Dyani

Part 11

My evening was calm, I had been to Thijn to give him his goodnight kiss and after that I took a quick shower. Just to clean of the sweat of the day. I took everything upstairs, where I walked in only my robe. I opened my laptop where Charley had only told me “Everything will be okay very soon” but he was offline so I didn’t reply. It was past midnight when I decided I really wanted to sleep so I logged off and went to bed. Only to lay awake in bed for hours. After I had heard my father go to bed, I gently sneaked downstairs and prepared some hot milk for myself. When I was little and I couldn’t sleep, my mother would always make me some hot milk with honey. I took it with me and around five in the morning I finally fell asleep, happy my father didn’t come to me, picking a fight.

Three hours after I had fallen asleep my father came to my room and woke me gently.

‘Honey, sorry to wake you,’ he whispered.

Almost immediately Thijn came running in and jumped onto my bed, causing Elmo, my cat to jump off and quickly run downstairs.

‘Dad is taking us to the zoo!’ he said excitedly.

I looked up at dad, who was smiling. He came closer and whispered to me.

‘I was hoping it would keep our minds off tomorrow, especially for your brother.’

I nodded and gave him a small smile. It was my day off, but I really had prefered to sleep in a little more, mostly because of the lack of sleep. They left my room and I got dressed. I took my bag and emptied it on my bed, since I hadn’t touched it since last night. I put back my wallet, keys and deodorant bottle, I remembered the cans of fizzy water in backpack and put two into my other bag. I took it downstairs with me and tossed it on the couch. No one had made breakfast yet so I prepared some eggs for my brother and father and made a peanut butter sandwich for myself. As everyone was eating I made some sandwiches with cheese, ham and smoked salmon for when we’d be walking in the zoo. We left when Thijn had finished his sandwich, since our mom died, he had become the worst eater, but I couldn’t blame him, I wasn’t hungry most of the time. I just ate because I knew I had to. Dad took a small backpack with him, where we had put the sandwiches in and also a bottle of soda.

As we arrived at the zoo, Thijn was all excited and happy. It made me happy for him, he seemed so careless. We walked straight passed the flamingo’s and big bird cages, in one line to the reptilian house, Thijn was very fond of snakes and bearded dragons. Everywhere we went I took quick snapshots, nothing professional, just to remember. When we walked passed the bears, almost an hour later, we made jokes about Thijn being a bear. That made him chase me and my father, roaring like a big bear. Next up were the tigers, I mimicked the sound and Thijn played being a bear once again. We fought like our animals and pretended to be hurt badly by each other. It was a lot of fun! By the time we were at the monkey house, we were laughing so much, we joked about our father being like a baboon and he even played along, acting like a monkey, pretending to get fleas from my hair. It made us all laugh. Thijn made a picture of us and I made a mental note to put it on the bulletin board in the kitchen, where we usually pinned the grocery list. Dad and Thijn didn’t think it worthwhile to go into the butterfly garden, but I really wanted to go in. I took a few beautiful shots as they were watching the capybaras one enclosure further. I joined them after I finished my snapshots and we kept going until we came by the elephant enclosure. A large specimen was washing herself and as she left the water, a very small baby elephant came into view. I immediately started taking snapshots, but was stopped when I heard a soft snivel. My dad hadn’t noticed yet, but Thijn had started to cry softly.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him, getting to my knees.

‘I bet that is his mommy. I really miss mommy!’ he almost yelled at me.

I knew he didn’t want to scream at me, but he felt lost without our mom. She was so special, the centre of our family always keeping us safe and together. I missed her too. I hugged my little brother, but he pushed me off, roaring like a bear. I had a tear in my eye, but his crude way of trying to be funny while crying was endearing, so naturally I had to laugh as well. Our father had already noticed us crying a little and decided it was time to relocate.

‘So, who’s up for french fries?’ he asked.

We ignored the sandwiches in his backpack and went to a restaurant in the zoo, where we got three large portions of fries with lots of mayonnaise. After lunch we looked at all the other animals and even went back to some, like the tigers, just to have some fun. Thijn also got a chance to play on the large playground in the centre of the zoo, created to give the parents some alone time.

By the time we got home, it was dinnertime. We didn’t really have food in the house and it was sunday so the only grocery stores that were open were in the centre of town, we would never reach that in time. Dad called for chinese takeout and we spent the entire evening on the couch, watching disney and pixar movies. I was glad to see my father only drinking some coke and no beer. Thijn and me went to bed around ten ‘o'clock, I usually didn’t go that early, but I did have a crappy night the night before, so I was sure to sleep sound tonight.