Going to the Zoo
It was vacation time in Giant Land .Yippee
just simply loved vacations. One could get up late in the morning and have a
late breakfast and could take a bath anytime of the day. “Why can’t life be
always a vacation?”, thought Yippee.
Yippee simply hated waking up early every
morning and he yearned for the weekends for sleeping till late in the day.
But now there was no need to wait.
Vacations were here and every single day he could do just as he pleased. Life
could not be more perfect he thought.
So that morning, a still sleepy eyed Yippee ventured to the kitchen
to see if Mamma could give him some breakfast.
“Mom, could you give me some breakfast? All
this sleeping has made me very hungry”, said Yippee
Mamma looked at Yippee with a smile and
said, “So finally, we get to see you. Your Papa says that during vacations he
hardly gets to see you. You are so busy sleeping”
Yippee gave a rather sheepish smile and
said, “I know I do get up late every morning since vacation has started but I
like it”
“But tomorrow you need to wake up early
because we are planning to take you all to the zoo”, said Mamma
“The zoo! Really? Are we going to go to the zoo?” asked a very excited
Dino who had just walked into the kitchen.
“Would I get to see the T Rex there? Oh! I am already
feeling very scared”, cried out Dino.
“Ya Dino you would definitely see T Rex and
many more Dinosaurs”, said Mamma
“But we went to the zoo last year too”,
said Yippee in a whiny tone
“I want to sleep”
“Okay, fine, all those who want to go to
the zoo tomorrow raise your hands”, said Mamma
Dino and Bruno quite promptly raised their
hands
Yippee did not have much choice but to
raise his as well
Next day was a bright and sunny day. Mamma
had a big struggle trying to get Yippee out of his bed. Bruno helped by licking
every possible place on Yippee’s face and Dino helped by literally lifting
Yippee out of his bed.
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| Illustration by: Gauri Ghosal |
Finally everyone was ready .Papa was in a
very cheerful mood. He loved taking the family to the zoo. Mamma enjoyed making
a special picnic basket for the family. Dino was excited at the prospect of
seeing a T Rex and Bruno was just plain happy to go out and sniff new and
interesting scents and smells.
Yippee seemed to be the odd one out. He was
in a very grumpy mood. He had not got his 12 hours of sleep today and he looked
accusing at everyone, as they were responsible for breaking his sleep.
Especially because at the point that Bruno had woken him up by licking his
eyelids, he was actually dreaming of eating a huge bar of chocolate all by
himself.
They reached the zoo. Papa bought the
tickets and everyone trooped in.
Dino wanted to go and check out the T Rex
first. So everyone decided to first move to the T Rex enclosure. Dino went
ahead excitedly but suddenly stopped and froze. In front of her was a gigantic creature,
which had teeth, which were larger than her!
She quickly moved back and hid behind
Yippee. “Yippee you need to save me”, she screamed in terror
Yippee too felt scared. And both of them
decided to go and hide behind Papa.
Papa and Mamma found the whole situation
quite funny and they could not help laugh at the situation. But they realised
how scared both Yippee and Dino were and decided instead to go the Giraffe’s
enclosure.
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| Illustration by :Gauri Ghosal |
Bruno just loved looking at the Giraffe.
She could not get over how long the Giraffe’s neck was. As for Dino, she
immediately felt in love with the baby in the family. Yippee felt that the
Giraffe family was okay. He wanted to check out the wilder beasts (as long as
they were not a T Rex)
They checked out the lion and the bear and
by the time they came to the leopard’s enclosure they all felt hungry and tired.
Papa said, “Lets have a break now.”
Bruno hearing this ran across to the other
side excitedly and started barking. “Oh! he has found the perfect spot”, said
Dino.
It was indeed a great spot. The grass was
thick and soft. A tree gave some shade from the sun and just next to the spot
was an ice cream seller with popsicles of all possible flavors.
The family settled in for a leisurely
picnic. By the time they had finished it was already evening and time to go.
It was a tired but happy family, which went
back home that day. Yippee realised that something’s were worth getting up
early in the morning for and he went back home with a smile!
