You've never been on a field trip like this before!

Dedicated to my wonderful brothers, and in hopes that Jack Roush recovers. (You think you hate the guy unti he's in critical condition...)

A/N: Warning. This was actually written a year or two ago for music class and it's crazed. I had to use input given to me from other people into the bargain, including the original name, "Looney Zoo". For nostalgia's sake, I've kept much the same… you have been warned. Yes, this may be used for private entertainment… if you'd honestly want to.

Looney Zoo or The Seeing of the Monkey! A Drama

Copyright 2002 by R.D. Ellison

"And remember, class, to act like young adults here. You are very lucky to be here, you know how close-cut the school budget is…"

Even scholarly Natalie was doing her best to tune out the monotone lecture of their teacher, Miss Swindell. Tall and thin and strict and severe and with no sense of humor, Miss Swindell was one of the few people Natalie, Bruno, and Zeek ever met who could make a class field trip to the local zoo something to dread… in fact, their other classmates had actually scheduled their appointments with the dentist for this day for the purpose of missing the outing. Sandy Wilkins spent a month convincing his parents he had polio before discovering it didn't exist any longer, so had switched to malaria. Right now, Natalie was wishing she had done the same. Or volunteered to stay home and clean her closet out. Or scrub the bathroom.

Oh, well… it would all be made up for, the moment she saw those monkeys. Natalie was infuriated with monkeys, had a chronic obsession. Her room was full of monkey posters and monkey books and monkey magazines and monkey calendars and monkey stationary and stuffed monkeys. The only reason she had wallpaper with fruit dancing around the border was because the store hadn't had monkey wallpaper.

"… so remember to act like the young ladies and gentlemen… erm…" Miss Swindell trailed off, staring out of her spectacles and down her nose at her three students. "… young lady and gentlemen - "

"Did she just call Bruno a gentleman?" Zeek asked.

" - so as to reflect a positive image on our school - "

"What does that mean?" Zeek hissed.

" - say 'please' and 'thank you' - "

"Please!" Zeek smiled brightly. "Thank you!"

" - listen carefully, ask intelligent questions," here Miss Swindell gave the two young gentlemen hard stares, "and be sure to be polite to your tour guide…" She scowled faintly, examining her watch. "…Even if she is late…"

Natalie nodded vaguely and examined the people strolling by. Not many, as it was a weekday and all, but enough. The sun beat on her neck, making it itchy, and her legs were tired of standing. She wished she could actually see the animals. Although she felt rather bad at them, kept in cages to be gawked at. But Miss Swindell told her to shut up whenever she got started on it… granted, she did talk rather fast and loud when she got earnest…

"Whasuuup?!" Out of nowhere, it seemed, popped a young woman - she might've been in her twenties - with purple suspenders, a green shirt, wild long hair, vivid orange sneakers, and a stuffed life-sized stuffed canary behind her ear.

The kids, bored to tears just a second before, were delighted. Even Bruno and Natalie, who thought that the "Whasup" sort of stuff was rather stupid, joined in.

"Whasup?" Natalie responded, friendly-like and polite.

"Whasup," Bruno said with a suspicious eying of the tour guide.

"KETCHUP!!" Zeek shouted. "Thank you," he added as an afterthought."

"Children!" Miss Swindell said in slight horror as the people with strollers stared.

"Oh, yeah - sorry," Zeek smiled. " 'Please'."

The woman beamed and flailed her arms. "Hey, hey, hey, guys, I'm Molly Picket!" Although the day was sunny, thunder crashed in the background. "So, so, so nice to meet ya! Waz all yaur names now? I say 'name', you say - " She pointed to Natalie: "Ladies first! Name!"

"Natalie!"

"Name!"

Shock over, Bruno was surly. "Bruno, what d'you think my name tag says?"

"It's upside down," Zeek hissed. "But let's see… 'My Name Is: Bruno and I eat cyanide-infested worms on my cornflakes instead of sugar' -"

"Shush, young man! Name!" Molly shouted.

"Za Zeek here!" Zeek announced with a bow. "Please!…"

Molly swung her hips better than Britney Spears (not that it said a whole lot). "And da teach? Name!" she said with a sassy, swirly arm movement that ended in a finger pointing to Miss Swindell.

"I am Miss Swindell, and may we please begin, Ms. Picket? We are on a very tight schedule, the bus leaves at -"

"All righty, Miss Swandiawhata -"

"The name is 'Swindell'."

"Small class, huh? Tuition must be small, ha-ha!" Molly cracked up at her joke. Miss Swindell looked rather disapproving as the kids laughed as well. "O-KAY! Onwaaaaaaaaard!"

Molly, with an impersonation of what Zeek was sure Christopher Columbus must really have sounded like, led them down the pavement path edged with grass and little false-looking daisies.

"When do we see the monkeys?" Natalie inquired eagerly, eyes hopeful.

"Dork-face," Bruno muttered.

"Leave Natty alone, Harding!" Zeek ordered sharply.

Bruno smirked, the effect being his stout face grew more odd-looking. "Aw, widdle Zeekiekins likes Dork-Face?"

"Ew, no, thank you!" Zeek said quickly. His face turned as red as it did the last time he and Bruno got into the fistfight. Bruno being a good ton heavier, Zeek had lost. Bloodily so.

"Think up some better names, jerk," Natalie suggested, somehow managing to clearly convey she was speaking to Harding and not Zeekiekins. "Molly? The monkeys?"

"In just a moment now, miss," Molly replied in a sarcastically prim, proper, and hilariously ludicrous English accent crossed with a Southern accent. "Now, right here we have a…" A dramatic pause. "LION!! ROAR-ROAR-ROAR! Beware the wrath of the king and never cross his path! ROAR-ROAR-ROAR!!"

The three intellectuals stared. Zeek did, too.

"Uh," Bruno said after a long silence. "The lion ain't roar-roar-roarin' now. The lion's sleeping."

Molly was already skipping away, la-la-laing merrily as Dorothy and the Scarecrow with no brain, so the other four hurried along to keep with her.

"Oh in the jungal, da mightay jungal, da lion sleeps tonight…" Zeek sang softly.

"Shut up. I hate that song." Bruno gave him a non-too-friendly shove.

"Oh in the jungle, da mightay jungle, da lion sleeps tonight…" Zeek sang loudly.

Miss Swindell looked long-suffering. "Robert, do stop making a spec -"

Natalie blinked.

Zeek blanched.

Bruno squinted.

Natalie put two and two together in horror.

Zeek shuddered and his eyes widened in fear.

Bruno looked happier than he had in years.

"Robert? Whaddya mean, 'Robert'?" Bruno asked delightedly.

"That's his real name," Miss Swindell sniffed as she walked past.

Zeek winced, face redder than it had been when accused of fancying Natalie.

Bruno's grin would never have fit in the same cage they kept the tigers in. It slowly crept around his face and he actually looked rather cute for a moment. "Aw, little Bobby…"

"When are the monkeys?" Natalie asked, more out of a genuine thirst to know than because Zeek looked highly pained and embarrassed.

"In a moment, little girl. Now, here - "

Bruno snickered at the address, obviously having a nice day.

"Did she just say 'little girl'?" Zeek gasped in an undertone, more because Natalie looked pained and embarrassed than because of a genuine thirst to know. "Isn't she a bit of an idiot?"

"Me? Yeah! Wow!" Molly cried, looked absolutely thrilled, face positively radiating light. "I'm so glad you noticed!" she said in the same way someone would refer to a new flattering haircut. "Cool…" she shook his hand.

Zeek grinned and took it, and then offered his left. Molly took it and tugged, causing Zeek to be lurched forward into his crossed arms and have the breath knocked out of him.

Molly began indifferently pointing out the finer points of the hippopotamuses to an indifferent Bruno and Miss Swindell. Natalie stepped back a bit to check on Zeek, who was still catching his breath.

"Was that payback for me calling her an idiot?" Zeek asked her after she made matters worse by attempting the Heimlich Maneuver. He hadn't seemed upset at her doings, however. "She seemed happy about it…"

"I think it was a sign of friendship and respect, actually," Natalie said, pushing her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. "I mean, say, you'd never offer Bruno your hand."

"Yes I would!"

"You'd never offer Bruno your hand without my joy buzzer."

"No, of course not, why would I?"

Zeek's eyebrows were still valleyed together in puzzlement as he worked out this logic - it looked like a tough job - muttering: "Without the joy buzzer… puh-lease!…"

Miss Swindell was saying: "I beg to differ, Ms. Picket. Hippopotamuses are gray."

Molly didn't look perturbed. "Are you sure about zat, Mademoiselle Strawberry?" she asked, a French clip to her words.

"It's Swindell. Yes, indeed."

"Zeek, you look like a bright boy." Molly turned to the bright boy quite seriously, not looking sarcastic in the least. "Are hippos not violet?"

"Of course they are."

"Natalie?"

Natalie glanced sideways at her unbendable teacher and then looked at her fun tour guide. "'Course, Molly. Hippos violet, yep."

"Mr. Bruno?"

Bruno nodded absently, staring at the splashing purple hippo.

Molly looked to Miss Swindell. "Well, there, Miss Swindyhoofla. Hippos are violet."

Miss Swindell's mouth hung open. "But - you - no - it - "

"Run along, guys," Molly nodded, standing by the teacher's elbow companionably.

"They are indeed gray and you know it, Ms. Picket!"

"Yeah, Miss Swimydelta, but they say they're violet and I say they're violet, and what can you do about it? They're violet in our eyes." Sticking her hands in her pockets, Molly strolled along ahead.

"I - gray… it's Swindell!" Miss Swindell called hopelessly after her.

"Are the monkeys next, Molly, huh, huh, huh?" asked Natalie as Molly caught up to the young trio.

"Dork-Face."

"Ever, like, yanno, hear, like, that one, like, song, like, by the, like, Monkeys?" Molly asked. "No? Too, like, young? Well, like, it goes, like - "

"What's that?" Natalie shrieked, pointing hesitantly to a cage in which a lump of something grayish (or purplelish) lay in a rather lifeless heap.

Molly peered at it and then, fingering the identification card that marked her as a zoo worker, stepped inside the cage and poked at it hesitantly with her canary hairclip. "Oh, forgot to give Snowball her medicine this morning. Oh, well, anyway - "

"Is it dead?" Bruno asked, looking rather expectant.

"Not quite. Don't worry, honey-buddy -"

Zeek snickered.

" - it's under the care of trained, responsible amateur professionals exactly like myself here. Nothing to worry about."

Natalie raised an eyebrow skeptically, disagreeing and immediately murmuring over Snowball.

Miss Swindell, just now catching up to them, saw the pile of fur and Natalie praying and promptly fainting. Luckily, there was a stand labeled "Support For Fainted Individuals" for her to collapse on. The letting on it was remarkably similar to Ms. Picket's handwritten nametag.

"Aw, she's another one," Molly rolled her eyes.

"She'll be dead soon," Bruno predicted dismissively.

"The way you act up," Natalie agreed.

"Ah, it's a sad story." Zeek burst into a series of melodramatic sniffles and wails and sobs as they walked on. Behind them, Snowball suddenly jumped up and bounced around frantically, spraying water from its dish everywhere. Luckily (or unluckily, in Zeek and Bruno's view) some hit Miss Swindell in the face and she hurried to follow them, glancing edgily behind her back at the creature at intervals.

"Mo - ving - a - lon - g," Molly began, robot-like.

"How come you change accents every two seconds?" Bruno inquired bluntly.

A very slow, unnatural curve came to Molly's mouth, spreading across her face. "Because, my dear," she said in a voice that sounded natural for the first time since they had met her, "I am Molly Picket!" Her smile was now decidedly sweet and innocent. "And I'm very weird, in case you haven't noticed."

Miss Swindell stared. Natalie stared. Bruno stared. Zeek stared.

In short, everyone stared.

Casually, Molly turned to the next cage. "And now moving along…"

"Oh in da jungal, da mightay jungal, da lion sleeps tonight," Zeek warbled, trying to break the unnatural hole of silence Molly had created as they walked along.

"Not time to quit your daytime job just yet, Bobby."

"Harding, shut up. One day my daytime job tax dollars'll pay for your jail cell."

"Boys, quit that conduct instantly," Miss Swindell ordered somewhat wearily.

"Yeah, guys, listen to Miss Spaghetti…" Molly said from ahead of them over her shoulder.

Miss Swindell clenched her teeth so hard it looked as if she were barring them. Maybe she was. "Swindell."

"Are the monkeys next?" Natalie asked hurriedly, seeing flames shoot from Miss Swindell's eyes and a growl from her throat, having no wish to discover whether Zeek's prediction that Miss Swindell wasn't fully human was accurate or not.

"May Ah prezant za… za… za… za…" Molly took a deep breath. "… MONKEYS!!"

"Technically, they're chimpanzees," Bruno pointed out, but Natalie, for one, was paying no mind.

With an ear-splitting shriek (that might've prompted Zeek to guess she was a banshee), Natalie jumped up and down, hands clasped together, hair a-fly and eyes a-light, inhaling in great heaves. "My monkeys, my monkeys, my dear, dear little wumsies!" she cried, bounding over to the bars of the cage, from which a chimpanzee met her gaze neutrally. "My monkeys, my monkeys," she trilled more loudly, "my widdle, widdle, dear wumsies!"

Bruno snickered.

"Which reminds me," Miss Swindell said out of the blue (or perhaps it was the orange?), "You have all remembered to take notes on what we are witnessing, correct?"

Zeek blinked once, twice, thrice, and shrugged, thanking his lucky stars for Internet Cliff Notes.

"Hear that, Dork-Face?" Bruno jeered as passerby quickly walked away, for Natalie looked rather deranged.

"Stop calling Natty that! - Hey! Bruno! Harding!"

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, my glorious monkeys! I wuv you, I wuv you, I -"

Abruptly, Natalie was inside the monkey cage. Quick as a flash, Bruno had pushed her inside. Miss Swindell had been muttering: "It's Swindell" under her breath and Molly had been staring at… well, there must have been a butterfly in the sky, because she was staring at about nothing. So Bruno's lookout had been clear.

"Bruno Harding!" Miss Swindell yelled. "Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!"

"Eh?" Molly said thickly. "You have goodness, Miss Sagatina?"

The monkeys interestedly surrounded Natalie, who was petrified to absolute whiteness, her face indistinguishable from her uniform blouse.

"Ms. Picket, will you not get her out?" Miss Swindell shrieked as Molly lazily turned away and walked slowly off, arms swinging.

"Tour's over, Miss Sisidellniga," Molly yawned.

Natalie whimpered slightly as one chimpanzee took his lips to her forehead, tracing it calmly.

Miss Swindell's temper, for once, flew. She stamped her foot. "I have had quite enough of you, Ms. Picket! Now, one of my students is in there and you are going to get Natalie out right now!!"

Molly strode on into the sunset. Miss Swindell was left pale and helpless.

"What're we going to do now?"

"Hey, Miss Swindell," Zeek called. Coolly he climbed into the cage and snatched Natalie's arm. The chimpanzees reacted very docilely to his leading the trembling, traumatized girl out. He then brushed some straw off of her arm unnecessarily. "You okay, Natty?"

"Oh, Zeek, that was soo awful!" Natalie was swaying on her feet, eyes screwed shut. "I kissed a monkey!"

At that exact word, Natalie chanced to lean toward Zeek.

"Well, hey, don't give me after the monkey!" Zeek hollered in horror, backing away from her like she was Miss Swindell in a bathing suit.

Bruno was rolling on the ground from laughter at the sight as Zeek said hurriedly: "Uh, yeah, Natalie, some quarters'll do just as well as payment for that, no rescue kiss required… thank you…"

"Oh, that was horrible!" Natalie cried, ignorant of Zeek's words. "Those horrible, awful monkeys… I never want to do that again! From here on, I, Natalie Jamiee Jones, swear with Zeek and Bruno and Miss Silverware and Molly and the sun and concession stand lady for witness, that I absolutely, positively, and completely, hate and detest monkeys!"

Zeek looked rather crestfallen at the loss of Natalie's quirk. "Harding, I'm gonna knock your lights out," he threatened, crackling his knuckles and only coming up to Bruno's shoulders.

Miss Swindell, after cooing over an oblivious Natalie, was also furious. "Bruno, I am going to - "

Bruno held up his hands. "Hey, Dork-Face hates monkeys now! I did sumpin good!"

Zeek charged to Bruno, landing a fist into his chest, which bounced off pointlessly. Bruno picked him up by the back collar and left him swinging at air. Natalie half-cried, half-giggled helplessly.

"Children, stop it!" Miss Swindell cut in, at the end of her tether. "You're making a frightful scene of yourselves and are supposed to be representing out school!"

"We are," Zeek pointed out. Bruno, still holding him, nodded vigorously.

"Now, I bet the bus is waiting." Miss Swindell paused, then snapped: "NOW! GO! I'll be right there, and Natalie is in charge!"

After a freeze of a second's pause, Bruno abruptly dropped Zeek and turned to the bus. Zeek, limbs sprawled on the ground, accepted Natalie's hand of help.

BZZZZT!!

"Darn buzzer!"

Natalie smiled and pretended to blush. "Whoops."

The two ran off, Zeek shouting: "Yo, Harding… Natty's in charge, you gotta listen to 'er! Nyah-nyah-nyah!…"

"Do not!"

"Do too! Miss Sugarplum said so!"

"It's Swindell, you idiot!"

"Not no more!"

"That's a double negative," Natalie pointed out with a laugh as they skipped on.

"Who cares?" Bruno and Zeek demanded in unison. "Puh-lease!"

Molly doubled back from the tree she had hid behind. "All'swell so's ends swell," she said with an easy smile at Miss Swindell.

Miss Swindell's mouth was tighter than elastic; her eyes narrow slits of anger. "As for you, you irresponsible girl, you slimy slug, you smart-alec, you -"

"Temper, teach, and language!" Molly turned her eyes skyward, speaking airily.

Miss Swindell's fists clenched and unclenched. "You ought - to - to be - be - be…" There was a pause as the two stared each other down; Miss Swindell glaring, Molly simply gazing. "… something I, as a Christian woman -"

Molly smirked.

" - cannot say!!" With a storming huff, Miss Swindell stalked off, unaware that the hem of her skirt was ripped and peanut brittle was leaving a trail behind her from a hole in her pocket, probably Snowball's work.

Molly noticed, and watched her go with half-lidded eyes, contentedly calm. "'Bye, Miss Sohuagramal!" she waved. After a pause, she looked down at her watch.

"Only two o'clock, Mol, you're doin' good. Time for Snowball's medicine? The searchers come out at sunset, so let's see… next victims… er, class… about ten minutes."

You *were* warned.