It was, but as much as my aunt was a loon, she was practical. But who knows, I’m assuming we will be back tonight.
IVY
Okay. I’ll grab some things.
ALEXANDER
Maybe the red dress?
IVY
You and Val should join forces.
ALEXANDER
Thanks for the tip.
IVY
I’m so thankful you don’t have her number.
ALEXANDER
Who says I don’t?
“Val! Does Alex have your number?” I call across the hotel room.
“No,” she calls from the living area.
IVY
See you at 2.
ALEXANDER
*big smile emoji*
The London Zoo is beautiful and thoughtfully laid out, and I think I recognize some spots from seeing them in movies. I’m so excited to be here, and I’m trying to see as much as I can before I have to leave.
But there is a gorilla nursing a baby by the observation window, and we can’t seem to move on from them.It’s truly the coolest thing. Juniper gasps when the mother slings the baby into the crook of her arm, and they run off. Baby gorillas are not fragile.
We go next to see the Galapagos tortoises and I’m so stoked to see them. Only we get there and there isn’t a way to touch them. They are behind glass and nets.
“What in the world? I want to touch them,” I gasp. “What if it’s bad to touch them and the zoo where I touched them before was doing the wrong thing? I could have unknowingly passed some sort of disease to them. They are so old.”
“Some of these are younger than we are,” Micah says, looking up at a sign.
“What? Are you serious?” I look and, sure enough, two of them were born almost ten years after me. I thought Galapagos tortoises were all like a hundred years old. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, doesn’t make any sense. New ones have to be born, and believe it or not, they aren’t born already a hundred years old.
“This says they can live to be well over a hundred,” Val says, pointing to an informational sign. “So if you come back when you are a hundred and ten, you can celebrate the youngest one’s birthday.”
I laugh. “Yes, I’m sure my hundred-and-ten-year-old self will be up for going to London to visit a zoo.” I lean my elbows on the fence, trying to figure out which one is which. “I wonder ifthe zoo does birthday parties for big milestones like that. Seems like great marketing.”
When no one responds, I stand to find that my family has moved on. I don’t leave right away because I think I have identified the youngest tortoise, and he is ever so slowly walking my way. He turns, though, and pulls his front end on top of one of the others, who doesn’t even seem to notice.
“You guys are weird,” I call. “I’ll see you in eighty years.”
25
