#which actually did work with Alaskan native people on their polar exhibit

[brown-little-robin]

10: The Zoo (part two)

part one | previous | next | ao3

The Barnett Zoo of Alabama has a single entrance at the south end. It’s a cloudy day, which Helen said meant there would be fewer people than normal, but Thad isn’t sure she was right. There are an awful lot of people in the entrance area, milling about looking at the posters and the coin-flattening machine and the loud televisions and in line to present or buy their tickets. And not just adults, but also a ton of children. Small children, alarmingly messy and prone to run randomly. It smells like popcorn.

He sticks close to Max, a step beside and behind him, and fidgets with his shorts pockets. He’d chosen a t-shirt and shorts, since Max said zoos were mostly outdoor experiences, but it’s cold in the entrance and he feels irrationally like everyone is staring at him. His bare arms prickle. He should have brought a sweater.

Finally, Helen finishes with the tickets. Thankfully, the plaza is much less crowded; it seems that people disperse through the zoo after leaving the entrance. Max goes and gets a map from a box that says FREE MAPS.

Max unfolds the map and displays it to Thad and Helen. There are six areas of the zoo, each corresponding to a continent; the Arctic and Antarctic continents are merged into one area called “Polar Adventure”. There’s also a separate Reptile House, a Non-Natural Creatures House, and an aquarium section.

“Do we want to head towards South America or Australia first?” Helen asks.

“We won’t have time for everything today,” Max says. “Maybe two or three continents. They close at five, and it’s already one. What animals do you want to make sure you see today, Thad?”

“The tigers and giraffes,” Thad says immediately. “South America looks interesting, but I really want to see the tigers if we can’t do both. We can skip Australia and America, I don’t care about those.”

Helen laughs. “Fair enough.”

“What about you, Helen?” Max asks. “Anything you’d like to hit today?”

“The aquarium,” Helen says. “It’s at the bottom of South America, though, and that’s pretty much across the map from Africa.”

“I think we can reach both places,” Max says.

“Let’s go to Africa first, then, to make sure we see the tigers and giraffes,” Helen says. “But, Max, is there anywhere you want to go?”

“Actually, I helped to build the Polar Adventure section,” Max says. “I’d like to show Thad someday. But I’m sure we’ll come back to the zoo another day.”

Thad reaches out and traces a path on the map, up and left to Africa and then down to the aquarium and back again. Hmm. It is a long way, and they’re on opposite sides of the zoo; they’d have to pass back along the same path to get to Africa and South America most efficiently. But—

“That’s not so hard. We’ll have to loop through North America to get to South America anyway if we don’t want to pass the same places twice, and it would hardly take us out of our way to go a little north to the Polar section.”

“Smart kid,” Max remarks. “All right. Africa, then Polar Adventure, then we’ll skirt the edge of North America and go straight through South America to the aquarium, and I believe that’ll take up all our time.”

Max called him smart!

They head left, towards Africa. Thad’s glad to leave the Non-Natural Creatures House behind. He doesn't know exactly what that means, but the icon is a winged snake, so he suspects mutants and genetic experiments. And given that technically he was a genetic experiment… he’s glad to put it behind him, is all.

The Africa section has facsimiles of animal tracks in the concrete paths—condor, red river hog, zebra, and so on, corresponding with the animals nearest that section of path. Thad quells the urge to place his feet only on the animal tracks. The hogs have interesting rust-red, black, and yellow markings and long hairs dangling from the tips of their ears, which they flick every so often. There’s a large pile of hay in their enclosure. What do they eat? Aren’t all hogs omnivores? Thad reads the educational sign about them. Yes, they’re omnivores. The zoo feeds them a balanced diet, but in the wild they’d eat anything from berries to eggs to lion carcasses. Fascinating. But Max and Helen are looking a bit impatient, so Thad pushes himself off from the fence. He’ll try to find out more about red river hogs later.

The zebras are temperamental and eye-boggling. Thad gets tired of them sooner than Max does, and Max notices and walks on.

They watch the siamangs and pygmy hippo the same way—quietly, Max and Helen exchanging a few comments, moving on when they seem ready. It’s almost like browsing in a thrift store, but with less pressure to make choices. The strangers don’t interact with them, thank goodness.

The chimpanzees are more energetic and intelligent than the other animals so far. Most of them are walking around or eating; one is scratching her butt, and another is bouncing idiotically on the net across the top of their cage. It reminds him of Bart.

“These are stupid,” Thad remarks.

Helen raises her eyebrows.

“Want to move on?”

“Yeah.”

“I think the elephants are next,” she says. She’s right, because she has the map, but Thad could have guessed that. There are elephant tracks going around the next corner.

The elephants are massive. SO massive. Nearly as big as CRAYDL, but made of flesh and bone. They’re more impressive than CRAYDL, somehow, more… organic. They have a weight to them as they move. Thad can imagine their bones creaking as their weight settles on their feet.

“Wow,” Thad says.

Max and Helen make admiring noises that Thad doesn't quite catch because the big female in the middle is huffing and lumbering over to a younger female with a calf and giving her a little smack with her trunk.

“That’s the matriarch,” he informs them. “She’s reinforcing the discipline of the group. That younger female probably just did something insubordinate.”

“How do you know that one is younger?” Helen asks.

“Oh, she’s less wrinkled and her teeth are further back in her mouth and her tusk is slimmer. As elephants age, the position of their teeth changes. I learned about African animals one time for ‘research’. Oh—CRAYDL and I used to sneak files that didn’t have anything to do with the mission and claim it was research.”

After the elephants, the path leads to the giraffes. They’re tall, all right, and just as funny-looking as Thad expected; they have agile purple tongues and odd knobby horns and hunched-up shoulders, and they come right up to the path expecting to be fed.

The tigers are disappointing. It’s the middle of the day, so Thad should have expected it, but they’re asleep. He can see one of them pretty well, though, and the coat is gorgeous. The orange shines in the sun. The black is deep and cunningly striped for camouflage, and the white fur is shaggy. It breathes deeply. Its ear flicks.

Thad soaks it in, committing it all to long-term memory. Unlike Bart, he doesn't have perfect memory, especially not since the speed force. But even before that, the manipulation of his genetics must have taken the eidetic visual memory. Thad does better with what he has, though, and anyway his memory is leagues better than a normal human’s. No one ever learned that dirty little secret. Not even CRAYDL.

As they approach the gates of “Polar Adventure”, Max smiles his rare genuine smile.

“I helped build this. Or rather, I helped in the planning of it.”

“Mm?”

“I had a friend, a Siberian Yupik woman named Cora Sam, and I also had a friend at the Barnett Zoo,” Max says. “When the zoo was planning to expand into polar bears, my friend from the zoo told me, and I connected him to Cora. I ended up bringing Cora back and forth from St. Lawrence Island so she could advise the zoo.”

“I never heard about that,” Helen says. “How did the man from the zoo get ahold of you?”

“Oh, I was meeting with him fairly regularly at that point to help wrangle the Non-Natural Creatures,” Max says. “They had a hyper-accelerated iguana.”

“A hyper-accelerated… that can happen?” Helen asks.

And then Thad’s too busy looking at the polar bears to follow the conversation. Thad walks ahead of Max and Helen. Two polar bears are lumbering in a line across the hill in the back of the enclosure, and one of them is diving into the water. There’s a lot of water in this section; they have seals, puffins, the polar bears, and… Thad rounds the corner of the polar bear enclosure and laughs out loud. Penguins, waddling comically about the rocks, sleeping in a group, little wings out for balance. They look so serious!

He leans over the railing, getting as close as possible to the glass. Their color scheme is elegant, black and white with a dynamic hint of peachy pink at the feet. But their shape! They’re ridiculous! They can barely move! How is this effective at all? And—one of them is following a smaller one around, a male trying to get a female’s attention, Thad supposes. Perhaps they’ll mate. But the female isn’t interested, and the male doesn't try anything; in fact, when she finally stops and turns around, the male nearly falls backwards in his surprise. She gives him an affectionate sort of peck, then pulls at his back feathers. Both of them start grooming their feathers, going back and forth between their tails and sides. Their necks can bend surprisingly far! Meanwhile, the sleeping penguins have woken up and moved all together and are falling back asleep—about one foot to the right, for no reason Thad can discern.

The penguins are great. The penguins are his favorites. Thad moves around to get a better view of the pair and is dismayed to see them stop grooming and slip into the water. But wait—there’s a hole in the fake stone wall, a sign saying “UNDERWATER EXPERIENCE”.

He descends the stairs and enters the UNDERWATER EXPERIENCE. It’s pleasantly dark until he turns the corner. He’d been hoping for a window to see the penguins swim. This is not a window. It’s a glass tunnel.

Oh. Oh, this is something. He wanders the length of the tunnel and back again. The green-blue light shifts and sparkles, and the penguins! The penguins! Underwater, they’re no longer awkward, but graceful, powerful, elegant, lithe. Their bodies no longer seem lumpy but agile; they’re all muscle, Thad thinks, until he reads the signs on his third pass through the tunnel and finds out that they actually have a significant amount of fat, which streamlines their bodies and nourishes them during incubating eggs and therefore not hunting. And he’s surprised to find out that they’re predators; he thought the harmless-looking birds would be herbivores. But with that strong sharp beak and the strength they’re displaying—yes. It makes sense.

He’ll never grow tired of watching the penguins dance.

“Thad!”

He startles, but gets himself under control in time that he thinks none of the strangers notice anything wrong. Max and Helen are rushing towards him wearing identical relieved expressions.

“What?” Thad asks, before he realizes that he can’t remember seeing Max or Helen since he noticed the penguins.

“We lost you!” Helen says. “We were just talking and then Max looked up and you were gone and we had heart attacks! Oh my goodness! You’re okay?”

“Yes, fine.”

“Don’t do that,” Max says severely.

The promise! Thad wasn’t supposed to—wait. The agreement was that he wouldn’t use his speed outside of Max’s ability to sense. He didn’t use his speed at all, so he didn’t break his promise, so Max shouldn’t be yelling at him.

He snarls, “That’s not fair. I didn’t use my speed, I just got interested in the penguins. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Max opens his mouth and pauses.

“Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Thad opens and closes his fists. No fight, he tells his body. There’s no fight.

“I didn’t even realize I’d lost you,” he says, half-defiant.

“Well, neither did we,” Max says. “Let’s call it even.”

“Sure.”

“South America next, I think?” Helen asks.

“Yeah. If you’ve seen enough of the Polar exhibit?”

“Are there more tunnels?” Thad asks. “The door over there, says SEALS, is that to another tunnel?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I haven’t seen enough.”

“Do you like the tunnels?” Helen asks.

They’re the best thing he’s ever seen.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Me too. They’re my favorite. The Barnett Zoo kind of specializes in them; it has the most tunnels of any zoo within three states. The aquarium has quite a few tunnels, too.”

“Oh.”

Thad glances at Max. He’s looking up, tracking a penguin’s ‘flight’ overhead.

“What’s your favorite tunnel here?”

They skirt the very edge of North America. Helen talks to him about her favorite fish and things—she likes the coastal ones, which you can actually see while scuba diving, and anything brightly colored. Her favorite tunnel is the Coral Reef one. Max interrupts to point out the bison. Apparently Max saw herds of millions of these things back when he was a young man. Thad doesn't think he’d want to see that many. They look likely to hold a grudge, somehow.

They stop for a snack at the open area between North and South America. It’s lined with shops selling things like stuffed animals and caricatures and face paint and, of course, lots of little terrible plastic-y food shops. Most of the shops are dull. Face paint would be interesting, though. Thad likes the look of the dramatic blue butterfly one little girl has, and the tiger face is nicely realistic, but it costs money so he doesn't ask. The Thawnes’ resources were practically infinite; the Crandalls’… he’d guess not.

They decide on burgers. Thad fidgets beside Max, listening to another story about a bison hunt, as Helen goes and buys them. As they sit down at a plastic-y green table, a very small girl in tiny overalls comes up to him. She can’t be more than… oh… Thad realizes he has no idea how to tell age, but she’s very small and she’s looking at him like she’s going to say something.

“Your hair is pretty,” she informs him.

Uh.

His hair?

His hair is… pretty?

She probably expects a response.

“Uh, thank you,” he stammers.

“Your overalls are pretty, too,” Helen says, mercifully taking over the conversation for him, and then the girl’s mother hurries up and apologizes, and Thad manages to say “It’s okay,” and the girl is hurried away.

Thad stares up at the clouds, mind whirling. An exact duplicate of Bart’s stupid-long mane except for being Thawne-blond, pretty? His messy mass of hair, so bright blond it looks almost yellow in harsh lighting, pretty?

Helen says, “I don’t know that I’d call your hair ‘pretty’, but it is gorgeous.”

“Striking,” Max agrees.

Thad takes a bite of his burger. He can’t think of anything to say to that.

The South America section is amazing, with the rainforest flora and fauna and occasional sprays of mist, but Thad feels almost overwhelmed with new sights. He appreciates the jaguar, with its enormous yawn, and the anteater with its fluffy ankles and the powerful stride of the Komodo dragon, but he doesn't really engage with the zoo again. Maybe next time they can come back and he can have a proper look at things. In the aquarium section, he enjoys the tunnels, but he has more fun watching Helen gasp and smile and point out her favorite things. He catches Max looking at him a few times, his eyes wrinkled like he finds it funny, the way Thad’s watching Helen watch the fish. Well, that’s all right. Better to be amusing than threatening, Thad supposes.

The last tunnel leads them out to the plaza at 4:52 according to Helen’s watch. Thad suddenly feels bad. Just a minute ago he was so ready to be done and go home and sleep, and now he’s upset to be so close to the end. He doesn't want to leave.

“Time for our last stop,” Max says.

Last stop? Oh no. Not the Non-Natural Creatures House. Please not the Non-Natural Creatures House, Thad prays to the universe.

“The gift shop?” Helen asks.

“The gift shop,” Max confirms. “It’s open until six.”

Thank God. Anything is better than the Non-Natural Creatures House.

The gift shop is crowded. He’d probably find it interesting to look at all the things if he wasn’t so tired. Thad hopes they’ll find their knick-knacks or whatever and leave quickly. He just wants to sleep.

“Well, pick some things, Thad,” Max says.

They want him to buy things?

“I haven’t got any money,” he points out.

“You don’t need to earn your keep, remember?” Max asks.

“My keep, sure,” Thad says. “But I don’t need any of this stuff.”

“You deserve to have nice things,” Max says firmly.

“No I don’t.”

Thad regrets that instantly. Helen’s eyes widen, and Max goes very still. He didn’t mean to say that, it just slipped out because he’s tired and… prickly.

“Thad, honey,” Helen says, soft, like she’s talking to a scared animal.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he says hastily. “I just want to go home.”

“Thad,” Max says, and his serious tone of voice makes Thad’s gut lurch in a nasty despairing way.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I want you to pick out seven things. One for each year you spent in the speed force. Does that sound fair?”

Actually… it does. Max should pay for those years.

“Yes,” Thad says.

He turns away abruptly so as not to look at Helen’s stricken face. Now that he’s looking for himself, the gift shop seems more like a treasure trove, less like a stuffy little space. He’s attracted to the glass things first. He hefts a blown-glass ball with dark manta rays swimming in a translucent blue sea. It has a delightful sheeny smooth texture. He hands it to Max. His first year in the speed force. The year he discovered he couldn’t leave. The eternally travelling manta rays in their glass prison are… ironically perfect.

He picks a deep blue shirt next. It has a stylized elephant family and leaves surrounding a Barnett Zoo logo. It will be an excellent addition to his wardrobe. His second year in the speed force, the year of the seventeen-day storm. A notebook with a tiger on the front is his next year, his third year in the speed force. They blurred together by that point; his strict determination to count the time failed in the second month of the third year. It says it’s 100% Recycled; the paper is smooth, but the covers are coarse in a way that normally would bother him but somehow doesn't. Then he discovers a box of rocks, which you can pick from and gather into a small bag that counts as one item. He sifts his fingers through the rocks. They make a pleasant clacking sound. He picks a few bumpy green-and-blue specimens that look like jungles or views of Earth from above, a shiny black one, two stones with shimmering bands of yellow and orange that shine from the deep brown at certain angles like the iris of an eye, a spiky purple crystal, a stone that looks like jade, and barely squeezes in another blue one. His fourth year in the speed force. He takes a wooden box, too, with a little lock. That will be good to keep the rocks in, and maybe he could put his letter in it too when he’s out of Max’s house. His fifth year.

He looks up from the box and hesitates.

All this time, he’s been skirting around the central section of the gift shop: the shelves and shelves of stuffed animals. He wants a penguin. But stuffed animals are little-kid toys, and he’s… fourteen or twenty-one or six hundred-odd, depending. Anything but a little kid.

A couple emerges from the row next to him, play-fighting over a stuffed koala. Thad waits, but no child toddles after them. They’re adults and they’re buying a stuffed koala. It must be all right.

He reaches up and grabs a penguin.

It’s the softest thing he’s ever touched.

He closes his eyes in bliss, holds it for a minute, loath to give it to Max. He tucks it into his elbow instead. He wants another stuffed animal. He takes a sloth with velcro on its paws so it can hang from things. And then… he really wants one of the snow leopards with the long soft tails, but he’s at seven… but he wants it… so he takes the snow leopard too.

“That’s for not noticing I wasn’t Bart,” he informs them, and laughs at their expressions.