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“Kerry! I wanna go see the bears!”
I sighed and lowered my camera. In the glass-walled cage the
leopard carried on pacing back and forth, stopping occasionally to look out at
the tourists. I couldn’t help but think it looked sad, frustrated, trapped.
“Kerry! Kerry!” came the little wheedling voice again as
John began to tug on my arm. He looked up at me with a hurt expression on his
six-year-old face. I rolled my eyes and shucked the backpack off my back,
resting it on the floor.
“Alright then,” I said as I put the camera away, “but we
won’t have time for much more after the bears. It’s a long walk up there.” I
pulled the map and our bottle of water out. The zoo was quite spread out, the
upper parts more of a safari park with the animals allowed to roam free. It was
good for them but it meant a long walk for guests. I absently unscrewed the
bottle cap, took a long swallow of water and passed it to John.
While he drank, I pointed at places on the map. “Let’s go up
and see the bears, then come back down past the penguins and see the zebra.” He
gave me the bottle back and I watched him wipe his wet fingers on his t-shirt.
“Then it’ll be home time.”
He did that wide-eyed thing that always got me right in the
conscience. “But you said we’d go in the shop! And Mummy gave you some pennies
to spend there!”
I took another gulp of water, eyeing him the whole time,
then screwed the cap back on and stowed it in the bag. “I guess we might have
time, maybe,” I said, then smiled and tousled his hair. “We won’t have time for
anything stood here. Come on, short stuff, let’s go.”
He scampered off ahead. “Stay in sight,” I called,
lengthening my stride. My feet already hurt from the new boots I’d bought but
the sound they made echoing off the buildings around made it all worthwhile.
These were power boots, and I felt a little twinge of pride that I’d bought
them with my own money. Of course, earning my own money really meant
babysitting my little brother, but as long as Mum was willing to pay me a
decent wage I’d pass on hanging out at the shopping centres with my friends.
The tourists seemed to be everywhere; an entire coachload
had descended at the same time we had, their Hawaiian shirts and shorts
clashing with the grey clouds overhead. There was going to be rain at some
point this afternoon and I intended to be on the train home before it came
down.
I could see John ahead; he’d stopped to look in at something
the sign said was a wolverine. I came up behind him, interested despite myself
and expecting something grand. Teeth, maybe, giant claws. The picture on the
sign was less than thrilling. It looked about the size of a dog and fluffy with
it.
“’The Wolverine is not related to the Wolf in any way,
despite similarities in the name,’” I read out. “Huh, how about that. What
d’you think, John?” I kept my eyes on the undergrowth inside the glass cage,
hoping for movement.
“John?”
Suddenly it was too quiet around me. I looked down, heart
beating fast.
John was gone.
“John?” I called, my voice sounding shrill even to my own
ears. “John? Where are you?” Tourists seem to have piled in on every side and I
had to push past them to get away from the wolverine cage. A hand grabbed hold
of my arm.
“You need to watch what you’re doing, young lady,” the man
who’d grabbed me said. He was obese, an enormous ginger beard obscuring most of
his face. “Slow down.”
I shook his hand off. “I’ve lost my little brother, John,” I
blurted out, too worried to be insulted. “He’s about so high, wearing a red
t-shirt and green shorts… I’ve got to find him!”
The man pointed out towards the back of the crowd that was
now standing in front of the cage. “Is that him?”
Relief flooded through me. It was John, stood there with his
finger up his nose staring into a cage, completely on his own. With a “Thanks!”
shouted over my shoulder I ran over to him and grabbed his hand.
“Hey!” he said, wriggling.
“What do you think you’re doing wandering off on your own? I
nearly lost you!” I said, then knelt down and hugged him tightly. He hugged me
back, unsure, and when we pulled apart I could see tears gathering in his eyes.
“Let’s just keep hold of each others’ hands, ok?” I said,
and he nodded, wiping his eyes furiously. Hand in hand we set off towards the
bears.
I could feel my pulse still racing at the thought of nearly
losing him. Adrenaline still coursed through me and I managed to slow my
breathing only after concentrating on it for a minute. I loved my brother, even
if he irritated the pants off of me sometimes. The water that I’d drunk earlier
took the opportunity to make a concerted attack on my bladder as my stomach
turned watery with unspent fear, but I ignored it, focussing instead on John’s
small hand held in my sweaty grasp.
The walk to the bears was a long one, at least ten minutes
walking in almost complete silence. When we got there, John climbed up onto one
of the stony lumps that protruded from the natural rock walls of their
enclosure so that he could see the bears, and I stayed close to him.
“Can I take a picture of the bears, Kerry?” he asked, and I
nodded. As I bent down with the bag, the sudden compression doubled the
pressure on my bladder, and I suddenly realised that I was more desperate than
I had thought. No matter, I thought; the public toilets were only a ten minute
walk away at most. I passed the camera up and checked the map over to see where
the nearest ones were, and my heart sunk when I saw it.
Up in the more rural areas of the zoo there were no public
toilets at all. In fact, the nearest ones were back at the main entrance, at
least a ten minute walk away. I looked at the bottle of water, still half-full,
and bit my lip. Why had I drunk so much?
“How do I take a picture, Kerry?” John piped up and I tore
myself away from the growing feeling of desperation to stand up next to him.
“The red button, and hold it still,” I muttered.
“Let’s go see the penguins now!” he said after a minute or
two. I snapped back to the real world and nodded. “Let’s,” I said, and took his
hand. “Not very long at the penguins though, right? We need to be getting back
to the entrance.”
“Sure,” he said, and we set off.
Walking helped; the constant motion took my mind off of what
was becoming a dire emergency. We wandered past enclosures for moose, deer, elk
and a lone zebra, which John insisted on stopping and pointing at.
“Slow down, Kerry,” he said, and I became aware that I was
basically pulling him along in my wake as I walked faster and faster. I slowed
down slightly and his expression brightened back to normality.
I began to run through scenarios in my mind. What if I
couldn’t hold on any more? I remembered being drunk once at a party, and I’d
needed to go this badly, but I’d been wearing a miniskirt and a thong, and it
had been night-time; crouching behind someone’s car had been an easy fix. Now,
in jeans and boots, I just didn’t have that opportunity, and it wasn’t as if I
could just do it in front of John.
It didn’t matter, though; we would see the penguins, then
get to the front entrance and I could go into the toilet. John was still young
enough that I could take him in with me so that he could go at the same time;
surely he’d need to, he was only six and he’d drunk a lot as well.
The penguins passed in a haze as I tried to concentrate on
not embarrassing myself. I squeezed my pelvic muscles tightly, bearing down on
the sensation, and found that I was clenching my fists and gritting my teeth.
This was not going to happen.
The clouds overhead continued to darken and the tourists
left; five minutes in front of the penguins had seemed like five years, but
John was happily stood watching them. As I heard the first rumble of thunder, I
grabbed John by the hand. “Time to go.”
“Awww,” he said, but big drops of rain suddenly started to
fall all around us, slowly at first and then gathering pace. He stopped
complaining and moved closer to me.
The pavements between the cages were empty as we started to
jog towards the entrance. If walking had been good to distract me from my
desperate need to relieve myself, jogging worked even better. In minutes we
were by the entrance to the zoo, and I looked quickly around for the toilets.
The large black letters spelling out LADIES on the wall were
like food to the starving man. I dashed towards the door next to the sign, hand
outstretched and ready to the push, but the door stood fast as I slammed into
it. I stood back and looked in disbelief at the sign: ‘Open 9-3 only’. I looked
at my watch: 15:04. I started to move up and down, my own private dance of
agony as I felt ready to burst then and there.
The rain redoubled in intensity and John moved even closer
to me. I looked around for shelter, but nothing seemed useful at that moment.
The rain started to soak everything; the backpack, my hair, the white shirt I
was wearing and my jeans. I looked down as dark blue spots began to appear on
the denim, raindrops falling and quickly spreading until the entire fabric was
sodden. Thunder cracked and my attention was torn away.
Not even really aware of what I was doing, I let go.
Completely unseen in the sudden torrential downpour, I felt
warmth filling my panties and then passing in to my jeans, a warm stream that
ran down my legs and into my already-soaking boots. John pressed close to me
but I was gone in a world of release, standing in the middle of the pavement
and adding my own rivulets of water to the small streams that flowed towards
grates, only a small amount at first as if I was unsure.
Suddenly I realised what I was doing and I cut off in
mid-stream; I looked around, blushing furiously, but there was no-one around. I
licked my lips, feeling the warmth leaving as the colder rainwater took over,
and made the decision.
I stood up a little straighter and wet myself, stood there
in the rain. It came out in torrents now, down from the clouds and down from my
panties, mingling with the rainwater and flowing away from me.
It went on for a minute, perhaps; I felt my bladder empty
itself and the relief was palpable. As if a weight had been lifted from my
mind, I didn’t have to concentrate any more on holding it all in. I looked
around; still no-one was there. I suddenly spotted something we could shelter
under, the lip of a nearby building’s roof, and I pointed it out to John. We
moved into the dryness and looked at each other.
John’s hair was soaked, plastered to his scalp, and his
t-shirt and shorts were wringing wet. I can only imagine I looked the same, my
shirt see-through and my red bra completely visible underneath. We stared at
each other as the rainstorm continued, then started to giggle.
I hugged John and we stood there, warm in the wetness,
staring out as the rain continued to pound down.
“Can we visit the zoo again sometime?” he murmured, just
audible over the hissing torrent of rain.
“Perhaps next summer, when the weather’s nicer,” I replied.
He held on to me for another minute. Then came the words I’d dreaded hearing
all day.
“Kerry… Kerry, I need a wee…”
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