Smiling, Audrey leaned back against the walnut tree. She perched her foot against the dark scar that marked where the tree was grafted. Closing her eyes, she let the smile drift around her face, seeing how it felt as it traveled in different angels. It always seemed such a dramatic way to spend a few moments after something really, truly glorious had happened in someone’s life. Of course, Audrey often spent time doing the likes of this, seeing that when she was sad, her preferred stance was to lean up against a tree practicing mournful glances and pitiful stares. You could say she was a bit of a drama queen… but she didn’t mind. The dramatic practices made her feel more grown up when she came upon something really worth bothering about. Take note that she only felt more grown up, it wasn’t an actual change in her 13 year old behavior. “I wish I had something important to mutter…” she said under her breath. Muttering was a favorite pastime, especially if it was done hastily in a British accent. “The zoo, the zoo, the zoo…” Audrey Melking had discovered that there were many ways to say the word “zoo” in an accent. “Ah yes, indeed, the zoo!” she hopped around in a circle, pushing off of the tree’s trunk. “See ya, laddie!” she said jauntily to the tree and walked off at a brisk pace.
Five minutes later, she arrived at her front door. Her house was a pale blue color, with peeling paint and white window shudders that did nothing more than just be nailed to the wall, pretending to be there for a reason. Nodding politely to the house in general, Audrey shuffled up the stairs and flung open the door (needless to say, with a bit of extra drama). “Mamá!” A woman with jeans and a pink button up shirt came through the door on the right of the hallway. Her hair was pinned back by a red bandana, and a paint brush was clasped between her teeth. “Yeh?” she said through the paint brush, then grabbed it from her mouth and twirled it in her fingers. “Do you have any idea where that zoology book is?” Audrey asked, then she frowned slightly, tilting her head “Ehg, never mind! I’m going to the zoo. Want to come with?” Raising her eyebrows, Audrey’s mother chewed the inside of her cheek “Um, not really,” she replied. Audrey shrugged “Alright! See ya!” she dashed away, out the door, down the steps and onto the side walk. She often wondered what it would be like to live somewhere without a sidewalk, without a street, or a town. She counted herself lucky to be able to have access to the orchard a few blocks away, and she was going to be very angry if they ever tried to sell it to anyone, even if they were going to keep it an orchard. “I’m off to see the zo-oo! The wonderful zo-oo of smoz…” she tested out a new parody song under her breath and liked it so much that she kept humming for the entire duration of her 15 minute walk to the bus station, where she sat and continued to hum. Smoz was an unbearably wonderful new word, if only she knew what it meant… surely it would evolve into something meaningful with time…
A blue bus with scratched grey and yellow doors pulled into the oval shaped spot carved out of the sidewalk for it. People with no real defining traits went about their daily business; boarding the bus, disembarking, or all together ignoring it. Wrapping her hand around the cool, shiny bar on the door of the bus, Audrey twirled her way inside. “Hey Audrey!” the driver said. She was a portly woman with dark, chocolate-y skin and a dark brown fluffy nest of hair framing her face; she smiled, showing deep dimples. “Mornin’ Mel!” the girl called back as she made her way down the rubbery isle to her favorite seat near the middle door. Strangers sat in assorted seats, the doors hissed closed and Mel’s voice came through the rusty speaker, announcing their next stop. Audrey looked out the window and hardly took in the world that she knew so well. Eight minutes passed, she stood up, and holding onto the seat backs, walked with the jolts of the bus up to the front. Within seconds, the bus curved to the side, let out a hiss and opened the doors “’Til next time, Mel!” she said as she held herself over the stairs and hopped down in a single movement. “The zoo, the zoo, it’s off to-zoo we go,” she sang, skipping around the corner in the sidewalk. Two gates stood in front of her, stating two words, the first being The and the second being Zoo. Something about it was so simple, yet simply so, it was perfect. Technically the gates were a fake, because they stood at least sixteen feet tall, and the zoo goers entered through a much smaller door in the corner of it.
On the other side of that gate was just what she was looking for. Not that she was interested in anything in particular…the main attraction was everything and anything zooish. Animals, zookeepers, cages, signs, maps… you could practically hear the word “zoology” from all that. Audrey often wondered why zoology only referred to the study of animals, when there was so much more that it could mean.
“Just me, one ticket, uno-boon-o!” she said, holding up her pointer finger to display the number of tickets she needed. The person behind the window nodded, with one eyebrow raised “Uh, yeah,” he said, and handed her a blue ticket with an elephant stamped on it. She handed him a little wad of dollar bills in exchange. She waved enthusiastically as she walked through the spinning bars to the other side. The Zoo side.
“Love, love me zoo! You know I love zoo, so plee-e-e-eeese… Love me zo-oo!” it seemed the Beatles had a knack for zoo songs as well, or so Audrey discovered while walking by the swan pond that was the first exhibit. The path formed into a wide, low bridge over the pond, crossing it, she leaned her elbows on the rail and looked over the edge to see a black swan pushing through the water with its strong orange feet. “I’m rather fond of this area, though I’d like to explore… Why shouldn’t I be allowed? Oh do tell the other animals, will you?” Audrey spoke in a deep droning accent for the elegant swan. He turned his head and his beady eye pierced her momentarily, she nodded, in a salute, then kept up her pace and began the big exploration.
The sun shimmered off of the paved path that navigated the zoo. Audrey unzipped her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist, revealing a strikingly yellow t-shirt with CHEER! in big purple letters on the back. Hand written names laced the shoulders and sleeves in green, blue and black. “Oh dear! This child is staring at me, it seems she is trying to tell me something….Uh.. The black swan…he is planning a mass escape!! Clever girl, communicates with animals through eye contact!! ” She said in a high pitched raspy voice as she gazed at the California Condor. “Good job deciphering that, Condor.” She said in her own voice, as she started walking toward the flamingos on the other side of the walkway. “Funny we’d be kept right bang-smack next to the condor, eh? I don’t much like it.” She said for one flamingo in a nasally voice as it gestured with its neck toward another. “No Kidding! Man, look at that bird! Geeeeez, I mean, HUGE! We’re big, yeah, but…HUGE! Blazing feathers! Did you see that? I think that’s special sign language! What’s he saying?!” she had the second say. Back to the nasally voice “Like morse code…only not morse code, you dingo! Lets see…. Hmm… All…Escaping….something about a swan… I’ll escape with ‘em, just as long as nothing tries to kill me!” the first flamingo finished. Pleased with her dialogue so far, Audrey bounced down the path chattering in the voices of more birds, until she reached what wasn’t a Y in the road…more like a three tined fork, or a double-u with a leg. A sign stood at each segment, the far left path for elephants, giraffes and meerkats, the middle path for lions, leopards, tigers and ocelots, the final path, to the right, led to the reptile house. There were a few things that made Audrey turn away from the path to the right: Talking as reptiles and amphibians was so much like Harry Potter that many hours of her life had already been wasted doing such things, which meant she had been there, done that. Also, they were less use telling about escaping, seeing that they would have to get out of those tiny glass cages. So she took the middle path to explore the word of wild cats. A walk through exotic plants brought Audrey to a barred cage that appeared to be empty. The thick, dark green leaves rustled, and out peeped a large ear. Once in sight, it was hard to believe that the animal was ever hidden so well. “News for you, my dear snow leopard!” Audrey sang out in a whisper, then replied to herself in the cat’s smooth, cool voice. “Uhm. Whatever,”. Audrey shook her head and frowned “Not whatever! They’re escaping! Everyone’s planning to escape!” She watched the cat’s movements as he walked slowly, dragging his huge tail behind him. He stopped walking and looked through the glass over his shoulder “Now you’re getting interesting. Do tell,” she drawled for him. Then he stepped paw before paw and turned a corner, disappearing behind the rocks. “Alright then, just ask me to tell you and walk away. You’re welcome.” After alerting the cats of the escapes (and getting in a bit of an argument with the male lion), Audrey found herself at another fork in the path. Closing her eyes, she spun around on one heel, and when she stopped spinning, she marched forwards. Unfortunately, when she opened her eyes, she was back at the lion’s cage, and since she really wasn’t in the mood for taunting, she tried again. Two tries and one stubbed toe later, her feet were rocking across the paved path “Elephants and giraffes and meerkats, oh my!” she began to skip.
It was a rather empty day at the zoo, she had passed a few people, none of whom had noticed her secret message delivery, but as she neared the meerkats, a couple with stroller sporting twin toddlers stood in her way. Ordinary humans didn’t phase her a bit, so she went on with business “Oh deary me, Evangeline, I swear this zoo ought to give us a bigger cage,” Audrey used a pinched voice for the meerkat who stood at the top of a mound, on guard for any dangers. “No kidding! I’m just gonna take a bit of a nap here in the sun while you keep an eye out for trouble, ok?” replied the other, as it flopped down and closed its eyes. “Hm? Excuse me, did you just say something?” The woman held one hand on the foam handle of her stroller; her strawberry-blond hair blew from its ponytail in the breeze, covering her face with wisps of color. “Oh yes, I did in fact say something.” Audrey offered as a reply, then turned back to the meerkat and said something in her own voice “Not too long before the whole zoo is planning an escape – are you joining them?” the meerkat quirked his head to the side, then scanned his surroundings “Why not? I was jus’ sayin’ how we were needin’ a bigger place…” Audrey nodded as the woman behind with the stroller raised her eye brows and looked at her companion. “Are you alright? Where’s your family?” she asked warily. “Here alone. Don’t bother with me, I seem like a nutter…and I am…but just not the kind of nutter than needs help, if you get what I’m trying to get you to get.” She grinned, proud of her confusing sentence, then she skipped away again singing a new song “The hills are alivvvvve with the sound of zoooooossssic!” Around the corner, a tall cage with lots of vegetation stood in the center of a patio. Searching for the inhabitant, Audrey circled the cage one and a half times. “Ah!” She yelped. “Hello, kid, been checking the time recently?” a ring-tailed lemur’s long fingers were curled around a branch, and its huge yellow eyes were fixated on the onlooker. “Oh hello,” she bowed slightly, and cast a sideways glance at the family that had just come around the corner, then she continued quickly “Yes, thank you so much, Lemur! It is late! Did you hear about the escape? Yes? Good! Bye!” her words stumbled over each other as she hoisted her sweatshirt higher on her waist and walked hurriedly, on the verge of a run toward the great gate.

Audrey lay on the couch, feet high in the air, hair nearly brushing the ground. “How was your day?” her mom asked from behind a book. “Oh, just dandy. Zoo-percalifragilisticexpialidotious! A smoz of a day. Yes! That’s what a smoz is! A day just the same as today! Smoz….” She let the word roll around on her tongue, then slip out between her lips into the wide world, then she continued “…Spent the morning in the orchard, took part in a zoo escape, then I came home.” She said excitedly, flailing her arms in the air energetically. “Smozz…..” she muttered, smiling.