Mikhail stood so still his muscles ached with the effort of breathing slowly and unnoticeably, nose to horn with a rhino.
“Just move already,” Liza said with dismissive boredom. “He won’t do anything. We’re kids.”
“Won’t I?” rumbled the rhinoceros. “This adolescent male challenged me. He deserves a lesson!”
“Percival,” interjected their guide. She used a wheedling tone that somehow fit perfectly with the enormous straw hat that covered a head of curly hair and no obvious face. “Mikhail is a very promising magical zoology student. Wouldn’t you rather want him to help you with that finding a mate problem?”
Percival snorted, his horn reddening. “Lucky I don’t charge him. Boot him right out of this apartment complex, I would.”
The blast of hot air hit Mikhail in the face, but at least the staring contest had broken. “I didn’t mean to be challenging, sir,” he tried, studying the rhino with peripheral vision. “I’ve never been to a—a place like this before.”
He’d nearly said the forbidden words and called the facility a magical zoo.
“Quite the place,” rumbled Percival.
“Obviously, Percival here isn’t your normal rhino,” Hat Lady — her real name subsumed by layers of woven straw and lost to memory — said. “He’s a wallywompus.”
“Ah,” Mikhail managed, swallowing with difficulty. No wonder Percival hadn’t liked a direct stare.
“Which you’d have known if you’d remembered to do the spell on the sign to reveal the real information on the creatures who have kindly , and then I’d not have to have rescued you.”
The tart words stung. “Yes, ma’am.”
Liza shrugged, the djinn’s ever-present floating fire extinguishers clanking with the movement. “I don’t see why you’re so upset.”
“I should have known,” Mikhail said with misery, and turned back to Percival. “Have you tried online dating apps? I assume you’re having trouble luring the female wallywompi out of the rainforest.”
“Worse,” Percival said sadly. “They don’t like condo living, most of them. That’s wild ‘wompi women for you. This is the greatest place ever! But maybe it makes me look old rather than stable. Retirement living, like that state that looks like —”
“Um, you mean Florida?” Mikhail interrupted quickly. He felt his face flushing and wondered if the heat was enough to trigger Liza’s fire magic.
A squeal behind him cut off the conversation. “I thought regular families weren’t allowed in today?”
She gave a crisp nod. “Magical families only. They’re good. You see her bear?”
The stuffed creature in question morphed from blue to purple, then flashed iridescent.
“Wouldn’t work for a normie.” She started to yawn, then froze with her mouth and eyes wide open.
“Cool.” Mikhail tried to pretend animals on the loose — in the walkways, out of their pens, condos, whatever pretense of a barrier gave the illusion of safety — at what the mundanes thought of as a zoo was perfectly normal and didn’t make his heart stutter.
The giraffe ambled over to the little girl and bowed. “Good morning, my dear,” he said.
***
This week’s giraffe prompt was inspired by Becky Jones, while mine went to nother Mike. Find more at MOTE!
