Sting Ray: I hope we’re not going to the zoo. They’ll put us in cages with no one to talk
to. Each one in a separate cage, and we’ll have to woosh back and forth all day,
and do tricks on giant swings, with people throwing quarters at our faces, and
teasing us.
Plastic: I don’t think we’re big enough for the zoo. I’m pretty sure they’re only
interested in very large animals over there.
Lumphy: I’m large.
Sting Ray: She means really, really very, very large. At the zoo they have sting rays the
size of choo-choo trains: and plastics the size of swimming pools. Zoo buffaloes
would never fit in a backpack. Those buffaloes eat backpacks for lunch.
Lumphy: Is that true?
Narrator 2: Plunk! The backpack is thrown onto the ground-- or onto a garbage truck.
Sting Ray: We might be going to the dump! We’ll be tossed in a pile of old green
beans, and sour milk cartons, because the Little Girl doesn’t love us anymore, and
it will be icy cold all the time, and full of garbage-eating sharks, and it will smell
like throw-up.
Plastic: I don’t think so.
Sting Ray: I’ll be forced to sleep on a slimy bed of used paper baggies, instead of on the
big high bed with fluffy pillows!
Narrator 3: There is a noise outside the backpack. Not a big noise, but a rumbly noise.
Sting Ray: Did you hear that? I think that is the sound of an x-ray machine. The vet is
going to x-ray us one by one, and look into our insides with an enormous
magnifying glass, and then poke us with a giant carrot!
Plastic: I’m sure it’s not an x-ray. An x-ray would be squeakier.
Sting ray: Then I think it is a lion. A lion at the zoo who does not want to be on display
with any small creatures like you and me. A lion who doesn’t like sharing her
swing set, and wants all the quarters for herself. She is roaring because she hasn’t
had any lunch yet, and her favorite food is stingrays.
Plastic: A lion would be fiercer. It would sound hungrier, I bet.
Lumphy: Maybe it is a giant buffalo.