My name is Max. I am an Emu and I live at the zoo with my wife Marlene. For those of you that don’t know; an Emu is a flightless bird; similar to an ostrich only smaller, smarter and better looking. Well at least that’s my opinion. I love being an Emu; of course there have been times that I have wished to fly. Marlene also dreams of flight; I guess it’s natural to dream of things we can’t have, but if you knew the jokes we have to put up with from other birds about not being able to fly; well I don’t even want to go into that.
This has been an exciting summer for Marlene and me. We are the proud new parents of two baby Emu’s; twin girls whom we named Milley and Margie.
Milley and Margie were the first Emu’s to be born at the Zoo. The birth and the weeks following were the most exciting of our lives. People came everyday to see the girls who are beautiful if I do say so myself and Marlene and I couldn’t have been happier. With the addition of the girls our lives were complete.
Then something unexpected happened that caused both Marlene and I sever distress. The zoo keeper came into our home with a bunch of important looking people, veterinarian types, who started poking and prodding around at Milley and Margie.
The next thing we knew they were taking the girls away. The zoo keeper in his very calm zoo keeper voice told us not to worry that everything was alright that they were just taking the girls for their first check up. We watched the group of people and our beloved children until they disappeared into the medical facility.
I tried to calm Marlene, but she was a nervous wreck; pacing around our home and craning her neck toward the medical facility every five minutes. By the time our lunch arrived Marlene had me convinced that something was terribly wrong.
So when the boy that serves us lunch came through our door I pushed my way past him with Marlene right behind me. The boy was so surprised he dropped our lunch and almost fell to the ground, but when I looked back he was hot on our tails. I told Marlene to go check on the children and that I would do my best to keep the lunch boy busy.
We split up; Marlene ran down toward the medical facility while I ran toward the monkey cages where I knew a crowd would be gathered; people love the monkeys. I can’t say I blame them; monkeys are such show offs.
Our plan worked, the lunch boy followed me and left Marlene alone. I knew he would because people were not allowed down by the medical facility, he wouldn’t worry much about Marlene as long as she was headed in that direction, but where I was headed was a different story. I would soon be walking around in the mist of the zoo customers; the lunch boy would do everything in his power to prevent me from doing that, we were under strict orders not to mingle with the zoo customers as they tended to panic when a so called wild animal was running around loose in the zoo.
Of course an Emu is much faster than a lunch boy so I had no problem staying free until Marlene checked on our children. Before long I heard her signal that everything was okay and that we needed to head back home.
The trouble was that I was enjoying myself and wasn’t quite ready to go home. I hadn’t been out of the house in a long time. It was a beautiful day, I was walking down the zoo’s main concourse, and people scattered and screamed as I approached, the lunch boy was breathlessly chasing after me, oh I was having fun.
Then I saw some zoo employees in front of me. Others were coming from the rear to help the lunch boy. I would soon be surrounded and my fun would be over.
Then I had a great idea; I was near the rhino pen and the wall to the rhino pen was only about four foot high; a small leap for an Emu as athletic as myself.
You see Emu’s and rhino’s get along just fine; you could even say that we like each other’s company, but rhino’s don’t care much for the company of zoo keeper’s or lunch boy’s so I knew if I got into the rhino pen I would be safe for a while and get to continue enjoying my day. The zoo keeper would have to figure out what to do with the rhino before he could do anything with me.
My thinking was sound if not brilliant except for one minor detail. Earlier in the week they had moved the rhino to another location in the Zoo to make room for some bears; grizzly bears. I didn’t figure that out until I was already in the pen which is much harder to get out of than it is to get into. The walls are much higher from the inside. It was one of those times I wished I could fly.
Yeah there were four bears in all and bears don’t get along with anything except other bears. To say they were unhappy when I landed in their pen would be putting it mildly and to say that I was scared out of my wits would be putting it even more mildly. I might have even made some unmanly squeals as they chased me around the enclosure.
If Marlene hadn’t shown up when she did I could have possibly been; well it’s horrifying to think of what could have happened.
Marlene’s sudden presence in the pen alongside me confused the bears. They stopped chasing me and sat back on their haunches; obviously not sure who they should chase, me or Marlene.
After a short stand off the bears were lured into cages with pieces of raw meat and Marlene and I were led back home; I was scolded all the way of course by the main zoo keeper who kept talking about what a fool I was to jump into a bear pit.
I did feel like a fool and Marlene wasn’t happy with me either but when we got back home the twins were there which made everything better and a week later the Zoo Keeper moved us all to a bigger home. Now we have more room and were going to need it; Marlene’s pregnant again, were hoping for another set of twins.