"I'm sorry uncle," said Priscilla with a quivering voice.
"Sorry?" Pat asked in disbelief. "Do you have any idea what could have happened if I hadn't caught you at the last second? Why did you jump over a pile of broken glass?"
"I wanted to clean them up…" She muttered inaudibly, lowering her head.
"Priscilla, you are smarter than this," said Pat, his voice an octave higher as he swept off the last pieces of glass into the bin.
"Sorry…" Her reply was more muffled than before with her tiny head bowed even lower.
Pat's heart wrenched at the sight. Priscilla was a spirited kid and despite being at a sensitive age of seven, hardly was ever caught crying. He could sense she was on the verge of tearing up and he could not bear the thought of that. Had he been too stern? He knew the necessity for him to be so. She needed to realize the gravity of the situation because she thought jumping on a stack of broken glass and oil was an excellent idea.
He sighed and lowered himself to her level to take a look at her dark face. "I'm sorry too but I don't wanna see you do anything reckless like that again, alright?"
Lifting her head just the slightest, she gave a meek nod.
"Since you asked, I will finish baking those crackers. So… oil ya join me for a midnight expedition to the grocery store?" Pat offered, not missing the chance to cheekily add another bad pun in the mix.
Prissy's mood did a complete one-eighty rotation. Smiling bright and wide, she nodded in approval.
(@_@)(@_@)(@_@)
Addy shivered a little as the chilly wind kissed her slightly damp uniform (product of another round of vigorous washing; if only the zo committee had given her more than one set of uniform she wouldn't have to bear all those trouble).
It was one of those starry nights- the type of night writers, poets and singers marveled over, the ones so hushed and lucid; they could make anyone crave company. As Addy strolled under the naked sky, granting the darkness to cocoon her, the desire to run back to the security of her parent's home and fall into the softness of her bed intensified. Perhaps, she was homesick or just lonely. She only wanted someone to curl up against her on bed. Someone who would cherish her, share her happiness and warmth.
She missed home.
A longing smile took over her face at the thought. Addy knew that her pathetic loneliness was relapsing. She was missing people she shouldn't, wanting things she couldn't afford.
Brushing the crippling thoughts from the realms of her mind, Addy inserted the rusted key into the key-hole and unlocked the enclosure door exclusively preserved for the keepers. It creaked open as usual. With reluctant steps, she delved deeper into the tortoise enclosure. Surrounded by dense bushes, massive glass barriers with a pond in the centre, it was the biggest Galápagos tortoise enclosure in the country.
She equipped herself for the Herculean task ahead. As a junior keeper who had been assigned to one enclosure only, her execution of tasks were expected to be top-notch. After all, looking after a critically endangered species was not expected to be child's play.
Turning the vacuum on, she hovered it over the tortoise faeces she encountered on her way in and watched as it sucked the brown goo in with ease. For most part, it was a plain boring job. In fact, she should have been grateful to not have been assigned to the beaver enclosure or worse the jaguar enclosure. Tortoises were relatively peaceful creatures that pooped once every two to three days which had tolerant odour. Sounded easy enough but doing that every day for four months in a one thousand meter square enclosure with two hundred finding new crooks and crannies each day to finish their business turned monotonous and exhausting. Indeed, their ability to find new places to defecate never failed to shell-shock her.
After a grueling two hours, Addy managed to leave the enclosure. Huffing a strand of stray hair away from her sweaty face, she closed the enclosure doors only to shiver as a whiff of cool air whammed into her. The temperature had significantly dropped in the last hour or two and the night air felt…strange. She had worked many night shifts before but that night felt different. Was it the unusual hovering silence or the racing wind that made her feel like she was being watched?
Tucking the vacuum safely in her hands, Addy wrapped her arms around herself and sprinted for the staff room. An avid watcher of horror movies, she had learnt to rely on her gut and not investigate.
Her feet slapped against the concrete ground as the wind whipped her face. It was strangely liberating, running under the stars after so long. She had actively avoided sports her whole life, always conscious of her bloated thighs and the funny way they jiggled when she ran. But that was a different life- one that ended what felt like aeons ago...
Midway through, she stopped. Realization hit her when she gave her pockets a nervous search.
She had left the keys back at the enclosure!