Sweet Summer Sunsets- A Robert Irwin FanFic

Ashley

"No, that was it," I said.

"That was all. Thanks, mum!" Robert said.

"Of course. I'm excited to see where you two take this," she said.

We said goodbye to her and walked out of her office and out of the Wildlife Hospital, with a quick stop at the lockers so I could put my sketchbook and pencils back in.

"I'll walk you to the otter exhibit," Robert offered.

"Sure," I said and we made our way there.

"So, I've been thinking," Robert started saying as we were walking.

"Uh oh," I said jokingly. He laughed.

"No, it's nothing crazy. I just noticed you and your mum haven't put up your Christmas tree yet. What if you two did that to spend some time together?"

"Yeah, that would work, assuming she gets home at a normal time," I said, laughing lightly. 

"That's a fair point," Robert said. 

We walked the rest of the way to the otter exhibit and went into the connected keeper building. I checked my watch and saw that it was almost 2, so Bindi would be here any moment. 

"Hey, you got this. I'll be there in the crowd watching," Robert said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. 

"Thank you. See you after," I said back, watching him walk out of the small building. 

I went ahead and took out the fish from the little fridge and started breaking it up into smaller pieces that Bindi and I could give to the otters. 

"G'day!" Came Bindi's cheerful voice as she walked into the small building. I turned around to see her gently closing the door behind her. 

"G'day! I'm getting their fish prepped now," I said.

"Sweet as! As soon as we're done with that we can get started. I think just a little bit more fish and we'll be set."

"Perfect," I said, breaking some more fish up. "That looks like enough, right?" 

"Yep! That'll be plenty," Bindi said as she opened a small cupboard and pulled out two little buckets and filled them with the chopped fish. "Ready?"

"Ready!" I said. 

I followed Bindi through the door that connects the keeper building to the exhibit and we walked through. Bindi of course had on a little clip-on microphone so she could talk to the crowd. I opted not to have one for this training session. 

"G'day everyone! I'm here with Ashley," Bindi started, addressing the crowd. I gave a slight wave as she introduced me. "Today we are doing a little training session with our Asian small-clawed otters. We do these little training sessions as a form of enrichment for these little guys, and they love it! These sessions are simple, we just direct them to a few "stations" around the exhibit here and give them a little fishy treat as a reward."

I stood by Bindi as she gave her explanation to the crowd. Once she finished talking she looked over to me and gave a small nod, and with that, we started. 

We each directed the otters to different stations by pointing to the spot and saying "station". The otter would then go to the station and stand up on its back feet and reach up for their treats. We directed the otters to different stations every time, the crowd "aww-ing" at the otters. I glanced up at the crowd and I could see Robert looking down into the exhibit, that cheeky grin on his face. I smiled slightly. 

We finished the training session with the otters and Bindi said a little thank you to the crowd. The crowd slowly dispersed as Bindi and I played with the otters some more. I heard the sound of clapping from the walkway that looked over the otter exhibit. I looked up to see Robert slowly clapping and smiling.