Author's note: You have no idea how hard it is to find time to type this stuff. That's all; now read.
Tobias and Ax ran off in the direction of a bathroom, and we pursued them. Luckily, they arrived in time to demorph… barely. Everyone waited outside except me, and I went into the bathroom with them to stand guard. Tobias and Ax walked into two stalls; Tobias into a regular-sized one, and Ax into the handicapped stall. "Don't forget to undress first, Ax," said Tobias. "If you need help, just let me know." As they were doing this, I set my watch's alarm for a new time: 2:30 (even though they now had until 2:45). I told Ax this. "Ax, I'm setting my alarm for 2:30, okay?"
"I can keep time too, you know," he said once he had finished remorphing.
When we left the bathroom, Jake called for a quick meeting. He turned to Cassie first. "Cassie, if you want, we can go check out the animal area of the park."
"That would be nice, Jake. Thanks."
"Why not start at the jungle area?" I suggested.
We made our way to the "rainforest" building and walked through the automatic double doors. The next thing I knew, we were in a big enclosed exhibit area. There was a very big glass dome over many different habitats. We were walking along at a slight downhill angle on a winding pathway between leopards, tortoises, Komodo dragons, and more creatures. Presently, we came to the crocodile pit. That reminded me…
"Hey Rachel! Remember when you fell into that pit and got sick?"
"Don't remind me. I kept morphing involuntarily and had to eventually undergo the gross hereth illinit. But you have to remember it was all because I was trying to save that Tyler kid from falling in."
"Ah, right. Of course, Xena." Rachel shot me a glare.
"Don't forget what happened as a result of that!" Cassie pitched in. "We got to go on the Barry and Cindy Sue show and meet Jeremy Jason McCole!"
"So dreamy…" murmured Rachel.
"He's in Uzbekistan now," Jake interrupted. "Just forget about the whole thing."
There wasn't really much to see in that hall, so we emerged on the other side. It was getting close to 12:50 when Cassie shouted "Hey! The Elephant rides – we can do that!"
There was a $2.00 fee, but we all ponied up to get saddled up – except that they weren't really saddles – just a carpet and a metal cage on the elephants' backs.
At 1:20 pm, we walked to the Lorikeet Aviary. For 10¢ each, we purchased little paper cups with liquid bird feed in them. One of the lorikeets landed on my hand and started sipping out of the cup. Out of curiosity, I acquired its DNA.
At 1:30, we passed the lions. Even though they were just sleeping on the rocks behind a tall fence, a trainer was talking about them. His little cart had a sun umbrella over it and various types of cat skulls on it. We stopped to listen for a while.
Sooner than I knew it, five minutes had passed. Jake motioned for us to follow him, saying "C'mon, there's other things we need to get to." He led us onward in the direction we had been walking; It was then that I noticed Cassie looked a bit worried, but I didn't press her about it.
When we rounded the bend in the pathway, I saw the Animal Nursery. So that's why Cassie didn't want to be over here – we might see her mom! And see her mom we did. Mrs. Logan (Oops! Did I just say that?), the head veterinarian, was working in one of the windows on a little lemur baby. Ax went up to the window and caught her attention. Mrs. Lo- I mean, Cassie's mom looked up and smiled at us, but she was obviously preoccupied with the vaccination and couldn't divert her attention to us. Besides, she was in a sealed off room away from where guests could go. We entered the building anyway through a single door a few feet away. Aah! I sighed. Air conditioning! We spent about twenty-five glorious minutes in that great place, looking at all of the young or sick animals, but then it was time to keep moving. "Aw, I wanted to say hi to your mom, Cassie," said Tobias.
"Believe me, I'm glad you didn't," she said with her hand over her eye.
The time was now 2:25, and the Giraffe Dock was straight ahead. We spent 15 minutes there, and listened while a park staff member gave a talk about giraffes' diets. We spent a dollar altogether on a bucket of fruit to feed the giraffes. The three of them came over to the dock and licked at the food with their long tongues. The fourth one chose instead to wander over to a hanging block of ice with other food frozen inside of it. I almost laughed – it was a giraffe popsicle hanging on the corner of the dock!
While we were engaging the giraffes in activities of mass consumption, Tobias was off to the side looking at the show schedule. "Hey guys!" he called to us when we had finished. "There's a bird show at 3:00. Let's do that next!" He paused for a moment, keeping us from replying with his silence. "Oh crap!" he shouted. "Ax and I have to get to a bathroom."
"I was just about to say the same thing myself," retorted Ax. "I suggest we hurry."
The bad news was that there wasn't a nearby bathroom. We had to run about a fourth of a mile south to get to one, and when we arrived, Ax and Tobias hurried in to do their thing... which in this case doesn't mean what "their thing" usually means.
To pass the time during our second peaceful period that day, I got up from the bench and walked around to the Kids Zone behind us. There was only one ride, a flying elephants-type ride with more animals than just elephants. Most of the area was just a wooden playground with lots of places to climb. I wished I could relive my childhood and go on there too, but before I knew it, Jake was calling me to rejoin the group. "C'mon, Marco!" he yelled. "The Bird Show's starting soon!"
We walked to the Bird Theater, which didn't take long, and waited for about 15 minutes while 60s music played. The only thing was that it wasn't just 60s music. Apparently, the guy in the sound booth at the top of the amphitheater was putting on 70s, 80s, 90s, and current music, too. Trying to please everyone, I thought. Well, it's working.
The bird show was cool, but my favorite part was when an owl made its entrance from the top of the seats (behind us) and glided down to the stage – that was cool and unexpected. Halfway through the show, Cassie was looking at the show schedule. She turned to Jake (who was to my right) and whispered "Jake, there's a Wildlife Show at 3:30. Can we see that next?"
"We'll have to run to catch the beginning," he replied, "but sure."
The Wildlife Show would have been way more boring than the Bird Show, if it weren't for one little mishap – one of the audience members, a teenage girl, was selected to come down to give a cheetah a command. At one point, the cheetah snarled (I don't think he was mad) and the girl was so surprised she backed up and fell into the little fish pond (no fishes) on the stage.
By this point, my legs were starting to feel stiff, and my feet ached. When the show ended, I voiced my concern on this and the fact that we hadn't done a ride in hours.
"Well, you're in luck Marco, because there just so happens to be some foot jigglers right here."
"Yes!" I cried. The others looked happy too. If you don't know what "foot jigglers" are, as I like to call them, you haven't been to a big park where there's lots of walking involved. Basically, they're metal mechanical seats you sit down in (sometimes they look like a barrel). You place your feet on a detached metal plate that can move around very rapidly. You stick 25¢ in and it vibrates your feet for one minute; it feels really good.
We each got out a quarter (and Jake gave Ax one of his) and sat down on the seats. It must have been our lucky day because there were exactly six seats – usually there were only two or three of these things in one area. Now as for Ax, he had never ever used one of these. As I expected, he vocalized the entire time his feet were being vibrated. Passers-by gave him weird looks as he continuously chanted "Aaaaah-aaaah-aah-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…"
Our feet felt quite tingly for minutes afterwards.
Aaand... cut. That's a wrap. The next chapter will be out whenever - it should be the last one. (Maybe someday I'll combine certain chapters together to make a smaller quantity of chapters have more quantity of text.) Good night.