2021-2022 Cambridge Road Literary Magazine

How Bob Became a Billionaire Zookeeper

By William Booker Once upon a time there was a group of animals: a zebra, a lion, a giraffe, a hippopotamus and a monkey. These animals used to wander around on the streets of South Africa, until one day, a mysterious man named Bob released laughing gas in the air to put all the animals to sleep.

Bob loaded them into the cages he had built. He called this place the zoo.

This man called this place the "Zoo," after a word which has roots back to ancient Greek times. The word "Zoion" means living, and so he decided this would be a suitable name for this place he created. When news reporters came to interview him, they were amazed that he was able to move all the wild animals into this area together. Though they were amazed with his place's vibrancy, they also wondered why he had chosen the name he did for his place. He responded, "I used to be a zoologist who studied animal bones, and so I thought the name, "Zoo," was fitting."

The next day, the man's actions faced controversy. After a long and hard-fought court case, the judge came to the conclusion that what the man did was completely lawful. The judge ruled that the man's actions were lawful because Bob convinced her none of the animals would be harmed. The world was amazed by the man's ability to win the court case, and so they wanted to see the results themselves. People came from all over the world to see the amazing animals.

Bob fed the animals every morning, every afternoon, and every night, but eventually he noticed that he was running out of money. Bob decided to open his zoo to the public and charged people five dollars for entry. He added amenities like vending machines and hired people to help. He hired someone to run the concession stands and someone to look after and care for the animals. After several months Bob's animal caretaking team grew. However, one day, Bob received a complaint that there was not a wide variety of animals to see, and that the kids were starting to find the zoo boring. Bob knew kids around the world loved the animals and kept asking if there were other animals in the world. So one day, Bob left the zoo to discover more animals. His search was stressful, he had discovered a family of gorillas, ten monkeys, three pandas, and more lions. Bob once again put them to sleep so he could load them into his large van and add them to his zoo.

When people began returning to the zoo, they were amazed to see that Bob managed to find more animals. People absolutely loved the monkey exhibit which brought the most attention to the zoo. People also loved seeing the cute pandas. Since the zoo was becoming more and more popular, the zookeepers were getting more busy and tired after long days 13