Cuthbert was a fairly average Crocodile, with the expected number of teeth and glinting eyes like two marbles set in his swarthy head. He was not a particularly happy Crocodile though, as he was kept in a pen in a tourist attraction, where he was made to jump fifteen feet in the air to obtain his dinner, which was invariably a raw, plucked chicken on the end of a long pole. He found this predictable, boring and undignified.

So, one day, like any other. When the crowd gathered to watch his feat, cameras and phones poised to record him springing up upon his tail into the air (most people did not realise Crocodiles could jump so high, and would coo and shriek in amazement). He altered his trajectory slightly so that the pole (proferred by a zoo-keeper from a safe distance) was knocked down into his enclosure.

Then, lightning fast, he used the pole to snatch from a startled clown in the seating area a cluster of helium balloons...and he was away...soaring off into the air over the zoo,to freedom, or if not freedom, at least to SOMETHING other than raw chicken...