At last we had reached the Zoo, and not just any Zoo, but the Bronx Zoo -- one of the biggest, bestest, and beastiest Zoos in the world. We piled out of the van and stood agape in the parking lot as the winter fog swirled around us, around the rows of cars, and around the tall entryway to the Zoo itself. It was an historic moment. Like the great explorers, Columbus, Magellan, Marco Polo, we too were about to enter the Land of the Unknown and see its wonders and hear its deepest secrets whispered in our ears. Except that we had string cheese for our journey, which makes all the difference.
"Everybody here?" Dad asked, counting wool-capped heads. "Michael?"
Mike was bobbing up and down to the Beatles bursting through his headphones. He pulled the 'phones off for a second and raised a thumb. "Here," he said, and went back to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
"Barbara's missing!" Mary exclaimed. "She was here a second ag -- oh, here she is. What are you eating?"
Barbara shoved the candy packet in her thick pink coat and muttered, "Memntosh."
"What?"
"Memntosh. Der ull gun."
"She said mentos, and they're all gone," Sarah piped up, peering like a turtle out of her winter jacket. "She ate all of them, right now, I saw her. Put them all in her mouth."
"Sharrup," Barbara mumbled through six different flavors.
"Come on, everybody!" Dad shouted. We moved in a single mass towards the gate. Joe and Sam lingered in the rear, each trying to stomp on the others boot toe in a beautiful show of brotherly playfulness. The contest could have gone on forever, if Bill hadn't solved the problem by stomping on both their toes simultaneously and pushing them in the direction of the gate. The gate keeper leaned out of his booth.
"School trip?" he asked Dad.
Dad was used to this sort of question.
"Well, actually, we're a traveling circus -- Mike here is the acrobat, and Mary is our high-wire act, and Rob here wants to be a lion-tamer so we came here to practice. No, really, these are my kids. We have twelve in all."
"Twelve kids?! My Gosh. They all yours?"
"Every one. Do we get a group discount?"
As they haggled Mary took up her previous disagreement with Rob and Bill, who had wandered over to the glass display next to the gate where a fat and wide-eyed lemur monkey watched them from a branch. Rob had discovered that nodding his head vigorously would make the monkey nod in reply. Bill promptly began a conversation with the lemur.
"Aren't you a fat little monkey?" he asked, and the monkey nodded. The boys nearly exploded in silent mirth.
"Aren't you the fattest little monkey in the world?" Bill continued. The monkey nodded enthusiastically.
"Do you want chocolate cake and donuts?" asked Bill, almost choking on his laughter as Rob snorted.
The monkey nodded, stood up, and leaped off the branch towards the glass, screeching. The boys fell over backwards in their surprise.
"There, you see?" Mary stormed at them, "you bothered him, now he's mad. Poor little monkey."
"Maybe he just wanted donuts," Rob said, and he and Bill held one another and staggered around the parking lot, laughing.
"Come on, guys, let's go!" Dad waved the tickets, the magic signal, and we poured through the gates into the Land of the Unknown, clutching our string cheese, ready to meet . . . whatever.
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