The Business of Time Travel Tourism

Chapter 7: At The Zoo

June 24, 2014. Tuesday.

Milltown's Zoo was one of the smallest in the country. Out of the thirty mammals and birds confined in the cages, only three of them were from abroad – a lion, a monkey, and a giraffe. Terrarium and aquarium contained another forty species, all of them brought from around the state. To put it simply, the zoo was not a place about which a Milltown citizen could ever brag or be proud of. Ten visitors per day was an average during the summer and to spare the expenses it was closed during the winter.

A board with animal pictures standing a few steps away from the entrance caught children's attention. George was asked to read the short animal descriptions. After the short lecture, Kevin mostly wanted to see the lion and Cory the giraffe.

"Bah, look at it sis, so ugly." Kevin pointed his tiny finger at a boar lying on the ground, snoring.

"Ye. Is this a pig, mister?" the girl asked.

George checked the information table hanging on the cage and replied. "It's a boar. Check it out." He pointed at the description. "Boars can be damaging to agriculture. Populations living on the outskirts of towns or farms can dig up potatoes and damage melons, watermelons and maize. They generally—" He stopped because there was no one listening.

The children violently shook the cage bars of the poor animal and shouted at it, "Get up! You lazy pig. Get up! Hahaha. Lazy! Lazy! Lazy!"

"Mister." Cory inquired with a light commanding tone, "Would you please get it closer?"

George picked a small rock from the ground and threw it at the heavy sleeper. It hit the boar but did not manage to wake it up. The next rock came from the hand of the boy, about ten times larger, it struck the animal in the spine. The boar jumped up, and for a long moment stared at the child. Only higher powers knew what went on in its head at the time.

Damn humans, the boar thought. Wiggle wiggle. It wiggled the tiny tail. Life is as troublesome as it can get, and you scoundrels take away my greatest joy, the sleep. Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming. Smile you little monsters, just smile, please. It approached the bars and let Kevin touch its fur. Now stroke it. Stroke it as smoothly as you can, — Kevin tapped boar's head for a short while. It seemed that they could make friends. —'and take it, just keep it. Wiggle wiggle wiggle. It ran back to the kennel and disappeared in the darkness.

Kevin fell down to his knees crying. Blood dripped down his fingertips. Seeing what had just happened, Cory picked up a handful of stones and threw them one after another at the boar's kennel. When she understood that there was nothing she could do to hurt the evil doer she turned her attention to Kevin and inspected the injured hand. As soon as Kevin stopped crying Cory asked, "Did you get it?"

"Ye, let's go for another one."

Cory took out a transparent napkin and cleaned the cut. The action appeared to be caused not by sisterly love, but responsibility or perhaps even a scientific interest. Then, taking care she folded the napkin and put it in a tight, deep side pocket of her dress.

They walked to the next cage. It contained a fox, tucking in the far corner, hiding in the shadow of a decayed log. Even though the children acted as little monkeys, it was oblivious to their presence. The kids once again resorted to throwing stones but had soon to give up as the fox was too far and there were too many obstacles in between.

"Stupid animal." Kevin slammed the cage as a last ditch effort to get the attention and went to disturb other zoo residents.

They tried to lure the poor animals as close as possible and grab them by the hair or stroke them roughly. After each success they took out the transparent napkins, cleaned their hands and tucked the napkins into their pockets.