the war is finally over for florinda mcgonagall (lionhearts) wrote in neeps, @ 2018-04-01 00:27:00
Who: Florinda McGonagall and Meaghan McCormack What: Two birthday girls go on elephant safari When: Sunday, 25 March 2000, afternoon Where: Woburn Safari Park near Milton Keynes. Warnings: Language (Meaghan tried to restrain her potty mouth in front of the children ....)
Florrie had never gone to a Muggle safari park before, but with Gregor's assistance she had arranged to get herself and Meaghan to Milton Keynes and take the bus out to the safari park in Muggle clothes. Now they were waiting for the keeper to bring out the elephant and lecture. Then they'd get a chance to pet the elephant, though Florrie was pretty sure they wouldn't actually get to properly ride it.
"I hope this lives up to what you were wanting," she told Meaghan as she handed Meaghan a little pouch of elephant treats she'd purchased from the stand as they came into the elephant habitat.
What Meaghan had been wanting when they originally talked about going out was one thing. What she'd wanted as it came closer was another. She'd only really threw the elephant thing out as a kinda joke, like saying let's do something mad and grand and memorable.
Closer to, she just wanted not to be alone.
On a normal year, this might've been kind of a disappointment, just going to see a thing at a place (with kids round, no less) but she'd had a thing with her mum already, and the Scrimmy trip, and the unexpected party Hamish got her. So though this wasn't really what she'd normally be doing, she figured she could deal.
Anyways it was for Florrie too, so it was fine doing something different.
"I reckon it'll do," she said, shrugging but not sounding as unenthusiastic as you might expect, and even a little curious. The last couple days of proper attention had helped, and knowing she'd be getting more from Dunbar tonight. "Never actually been to a zoo anyways."
"I think this is meant to be more like a dr--" Florrie thought better of it and amended from the forbidden word to "--preserve. Not so much a place with creatures in cages but one where they run free. Not entirely free, obviously, or they wouldn't do this meeting people thing. But they might like people more than the creatures on the preserve." Florrie was pretty sure that Meaghan had been up to the preserve for team functions and would understand what she was getting at.
She'd arranged this because Meaghan had suggested it but as she'd worked with Gregor to arrange it, to make the phone calls and arrange the place and change the money and get the clothing, Florrie had realised she was quite interested in the idea. In learning the new way and meeting mundane creatures, and trying to get round Muggle-style.
"Oh my," she added as the first one walked out. "It's not as big as--it's big though."
Meaghan grinned over at Florrie, waggling her eyebrows. "That's what she said."
There was an angry sort of cough behind them, and Meaghan turned to see a small, offended woman with three even smaller kids. Meaghan flushed, snapping her mouth shut on any protests that were trying to work their way up her strangled throat. "Since you're a she an' you… said it," she managed to mumble out as the woman stalked away, leading her baffled children to a less corrupt corner of the park.
Godric, this was why she couldn't be round kids. Kids had parents and shit.
Florrie was having a hard time suppressing a laugh of her own. "Nobody can complain about what the vicar said to the showgirl," she told Meaghan, ignoring the fussy parents behind them. Merlin and Circe, why did people have to be that way about children?
Another elephant was lumbering in behind the first and Florrie was delighted to see that they were holding on to each other by the trunk and tail. She pointed it out to Meaghan, and a few moments later, a baby elephant followed, holding what was apparently its mother's tail in its tiny trunk. Florrie gasped because it was absolutely adorable.
"It's all over wrinkles still!" Meaghan said, leaning heavily on the fence, the better to gawk. She seemed to have forgotten all about the embarrassment of a moment ago. "Wrinkles and too-big skin. I dint think the kids would look like that too, how's it had time to get that creasey even? How old's it? How long do they even live, I know cru- dogs grow up faster than humans but dunno about elephants."
"Elephants live a long time--" Florrie started, but then the keeper was speaking and Florrie quieted down so the keeper could talk, reckoning they were about to find out how old the creatures were. It turned out that the youngster was three years, and the older pair were closer to Florrie's age.
The keeper was a fit young lad and Florrie reckoned that he had Meaghan's full attention with all the talk. Florrie was just fascinated by the elephants, who were clearly aware of and interested in the visitors. She was waiting for a chance to get close to the pen and when they were permitted, to pet the elephants.
Meaghan listened intently, though not without also thoroughly eyeing the elephant-bloke throughout his lecture (she could multitask that much, she was good at eyeing). He was enthusiastic and not completely boring even besides being fit. That's probably why they put him in with animals that couldn't do much of anything themselves.
She hung on the fence as he explained about the lifespan and gest-whatever, occasionally glancing over at the elephants when he pointed. It was interesting and all, for animals, but Meaghan had never been able to stand more than brief lectures and she was eager to be doing. Unfortunately so were all the kids, and as soon as it was time the kids surged forward to claim their reward. Meaghan and Florrie had to wait a couple more minutes to get their turn.
"It's softer then a d- then I thought," Meaghan said, patting one of the big elephants (they didn't seem to like anyone getting after the wee one, so most folks were leaving it alone). She touched its skin carefully. Maybe it wouldn't breathe fire (maybe) but it was still a damn big thing that could squash her easy.
"Aren't you a sweetheart?" Florrie asked the one that they were closest to, stroking it gently like it was a giant crup of some sort. The elephants seemed used to the humans, for all that they didn't like them touching the baby, and tolerated the petting with goodwill, clearly waiting for the reward of elephant feed that they could certainly smell on the visitors. "What a love!" Florrie crooned as the elephant's trunk came round to sniff her and Meaghan.
"That trunk is mental," Meaghan said in fascination as it dipped closer to her. The whole thing, really, it looked just like it was s'posed to look but unreal with it. If she had never heard of elephants before and she was brought here and the elephants brought out, she would've called bullshit. There just wasn't anything else normal that it looked enough like to believe.
She was so spellbound by the sight of the trunk that for once her reflexes were off. Snaking out and sneaking down, it swiped one of the forgotten treats from her hand, making her jump and let out a startled squeak.
Florrie couldn't help herself. She began to laugh, as did several people around them, at Meaghan and the elephant, who was busy eating its prize. "Oi, come here you," Florrie told it, her voice bubbling still, and offered up her own hand with several treats in it. "You don't have to nick those. We'll give them to you of our own free will."
Elbowing Meaghan, or at least in her general direction, as the elephant reached for Florrie's handful of treats, she added, "Just ask nicely, or at least give us a friendly sniff first!"
Meaghan relaxed as the trunk moved toward Florrie, even reaching up to tickle the weird snaky thing as it went. "Mental," she repeated, but she was grinning.