The Inanimate Object Maximum Security Prison and Petting Zoo 
by David Fischer dave@cca.org
Copyright (C) 1998 by David Fischer

We were known as The Devil Gang, and we were the toughest gang at
The Inanimate Object Maximum Security Prison and Petting Zoo.
There were four of us.

Little Red Ball was our leader. He didn't say much, but he organized
everything we did, planned it all out ahead of time. He didn't
think up the schemes, but he made sure everyone did their part.
He had a way of keeping other inmate's loyalty - no matter what kind
of criminal back-stabbing scum they were, everyone was fair and
square with Ball. He was also real quick at rolling down inclines,
and pretty fun to play with, although that was only allowed outside.

The oldest member of the gang aside from Ball was the Short Piece of
String. He was the brains of the group, and he could come up with
schemes you just wouldn't believe. He's the one that came up with the
chemical waste scam back when they were on the outside.  They made a
killing charging people to haul away toxic waste byproducts from
pesticide production, processing it a little bit to concentrate it,
then selling it to third world countries to use as chemical weapons. I
think he was good at thinking up stuff like that because he used to
work for a newspaper company, holding bundles of newspapers together
when they were dropped off at grocery stores. A curious piece of
string's gotta be able to pick up a thing or two working for a
newspaper company, right?  Anyways, that was his other special talent -
he was real good at tieing stuff together.

Ball and String were friends from way back, and worked together as
their own sort of gang duet long before they came to The Inanimate
Object Maximum Security Prison and Petting Zoo. Once here, they soon
teamed up with a Christmas Tree Ornament that looked like Santa Claus.
He had been sent to the big house on an armed robbery conviction. He
walked into a shipbuilding company with a submachine gun, and demanded
that they build him a custom yacht. They said it would take at least six
months, he sat down, pointed the gun at them, and told them to get
working.

It was crazy of course, no one can pull off a long armed robbery, the
only way is to get in and out in a blur. No loitering, no arguing, no
delays. Just burst in, flash the gun, take the cash, and disappear. But
no, Santa here has to sit down and wait six months. Of course he got
nailed. He was only there for about four months when the cops
surrounded the place and kicked in the front door. Now he's serving
twenty years.

We liked having him with us though, he was our strongarm, and everyone
in the prison knew it. They were all very cooperative with any request he
had. Even the worst jailbird troublemakers change their tune when they
think that what they're getting for christmas depends on it.

Me? I'm Hungry Guy. I'm not really good at anything, but they
let me tag along because they know they can trust me, and I helped
Ball and String out of a bad jam a long time back. I'm also good at 
eating, which only came in handy during one of our jobs, but it
really saved us then. I guess it just goes to show you that you never
know when someone is going to usefull. I never thought I'd be able
to help out The Devil Gang, but I was proven wrong during their biggest
job ever - the only escape anyone ever made from The Inanimate Object
Maximum Scurity Prison and Petting Zoo.

I really loved being a member of The Devil Gang. It was the only family
that I had ever had, the only people that ever really cared for me.
You can probably imagine how scared I was when I found out I'd be
serving my sentance at the Inanimate Object Maximum Security Prison
and Petting Zoo. Of course I thought it was some kind of mistake
but my appeal was turned down, and I never found out what it was
about my case that made them consider me too dangerous for a normal
maximum security prison. In any case, I'm glad it worked out that way.
How else could I possibly have met up with Ball, String, and Santa?

I guess they were impressed that I was doing time in their prison, and
when they found out I had been convicted of obstruction of justice for
hiding a wanted Rococco tea set that was wanted by the FBI, they knew
that if any human was ever going to join the Devil Gang, it had to be
me.

The Devil Gang got our name because when we got together the four of us
cooked up some of the best Deviled Eggs anyone at the prison had ever
tasted.  They asked us to make them whenever anyone important was
coming to take a look at the facilities, or when they were unveiling a
new exhibit at the petting zoo.

Warden Beer Bottle liked our eggs as much as he hated and feared our
gang.  He became warden on the same day that Little Red Ball was transfered
here from Attica, and they'd had a feud going ever since.

One day when a class of third-grade vending machines was visiting from
the local elementary school, the Warden gave Little Red Ball to the
human they had in the athlete exhibit to demonstrate something called
"Recreational Catch". I have a hard time believing humans actually ever
did that in the wild, but anyways, it meant that the guy threw Ball
against a wall, and then caught him when he bounced back.

You can imagine how mad Ball was, and how much he wanted to get back at
the Warden for that insult. He kept quiet about it though, and the
Warden thought everything had been forgotten, and he let his guard
down. That's when Ball tried to turn him in for the five cent deposit!
He almost pulled it off, and that's when they became real enemies. The
Warden never forgot that little incident. You could see it in his eyes
whenever he encountered Ball. He'd start unconsciously rubbing the five
cent deposit message printed on his label, then he'd get real sour and
usually start yelling at one of his assistants.

As for the human in the athlete exhibit? He was so scared after he found
out who Ball was, that he offered to do any sort of dirty work we needed
to be done. Of course an offer like that from some moron human who had just 
insulted our leader was even more insulting, so we took care of him as
soon as the opportunity arose. 

Next time he went running out to the baseball field for a sports
demonstration, he had taken but one step when he slammed straight into
the ground, flat on his face. A later investigation turned up evidence
that his shoelaces had been tied together, even hinting that they had
been tied with a third piece of string!  No charges were brought
against anyone thought, nor were any suspects ever named.

He kept clear of us after that though, I can tell you that.

I don't know exactly where the idea came from, only that one
day me and Santa found out that Ball and String had been
working on escape plans for a while, and they were hammering
out the details of the route to take over the wall. We were
having our weekly meeting in the cafeteria over Sunday
brunch...

Short Piece of String was illustrating the possible routes with a model
of the prison he had made right there on the cafeteria table.  It was
constructed entirely from food. He was using a piece of crepe to
represent the prison yard, fresh slices of banana for the guard towers,
and long thin slices of quiche for the walls, with sprigs of parsley
for the barbed wire.

Our model looked a little funny, but it was more than adequate for our
immediate purposes. Ironicly the kitchen staff served little layer
cakes shaped exactly like the prison for dessert a few days later. It
didn't really matter though, since String always liked the chance to be
creative with his food, and we really didn't get as many opportunities
to do catering work as we would have liked.

Ball got serious then. "So where are the guards at midnight?"

"Well, the towers are manned by manequins because the guards can't
climb the stairs. We won't have to worry about them, manequins have
horrible night vision, and I don't think they even have real guns.
The two guards on the Eastern wall both have walkers, but they're 
cranky old grumps, and you can be sure they're watching all the time,
and that they'll sound the alarm the second they see anything unusual."

"Can they be bribed?"

"One of them will do just about anything for Animal Crackers, but
his partner wouldn't go along with it, and anyways I don't think
we can get ahold of any Animal Crackers."

"Look into his partner, what it would take to get him to
cooperate. Without him, that route's out. Next?"

"Yep - allright, what have I got here? OK - the north wall is manned by
Old Man Granite. He's usually asleep within ten minutes of going on
duty, but the nurse is always going out to his post to bring him his
meds, so that would be a tricky route."

"The west wall is covered by Grandma Red Ball and her stuffed guard dogs.
She's a toughie, and her dogs are legendary. We can't mess with them,
no way. They've got those plastic eyes with the black chip inside a
clear bubble, so they move all around when you shake them."

"Oh, that must be cute."

"Oh sure, the kids love them. When they're not on duty, they're usually
down at the petting zoo. Some kids came in from that stepper motor
factory on the other side of town..."

"The place that makes those arc-second accurate high-torque DC motors?"

"Yeah! We had a bunch of young motors in from their production floor,
and lemme tell ya, they just LOVED Grandma's stuffed dogs! I don't think
they even stopped to look at our Bricks Through The Ages exhibit."

"Well, that's a shame. Dogs are cute and everything, but if there's a
single exhibit here of significant academic interest, it's our historic
brick exhibit."

"Allright allright allright. Is this getting us anywhere? Let's stick
to the subject for a while, ok people?"

"Sorry Ball."

I looked up meekly at Red Ball, and when no one else spoke for a few
moments, asked my question.  "One question, why is she called Grandma
Red Ball?"

String laughed and looked at Ball. Ball answered the question.
"Well, what else should I call her? She really is my grandmother."

"Ok, so that route is definately out, right!"

"Of course. It would put her in a very awkward position to try
to sneak by her. I think she'd take it as a personal slight. We just
can't risk that."

"So next up, and last on the list, the south wall is manned by the
Warden's nephew, Philip."

The Warden's Newphew! I couldn't resist responding to that.  "Hey,
that's it! He's always screwing around cuz he knows his uncle's soft on
him! I could sneak by him wearing an orchestra!"

I jumped up and tried to imitate a man sneaking around with an orchestra
on his back. I had String tieing and untieing himself in laughter,
and Ball was throwing himself against the wall to try to calm himself
down. Finally we all got tired and collapsed back in our chairs.

After finally regaining my composure, I continued with our discussion of
prison security.  "That's it, right? We'll take the south wall. The man
is a complete goof-off!"

String sighed. "Used to be, used to be.  He died a couple of years ago,
and that finally put an end to his drinking, so he's not as easy a 
target as you remember him."

I stood slack jawed in amazement, staring at String. We must have been
the luckiest gang in the entire world to have him on our side. I
couldn't imagine knowing as much as he knew, or managing to keep up
on news like who was dead, and who wasn't. "How'd you know...."

He gave me a friendly grin. "Oh, don't be so surprised. It is my job
you know. I spend every day wandering around the prison yard, looking
and listening, trying to find out everything there is to know, about
everything that's going on. Most of what I know I'll never have any use
for, but I've gotta keep it crammed up here in my head anyways!"

Ball as usual was thinking about the big picture. "None of the wall
guards offer us an obvious route. How about the main gate? Who's there?"

"The main gate is guarded by a leper named Harold who stays holed up
inside his little guard booth all day. Someone from the cafeteria
brings him his food and checks up on him, aside from that he never
moves from that spot. I can't imagine we'd be able to get through
there."

"Hey. That's intersting. That's most interesting." Ball tended to speak
in very short choppy sentances when he was excited or felt challenged.
It's like people who walk into poles when they're talking about
something that excites them. Ball spoke the way those people walk when
he got distracted, as he most certainly was as he contemplated our exit
from this fine institution.

As our fearless leader, Little Red Ball, faded out from the lunchtable
chit-chat, the rest of us took the opportunity to eat.

That was the casual luncheon that directly led to the most daring and
succesfull escape in the history of The Inanimate Object Maximum
Security Prison and Petting Zoo.

Three weeks passed as details were hammered out and final preperations
made. I was in charge of making tuna sandwiches for everyone in case
we got hungry. Finally, the day was upon us. The hours stretched on
unbearably, but we fought through it, and after an eternity of clock
watching, the time was rigt now, and our plan leapt into action!

We left our cells to go to the bathroom at an agreed-upon time. My
guard let me out at the precise second we had planned, since I had
been reminding him for the past two weeks that I would need to go
to the bathroom at 4:15 AM on that particular Thursday. I was the
first to the rendezvous point, but the others appeared within a few
minutes.

Once rollcall was completed, we snuck our way down to a shadowy
alcove where we could observe the front gate in total secrecy.
This point had been named "Shadow Alcove", at my suggestion. I
couldn't help but remind everyone of this fact as we crept into
its dark recess.

Finally, it was time to strike.

Ball rolled out of Shadow Alcove and started rolling towards the guard
shack. I thought he would start bouncing now, so he'd have time to
bounce three or four times, to work up enough height. He was getting
closer and closer, still rolling quietly along the ground. I was
beginning to panic. Was something wrong? Had something happened to our
beloved leader?

As he got within five feet of the guard I was completely frantic.
String and the Santa Ornament had to physicly hold me down to keep me
from running out in front of the guards like a fool to rescue Little
Red Ball.  Then, at the very last second, as we all watched in horror,
Ball rolled under the empty chair next to the chair the guard was
sitting in, hit a lip in the cement floor, and rocketed straight up,
between the guard and the back of his chair, and out towards the main
prison gate! We could all clearly see that he had the guard's keyring
as he sailed past him into the air!

Luckily Short Piece of String had the forsight to tie himself tightly
around my throat, so my three cheers died in my lungs before they had
a chance to give us away. I must have blacked out for a moment, because
when I sat up, I could see string over by the main gate, moving into
position below Red Ball who still held the key right by the main lock.

The guard had disappeared while I was unconscious, and the Santa Claus
Ornament was also nowhere to be seen! I didn't want to move, since I
didn't want to accidently alert the other prison guards, but I didn't
know what was going on, or where I was supposed to be, so I again felt
a panic attack coming on, untill I glanced back at the action taking
place on the main prison gate.

String tied himself around the latch, so the gate remained closed and
appeared to be still locked, while Ball unlocked the gate and went back
to the guard shack to return the keys. Now the gate was unlocked but 
still appeared to be secure, and the keys were back where they were 
supposed to be.

A moment later Little Red Ball was back in Shadow Alcove, filling
me in on our progress. Santa Claus Ornament was in the guard shack
now, pretending to be Santa Claus, giving the guard Harold a big sack
of presents.

We heard a bit of laughter and caroling from the guard shack, then
things quieted down for a while and finally Ball said it was time 
to move.

Ball and I crept forward towards the guard shack and met up with Santa
just as he was sneaking out a window. He looked at us and smiled. "Too
much eggnog, he'll be asleep for days."

We continued around the other side of the shack towards the front gate
when suddenly the cafeteria lady appeared! She stopped by the gate,
checked the latch, nodded to herself, then left a plate of steaming
lobster on Harolds's table, nocked on his shack door, turned and
disappeared back into the darkness.

Slowly the three of us reappeared from our hiding place behind the 
guard shack. We looked up at String, who was shivering, but had
managed to keep his cool.

"She'll be back in five minutes, what if she notices that Harold isn't
here?"

"She won't know, what could tip her off?"

All four of us slowly turned and looked at the fresh dinner plate
that was slowly cooling. He should have been eating it by now!

I don't know how the thought came to me, but I leapt forward and began
to eat! In a mere five minutes the plate was nothing but lobster shell
desolation, and all we had to worry about was how loud my burping was
as we strolled out the gate!

That's the story of how The Devil Gang broke out of The Inanimate
Object Maximum Security Prison and Petting Zoo one day, and strolled
down Main Street into freedom.