Sweet Summer Sunsets- A Robert Irwin FanFic

Robert

As Ashley opened the pizza box, I scrolled through Netflix trying to find a movie.

"Do you have any specific type of movie you want to watch?" I asked, trying to see if I could narrow down our choices at least.

"Nope!" Ashley said, giggling a bit. I smiled and shook my head at her. I put on Spider-Man Homecoming. We devoured our pizza and finished the movie. Ashley was still picking at some of the mixed fruit and I was setting up the Switch for Mario Kart.

"Ooh wait! Are those presents for me?" She asked, leaning forward and grabbing them.

"Nah, I thought I'd wrap something for myself to open on your birthday," I joked. She lightly hit my arm.

She opened the first present, which was the painting I made of her silhouette on her surfboard from the day I taught her how to surf. The second was a small stuffed shark Cait got her as a joke.

"How clever," she laughed, "a shark. Thanks, Cait." I'm glad she found it funny, Cait figured it would be ironic. The last present was from my mum and Bindi, it was a necklace with a koala on it.

"Oh, how sweet. Be sure to tell your mum and Bindi I said thank you tomorrow," she said, putting the necklace on.

"Sure thing. Are you ready to epically lose?" I teased, handing her the other Switch controller.

"Oh, you're so cocky, Tarzan. I'll kick your butt," she joked back.

We played several rounds of Mario Kart, having fun and teasing each other. She ended up winning most of them. I'd like to say I let her win, just to boost my own ego. But in truth, she was better at it than I was.

"I will say, Tarzan, your croc feeding skills are drastically better than your gaming skills," she teased, setting the controller down and getting up. She walked over to where the snacks were and grabbed a peach soda, mum knew they were her favourite so she made sure I brought some when I was setting all of this up. She grabbed one of the snacks, tossing me something as well.

"Oh, are you ready to possibly start training with the macaws? It won't be too hard, just them learning to trust you and go to you rather than their usual trainers," I explained, hoping we could get that worked out and Ashley could join me when doing the croc shows. And, there was my secret plan.

"Oh, sure! I don't think it'll be too much on my leg, and I know they're well-behaved birds. I know Queto can be tricky about who he listens to though, so he would be the one I need to work with the most," she said.

"Yeah, but birds are such intelligent creatures. Once he learns to go to you, and you learn what commands he listens to, you should be good to go. Then we can do the croc shows together, with you being like the opening act."

"Do you think I could ever feed crocs?" She asked, looking at me seriously. She sat near the foot of the air mattress, while I sat at the head, so we faced each other.

"Sure, if you want to. It would take lots of work and a long process to get you up to it, but eventually, we could do that," I explained. I wouldn't mind teaching her how to feed the crocs, and doing the shows with her, like how Bindi and Chandler feed crocs together.

"Yeah, that would be nice to work up to, eventually," she said.

"Definitely. And we can start working with the birds tomorrow, actually. Wait until you see them fly together towards you at the crocuseum! It's like poetry in motion," I said enthusiastically. That was something dad would always say when he got excited about the way an animal moved, and boy was he right. Watching animals in their natural habitat, or doing natural behaviours is the most amazing thing you can witness. Ashley giggled at what I said.