do? Throw a banana at us?” The frog challenged.
“Shut up!” The monkey shouted.
The car passed in silence for a few moments as the three criminals passed a police car. The monkey floored the accelerator and the car jumped forward.
“Slow down!” The frog said. “The last thing we need is to get pulled over for speeding.”
The monkey slowed down, but didn’t say anything. The road opened up to a freeway and they were able to go a little faster. If only they could get across the bridge- Then they would be impossible to catch in the many alleyways.
Suddenly a police car roared past, and it swerved out in front of them, attempting to create a roadblock. The monkey swerved as fast as he could in the van, but he clipped the very tail of the car and went spinning, crashing onto the other side of the road, which had suddenly opened it’s walls up to the bridge. A second police car came up alongside the van and was pushing against the van’s side, pushing it onto the lanes going the other direction. A car was coming on the rightmost lane, and it swerved just too late, smashing into the police car at high speed and knocking the van into another spin. The rear wheels of the van crashed through the barrier separating the bridge from open space. The van stopped for a moment, hanging over the abyss, but luckily the van was front wheel drive and it jumped forward, further down the bridge, narrowly missing another car.
Another full roadblock had formed, and the monkey was faced with the decision to either ram the road block, or stop and give up.
“Ram it, you idiot!” The frog yelled.
The monkey complied and crashed the van through the small gap between two police cars, sending them spinning and letting the van free.
The criminals roared onto the open street, almost free.
“We’re leaking fuel.” The monkey noticed. “We’ll have to run.”
“Or steal another car.” The frog said.
“What about Giraffe?” The monkey said. “Stop being so selfish.”
“True. True. We could steal some fuel.” The frog said.
“Good idea. Then it will just run straight out.” The monkey replied.
“Right.” The frog said. “So, just run? You Ok with that, giraffe?” He turned in his seat and looked at the giraffe, who nodded awkwardly.
“Ok. Just stop when you need to.” The frog said, twitching his toes.
Suddenly a police car ran straight across the crossing and the van crashed straight into it, stopping dead.
“Run. Run now!” The monkey yelled, getting out of the van.
The frog kicked open the passenger door, and the giraffe kicked down the back doors. They both began to run after the monkey, running as hard as they could.
The frog slid down a storm drain, disappearing out of sight, where none dared follow. The giraffe had caught up with the monkey, who used the few seconds after he rounded a corner, being out of sight of the police and climbed up a tree.
For the giraffe, there was nowhere to hide, but everywhere to run. However, as fast as he was, the giraffe wasn’t fast enough to outpace cars, so he slid down a skinny alleyway where no car could follow. He turned down into a small house and hid himself there, out of sight.
“MUM! Why is there an actual giraffe in our house!?” A little girl screamed in excitement. “Canwekeepitcanwekeepitpleaseplease!?”
The End