Human Petting Zoo (story in need of feedback)

[EddieDavidson]

I am not sure I like the title. I thought about Girl Petting Zoo.

I am not sure where the story is going but today I was inspired.


There are some obvious influences, Carol Baskins AKA (Carol Robbins) and Joe King of the Tiger King fame, and Greta Thunberg - a few easter eggs in the story. I ask you to read with an open mind. There is another story here that references the real Greta. This is a character loosely based on her - not popular/world famous.

It was hard to think of her as anything else except for Greta.

Carol's daughter was originally named Willow. I decided that River Robbins rolled off the tongue more readily.

I agonized about this character, pivoting from a more intelligent and nuanced character to a bimbo - deciding ultimately on an air-head that can be redeemable who may be deeper than even she realizes.

Naturally, it is very likely and probably inevitable that any story that touches upon social justice, environmental concerns, female equality, etc and great herself (albeit an alter-ego) would get the attraction of edge lords. While, I am not seeking their attention ro validation - I will accept that this may give them a boner or freak them out- who knows how their minds work.

It is sad we live in an age when the idea that "Taking care of the environment" is political or controversial and not everyone is on board with it.

Howver, I wanted to paint Carol especially as someone who takes it to extremes and doesnt' actually help the message at all.

I was unsure about the last bit of this chapter, or where I want to go with it. Initially, I wanted the parents in the dark a bit and that's why I wanted to put them on a school bus and tour south Florida.

Anyway, chapter one - needs edits still, and I am open to plot direction.

“I don’t know, Carol. A human petting zoo? That’s kinda out there.” My dad frowned at our neighbor Carol’s suggestion, turning over the elaborate leaflet she’d printed on her home PC. The pages swarmed with statistics about animals being taken from the wild to perform in zoos and about human trafficking’s impact on women worldwide, all of it aggrandizing her sanctuary—painting her as wildlife’s savior, a pure-hearted saint—and promising that the extra ticket revenue from the exhibit would bankroll food, veterinary care, and new rescue operations for her tiger sanctuary.

The information on the flyer was compelling and certainly pulled on my little sister Greta’s heartstrings. She’s an environmentalist and cares deeply about many causes. She sat quietly and passively listened to our parents speak with Carol about the most preposterous idea I’ve ever heard in my life.

Carol hadn’t even intended for us to see the flyer yet. That was for our parents to review. However, my mother had laid hers down, and Greta had digested every bit the moment she saw it. Her big eyes went wide as she read about human and animal exploitation.

My little sister hunched over the page, fingers tracing the bold-red numbers as if each statistic were a secret she had to memorize. Greta’s shoulders crept up beneath her green “Destroy the Fascists, Save the Bay” tee, and she pressed her lips together the way she always did when a cause grabbed her full attention.

It is quite difficult to argue against educating people on critical environmental and social issues, and in the process saving the lives of tigers and other animals rescued for the wild. I still hadn’t heard the details of the human petting zoo, though.

It definitely made me uneasy because it sounded like Carol was asking my parents if we could volunteer with it, and I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

Teaching people about the planet—and saving half-tame tigers in the bargain—was hard to argue against, at least in theory. Still, the words human petting zoo rolled around my head without ever landing. Carol hadn’t explained what, exactly, the volunteers would be doing.

My stomach tightened. It sounded like she wanted Mom and Dad to sign us up, and the thought of strangers putting hands on me—educational or not—made my skin prickle. I could see that it was upsetting my older sister Sarah as well. She was pretty, with a constant smirk. People often say she looks like Natalie Dormer, but I think she looks a bit like the actress Sarah Hyland who plays Hailey in Modern Family.

“I need popcorn to watch this,” my little brother Hans quipped. He looked identical to my little sister Greta except that instead of a thick, ashen blonde braid, his hair was cut short in a crew cut. The two were identical in every other way.

Hans clearly wasn’t disturbed in the least by the odd topic – but it seemed he wasn’t going to be asked to volunteer either.

You may be asking yourself why I would be worried about being asked to volunteer. I could always say no.

However, it doesn’t really work that way in my family. My mother has a way of volun-TELLING us to do things, and you’d have better luck peeing into the wind to make it change direction than you would arguing with my mother once she has committed to a decision.

Mom and Dad ignored the crack. We kids hadn’t been invited to the conversation in the first place; I’d assumed Carol and Don were just waiting out a summer storm with coffee and small talk. Clearly, I’d misread the visit.

I was asked to serve coffee and tea to our guests, and when I noticed what they were talking about, I summoned my older sister Sarah. She can be a little hot-headed and materialistic. She immediately scrunched her nose in disgust when she heard about the petting zoo, but she knew better than to interrupt my parents when they had company – my mother can be a stickler about that.

Once the phrase petting zoo drifted into the hallway, I tracked down my older sister Sarah upstairs. She stomped halfway down the staircase, arms folded tight, and wrinkled her nose as soon as she heard the pitch. But she knew better than to interrupt—Mom’s rule on guest etiquette is ironclad.

Greta and Hans slid onto the couch, Hans sprawled with one ankle on his knee, Greta sitting upright and silent, eyes locked on Carol.

Carol and Don hadn’t come alone. Their daughter River—my age—perched on the ottoman, spine perfectly straight, chin lifted, a polite smile frozen in place. We shared a birth year and not much else: I was happiest buried in a book; River looked like she’d never met a thought she couldn’t misplace.

She quietly and politely listened to the conversation without interrupting – seeming to agree with it, or perhaps thinking about nothing at all and doing it very well out of habit.

Their son Albert—Greta and Hans’s age—flopped beside Hans. The two boys traded quick grins and bent close, whispering jokes in each other’s ears. The two of them were fast friends, like a couple of magpies smirking on the fence. It was easy for them to be aloof and chipper – they weren’t the ones that were being asked to participate in a human petting zoo.

Carol’s up-turned nose twitched as if Dad had flicked it. She always dressed like a hippie and guardian of Mother Earth—flowers in her hair, colorful headbands, turquoise-encrusted bangles, and usually a long, flowing white sundress with sandals.

However, Carol often acted like a high-strung “Karen”—the type who summons the assistant manager and sends back her salad after an elaborate “dressing-on-the-side” order. Her second husband, Don, is reportedly loaded, and together they live in our relatively affluent neighborhood packed with Karens of every stripe; Carol just happens to wrap hers in flower-child fabric.

I knew she was passionate about her causes and sanctuary – but she also lived in an affluent gated community in the same cul-de-sac we did. My mother abhorred “Karens” because she was their polar opposite.

Malena Ernman immigrated from Sweden decades before I was even born. She grew up in the cold bitter north and learned to cut her own firewood, trap her own food and make do with very little. Those practical lessons made her a dour and sometimes harsh mother.

My mother wasn’t joyless; she could laugh and have fun. However, she also expected that we learn to be self-reliant and hard-working. Even though we had wealth, she didn’t want us to take it for granted.

My mother held the girls of the house to a much higher standard than she did for her “baby” Hans – even though my little brother was precisely the same age as my sister Greta, she treated him like the golden child that could do no wrong and often exempted him from chores entirely.

She also felt girls had very little need for pride, and just as little for modesty. In her mind, squealing about a challenging task or fussing over what we are expected to wear was the same empty frill as bragging about a new purse.

Back in Sweden, she and her siblings bathed together to save water; nobody thought twice about it, so why should we? My sisters and I routinely bathe together even though we have several bathrooms in the house and don’t need to conserve soap and water the way my mother did.

“Please, I fail to see what the point of a human petting zoo is. It seems a bit,” my mother frowned and said this sounded a bit preposterous.

Carol was visibly taken aback that she was being questioned at all. “I’d hardly call what I do preposterous, Malena!” she huffed and folded her arms with a pout. “Preposterous? You want preposterous? Animal-contact exhibits have sparked five-hundred-fifty-seven disease outbreaks, fourteen-thousand-plus sick people, twenty-two deaths since 2009. Five-five-seven!”

Don, her husband—bald, half her size, cardigan buttoned high—waited behind the sofa, nodding now and then like a bobblehead set on low.

No one, except for my little sister Greta, seemed interested in the statistics. I didn’t fully understand what Carol was even talking about – all I knew was she made it sound like it was a big deal.

Carol thumbed her phone and thrust the screen at my parents like it contained the answers to all of life’s questions and was irrefutable. “Before CITES hit in ’76, zoos outright raided forests. Of the four-hundred-ninety-eight gorillas on display that year, four-hundred-three were ripped from the wild – all to populate zoos for HUMANS to laugh and point at them. Did anyone tell Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo in ’31 that hauling Bushman out of Cameroon was preposterous?”

Once again, I had no idea what she was talking about. I assumed the Bushman was a human taken to a petting zoo, but it seemed that she was talking about a gorilla. “Ripped from his wives, ripped from his Children, and not just for six weeks like I am talking about! This was forever- never to return to his home and all for entertainment and profit!”

My mother sipped her tea calmly and did not react with the same passion that Carol did. That wasn’t my mother’s way at all. She could say more with the flick of her eye and a curl in her lips than Carol ever could with a thousand pointed fingers and animated waving of her phone.

Mom calmly asked Carol, “Isn’t that what you do with your tigers? Parade them for money? Entertainment?”

Carol self-righteously drew herself taller, feeling persecuted or perhaps rising like a cobra to strike back at my mother. She was clearly offended by the mere mention that she might be like the normal zoos.

“I run a wildlife Sanctuary, Malena. Not a cruel sideshow circus or roadside tourist trap for people on their way to Disneyworld. You’re thinking of Joe King’s Jungle Safari—the clown with the billboards.”

Joe King – it sounds like “Joking” and perhaps that is by intention. He was a colorful local celebrity in Tampa – frequently calling into radio shows and doing public stunts. He inherited his father’s roadside Zoo just outside of Busch Gardens and expanded it to focus on tigers.

Tigers just happened to be Carol’s passion animal, and the two have been bitter rivals for years.

I was convinced her latest scheme was fueled by the flashy publicity tricks Joe was always pulling.

There was no bad publicity as far as Joe King was concerned. I remembered the stunt he pulled at the Gasparilla festival last year. That’s the Parade of Pirates that brings out the yahoos and rednecks to Ybor City and Riverwalk. It’s basically Mardi Gras with topless women and guys in pirate hats drinking tall beers.

He always does something a bit over the top, but last year took the cake. He drove his monster truck “Tigerzilla” into the river and entered it as a float, causing dozens of boats to capsize in his wake, while blasting Hank Williams Junior.

Joe is always accompanied by his partner in crime, a local porn star named Tig Harley. She was flanked by her “Seven Dwarves” – midget strippers, and they flashed the crowd and mooned them while firing off t-shirt cannons and yelling expletives to fire up the crowd.

He attached actual fire hoses to the truck, and used the river water to hose down the entire crowd while a plane flew overhead that wrote “FUCK CAROL ROBBINS IN THE ASS” in the sky.

He was fined by the local police department and banned from the festival, but I am sure he’ll return next year, as it’s a pirate festival and pirates are, by nature, renegades.

I rarely pay attention to Joe – he’s kind of a local joke, despite the play on his name. However, Carol hates him with a passion. Joe clearly feels strongly about Carol as well. He claims she did away with her late first husband without any evidence. The mere mention of this to Carol will send her into a melt-down.

Recently, He also hijacked a live morning broadcast on 102.5 FM—the station Bubba the Love Sponge used to run—by rolling a caged tiger into the parking lot during the call-in segment. He bet the DJs a thousand bucks each they wouldn’t climb in and sing “Friends in Low Places” while hand-feeding the cat raw chicken. One idiot actually did it; the video hit a million views before lunch, and Joe never coughed up the cash.

Carol says he doesn’t care about the tigers, he cares about profits and getting people to buy things at his gift shop. He has Joe King bobble heads, t-shirts, car magnets, and even some particularly offensive Carol Robbin’s merchandise for sale, like rubber “Carol-Poo”.

He gets away with it because Carol is something of a public figure, and Joe has been careful not to associate her name with the merchandise. She also knows that if she sues him again for slander, he’ll eat it up and make a circus out of the process.

I could see the speech loading in her head; Carol never missed a chance to trash Joe King. Sure enough, she rolled into how rescued cats can’t go back to the wild, how donations barely cover meat bills, how summer attendance is tanking. “Six weeks, that’s all. Let visitors interact with friendly humans while the cats rest. Your girls will learn heaps, the sanctuary gets revenue, everyone wins.”

I glanced at the Florida rain streaking the patio glass. They say if you don’t like the weather in Florida, just wait a while and it will change.

They are wrong, there are only two types of weather in Florida during the summer, and that’s unseasonably hot and muggy, or unseasonably hot and rainy.

“Okay, point taken, Carol,” my mother said. “Why do you need my girls for the zoo?”

Her husband Don was much older than her. He was bald and diminutive. He hadn’t said a word since he arrived – most of us hadn’t. He blushed and looked down at his hands, wringing them together as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“We have been neighbors for years, our kids practically grew up together, Malena!” Carol replied as if that should be obvious. I really didn’t know her daughter all that well; we ran in different circles. River Robins was popular and everyone knew her.

I could count my friends on one hand, and kept largely to myself at school. People knew me because I volunteered at the front office to pick up attendance, and I had to visit each class once a day to do so.

When I say volunteered, my mother “volun-told” me to do it and arranged for it. She’s on the PTA with Carol and said there was a need for someone to take up the job after the last volunteer graduated. We didn’t discuss it, and I wasn’t asked if I wanted the job.

In a way, I was flattered – picking up the attendance takes being a self-starter and showing initiative. It is also somewhat comforting because I follow the same routine and patterns each day to pick up the attendance. I can turn off my brain and just take the most efficient path between classes to finish the job.

“River and Albert volunteered for the zoo; they’ll learn so much about animal exploitation and human exploitation. They will also help bring awareness to those concerns, while generating donations for the sanctuary to keep real animals alive and supported – is there something more noble they can do with their time over the summer?”

I glanced over at Albert. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about being volunteered for his mother’s project. Carol may not have even volunteered him at all – he may have actually wanted to do it. He seemed completely fine with it and was still snickering with my brother Hans.

“Go to the beach, hang out, shop at the mall, listen to music,” my sister Sarah interrupted that she had plenty of other things to do this summer.

I was surprised that River Robbins didn’t agree with my sister. She seemed like the kind of materialistic air-head that would rather spend her time showing off for boys than – well, being a pet in a zoo. She politely remained aloof, shoulder’s back, chin up, polite smile.

“Yay, capitalism! Increase our carbon footprints, generate pollution, leach pesticide-soaked runoff into the bay, wash reef-bleaching sunscreen straight into the Gulf, sprinkle microplastics across the sand from those ‘eco-friendly’ glitter tumblers, and scare nesting shorebirds off their eggs—yeah, great summer plan,” Greta fired back.

My little sister had an excellent retort, but as far as my mom was concerned, they were both out of line around our guests.

“I don’t recall inviting either of you to join this conversation,” my mom reminded them sourly. They both cringed a little and shrunk.

You will never get your way by interrupting my mother and making demands. If anything, it only made my mother intent on listening to the proposal – no matter how absurd it was.

“I am sorry, my daughters can be a bit rude,” Mom apologized to Carol.

Carol nodded magnanimously as if we were beneath her and glanced at her own daughter with pride. She clearly seemed pleased with River’s behavior, and River preened due to the positive attention.

“River used to speak out of turn and interrupt me constantly, but we put a stop to that, didn’t we River?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” River smiled enthusiastically and politely. I felt sorry for River, even though she seemed pleased to be recognized and quite content to set the example of proper etiquette.

“Your girls may learn a little discipline while they are learning, and some of River’s positive behavior may rub off,” Carol promised.

“Our girls are fine just as they are,” Dad didn’t sound entirely convinced, but he wasn’t going to let Carol talk about us like that. “I don’t think we’d be interested in this. Thank you.”

“You haven’t heard my entire proposal, and I think you will find that the rewards go well beyond the hundred dollars a week that they will earn.”

My dad is notoriously cheap, and I could see that he suddenly looked intrigued. My older sister had recently been involved in a fender bender that would cost almost $800 to fix.

“Dad, you can’t be seriously considering this,” Sarah pouted -intuitively guessing what he was thinking. “It’s just eight hundred dollars!”

“JUST eight hundred dollars?” my mother scoffed at my older sister’s poor choice of words. “You and your sisters earning a hundred dollars a week would go a long way toward paying your father and me back for your mistake.”

“I didn’t make myself clear,” Carol clarified politely. “I will pay a hundred dollars a week for each of them individually. That’s three hundred a week between them,” she added.

I could tell by the look on my father’s face that he was sold, but my mother wasn’t so easily convinced.

“Their food, makeup, and outfits will be paid while they are working, and their living expenses while we are traveling. We’ll also provide 5% total of donations generated by their participation, assuming they work all seven days of the week at the zoo.”

“No days off?” Sarah pouted again, frowning and mewling.

“We’ll also be getting to bring awareness to important causes! The rewards to the earth will be intangible,” Greta excitedly said that she’d donate any money she earns back to the sanctuary if Mom would let her do it.

Dad was already about to tell my sister that he’d decide what to do with the money, but my mom spoke first, and Dad knew it might be best to wait his turn to speak, just like the rest of us.

“You don’t know how many hours a day, where you would be TRAVELLING to and I am not sure what you actually HAVE to do,” my mom put emphasis on the word travel since this was the first any of us were hearing about that.

“It doesn’t matter, I am sure Mrs. Robbins won’t be unreasonable and anywhere we go, we’ll go together – please mom? will you let us?” Greta begged politely with a slight grin.

Mom looked at me, and I was hardly interested, but I didn’t speak up or protest. Sarah was clearly a no from the start.

“The first week, we’ll do basic training at the human zoo here in my Sanctuary,” Carol said. Her sanctuary was just behind her house and connected to nearby Lake Park just off Dale Mabry. It was kind of a seedy part of town, but at least it was far north of the Strip Clubs, and we were in a small gated community.

“Then we’ll travel down to Punta Gorda, Bonita Springs, and Sanibel to put on some local shows, and bring the petting zoo to our intended audience! If they won’t come to us or are unaware of us, we’ll raise awareness about us. Then we’ll head back here and finish out at the Sanctuary!”

“Yuck, we have to do this for six weeks? That’s practically the whole summer!” my older sister lamented. “How come Golden Boy doesn’t have to do it with us?” she asked as she glared at Hans.

Hans maintained his cat that ate the canary grin and shrugged, saying he’d be happy to help.

“You see? Your brother will be in the zoo with you,” Mom decided. I began to blush, and a shiver ran down my spine – my mother hadn’t left it vague or ambiguous. She made it sound like she had already decided we’d be helping.

“I’ll have to show you how to brew real herbal tea, dear,” Carol said, her syrupy tone making the words feel more like a dig than an offer to help me improve.

My mother waited for Carol to explain why her son couldn’t volunteer, her body language suggesting she wouldn’t repeat the question.

“The petting zoo’s second mission is to educate on human trafficking, and specifically the cost and toll that it takes on young women your daughter’s age. Obviously, like River, your daughter live with the privileges that many girls their age do not, and never have to fear being abducted and sold into prostitution or worse.”

Worse than being sold into prostitution?

“I decided to feature only young girls in my zoo because they are the ones dealt the worst hand. It’s been that way for centuries and in some countries that seem to be going backward not forward in terms of equal protections,” Carol announced like she was testifying in court.

My little sister’s eyes were all aflutter – Carol Robbins was speaking her language.

Our neighbor tapped her phone with a finely manicured and lacquered fingernail. “UNODC’s 2024 report shows women and girls make up sixty-one percent of all trafficking victims worldwide, while men and boys together account for barely a third. When the motive is sexual exploitation—which is still the biggest slice of the pie—right around ninety percent of the victims are female. We’ll highlight that girls are 9 out of 10 times the victims as the source of the illicit black market trade for entertainment, and that is why they are being put into a zoo.”

My mouth hung open in shock – I didn’t like the sound of this at all, and I could tell that Sarah didn’t’ either.

She glanced at Hans, then back to Dad. “Boys are trafficked, yes, but mostly into forced labor or scam mills. The public hears ‘trafficking’ and thinks of girls dragged across borders for sex. If I want visitors to confront that reality, I need faces that match the data. That’s why the exhibit features only young women—River included. The goal is to make people walk away thinking about how it could come to this for girls and why in some cultures girls have it harder than men. “Child marriage is a prime example. Roughly 650 million women alive today were married off before they turned 18—often to men older than Don.”

Her husband squirmed, blushed, and looked uncomfortable, unable to look at any of us.

No argument about that,” Mom replied. “I don’t doubt your numbers. But let’s be honest—women are the weaker sex even if we like to think that since we have one of these,” Mom pointed down to her lap dramatically before adding “That we may make all the rules. We know it doesn’t really work that way in the world.” It wasn’t unthinkable for her to be that blunt, although she was rarely crass.

“Traffickers pick weak girls because boys are louder, heavier, swing their fists first. Girls obey; we’ve been taught since birth to keep the peace.” She lifted her chin, calm, certain. “Where I grew up we carried water, skinned rabbits, took our turns in a single tin tub. No privacy, no fussing, and certainly no pride. Hard work and a little discomfort don’t break a girl; they temper her.”

I was a bit worried as she turned toward Sarah, Greta, and me.

“You can close your mouth, Beata,” she said to me before insinuating that I was catching flies. “Since you three have stuck your nose in before we are ready to invite you, then you may smell something unpleasant that you do not like. You three won’t shatter from six weeks of work. It’s not about the money to me, although I think you can learn even more than just statistics on animals and human trafficking.”

Hans opened his mouth, maybe to volunteer again, but Mom waved him off. “Boys are different. They’ll make a game of it, stir trouble, laugh when someone crosses the line. This lesson isn’t for them.”

“What lesson, Mom? You haven’t even heard what we have to do?” Sarah pouted.

“If it’s good enough for Carol’s daughter River to handle it, I am sure you will be fine, but I would like to know the details first. I just think it’s fair to tell you that I’ve already decided that if it’s reasonable, then you’ll go together. You can look out for your little sisters, and they can watch your back like I did with my sisters.”

“I don’t understand,” Hans frowned, appearing slightly betrayed. “You said Albert gets to volunteer. Why can’t I volunteer?”

“I’ve only budgeted for four pets in the zoo,” Carol looked annoyed when my little brother spoke up and questioned her. I was thankful at least that she didn’t’ fall all over herself and treat him any differently than us. “Albert will be my helper – think of him as a bit of a Zoo handler. He isn’t the exhibit, but he’ll ensure that everyone behaves properly around the pets and takes turns. He’ll help with clean up, set up and preparation.”

“Ooh,” Sarah’s eyes twinkled mischievously as she giggled, adding “Cleaning? Hans is out. Boys don’t clean in this house! Too bad, so sad, Hans. It looks like this isn’t for you.”

Sarah may have just been voluntold she will participate, but she could at least savor the feeling that Hans wasn’t going to get his way for once. I could tell from her face that she’d take her victories where she could.

“The reason that boys don’t clean is the same reason your father doesn’t clean. He is the breadwinner. Boys have other tasks to prioritize, and a little cleaning and elbow grease won’t hurt the three of you. I see no need to run a dishwasher or hire a maid when I have three able-bodied girls who need the practice keeping house,” my repeated something she had frequently said to us.

I was aware that in many houses, there were chore wheels that divided up the chores equitably amongst the entire family, or at least the kids. However, it had always been that even lawn maintenance and household repairs usually fell to my mother, and that my sisters and I had to handle most of the domestic chores and help with dinner. It was just the way I had been raised, in part because it was how my mother had been raised – there was women’s work and there was men’s work.

“You can call me old fashioned, Carol and maybe I am the type of person in those backward countries that you want to change that holds other women back, but I’ve always believed that there is a biological reason why men have a penis swinging between their legs. They have hormones that make them the fighters, protectors, and hunters. We are the only ones with the boobs that produce the milk to feed the babies, and like all of the creatures in the natural order – the women are the ones who tend the nest and raise the family.”

“Actually, female lions do the hunting, and males watch the young,” Carol countered.

I suppressed the urge to smile. Carol was on shaky footing to question my mother’s method of parenting. If she continued, this would probably all blow up in Carol’s face, and we’d end up not having to participate in her menagerie of little privileged rich girls.

“I don’t want to get into a philosophical argument with you, Carol. You raise Albert how you want, and I’ll raise my son how I want. The girls think that I am babying him and give me grief for that, but I don’t believe that boys need to do housework when they have sisters to do it, and it’s frankly more work than it is a benefit to try to teach him to do something that his wife and daughters will end up doing for him. If you want Albert to cook and clean for the girls while they are working, then so be it.”

“Au Contraire,” Carol raised a finger, seemingly to raise another point, but it was apparent by her smile that she had found common ground with my mother. “Albert won’t be cleaning or cooking. He’ll be directing. I don’t have time myself to stand over the girls all the time and tell them what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Albert will be expected to do some things on his own while the girls are in the zoo, but after the visiting hours are over – he’ll be managing the workload and dividing up the chores.”

You could have heard my jaw hit the floor if you listened carefully. I saw Greta’s face go pale. She was all about girl power, equity, and one area that she disagreed fervently with my mother was the notion that “anything boys can do – girls can do better.”

Sarah seemed beside herself, but she was still happy that Hans wouldn’t be allowed to boss her around, so I think it hadn’t quite hit her yet that Albert would be our boss.

“Albert is far too young and inexperienced for that sort of responsibility, Carol. Don’t you think?” My mom replied sternly. My dad nodded agreement – still participating and listening to the conversation but seeing no reason to interrupt my mother.

I high-fived her in my head. Hand Hans and Albert a clipboard and a checklist, and they’d be tyrants before lunch, letting the power go to their heads, and that was the best-case scenario. They’d probably lead us right off a cliff while they had their noses in social media.

“Earlier, I said that we had to adjust River’s attitude at home.” Carol straightened her sundress, looking down as she explained “I am ashamed to say that my daughter was a selfish brat that used to lord her authority over her little brother, tease him, mock him, and ridicule him.”

My Barbie-doll neighbor lost her showroom grin; a deep blush crawled up until it met her coral lipstick..
River—our neighborhood Barbie—lost her showroom smile; her cheeks flared hot pink.

Don Robbins croaked and coughed a little – shyly trying to get a turn to speak and interject.

“It’s shameful to air our dirty laundry, but I think our neighbors deserve to know that we found something that worked for everyone - extreme behavior required an extreme response. Tell them what she would do to you, Don.”

River’s shoulders slumped a little, chin down, eyes cast toward her wringing hands as shame for her behavior registered on her face – or at least the fear that we’d hear about it.

“My step-daughter used to laugh at my bald head. She’d take money from my wallet and go partying. She’d take my car keys without asking and be gone for days at a time, driving drunk, speeding, running red lights, and inviting boys over to the house to make out right in front of me.”

“My girls are NEVER going to be that bad,” my mom stepped in and said that she’d have put her foot down and just said no.

“It wasn’t that easy,” Don appeared embarrassed that he hadn’t been an authority figure capable of setting limits and boundaries.

“Tell them why your step-father wouldn’t tell you no, River.”

River was clearly embarrassed, and she was far from the robotically perfect and polite Stepford Daughter that she had behaved like when she first arrived. She spoke far more casually but squirmed a little.

“I used to like, um…um like wear tiny bikinis around him, and sort of shake my boobs and giggle, and invite some of my girlfriends over and flirt with him and he like um…just like gave me those things, sometimes I didn’t even have to ask,” River’s diction drove me crazy. Her voice rose as she spoke, and made everything she said sound like she thought it was strange or asking a question, and wanted someone to confirm that it was true.

“So, what did we do, River?” Carol asked.

“You like took everything away, even my clothes so that like I couldn’t just go out, because like I didn’t even have a credit card, or a place to store my keys, and then like you made rules I had to follow or like I wouldn’t get stuff I used to take for granted, so it made me appreciate it more.”

“Stand up, when you are answering mom’s questions,” Albert said firmly.

River looked like she might instinctively roll her eyes, but she clearly suppressed the urge to sigh and stood up, towering over her little brother and the rest of us. She put her hands behind her back. It wasn’t a crisp or precise military stance, but it was obvious that she was used to standing this way and looking straight ahead.

“Albert hadn’t misbehaved, and since we had been the victim of the cruel games and pranks that River and her friends liked to play on him – I decided that it was only fair to introduce some turnabout and social justice and level the playing field, “Carol explained.

I noticed that River’s ears were redder than the rest of her face and that she cringed a little.

“River, tell them what you did to me?”

“Like, which time?” River asked as if she wasn’t entirely sorry for her behavior.

“Like…like….” Albert grew a little frustrated and told his mother that he has been working on his sister’s vocabulary and speech.

“I know you have, and it’s appreciated, Albert,” Carol said before reminding him that he could focus on that after the petting zoo ends. She looked up at her daughter and reminded her that she should be ashamed of what she did. “You know the thing that you did with your friends toward the end?”

“Oh, the pinch an inch thing? I am like… Super embarrassed of that!” River said before flipping her hair a little and looking at the rest of us. “Like, I had this friend named Molly, well except that she wasn’t’ real. We like made her up, and sent Albert a bunch of phone messages and emails and stuff, and made him thing she was hot for him and then we like sent him boob pics and everything…”

“Cut to the end, they don’t need to hear about how you tricked me,” Albert said in a firm, calm tone.

“Oh, like, well...like, I don’t know the story if I have to start in the middle,” River looked up at the celling for a moment and tried to put her thoughts together.

“Maybe if you didn’t lie all the time, you could just tell what happened,” Albert said dourly.

My sisters and I would have snapped back at Hans if he said something like that to us – well, I probably wouldn’t have but I would have been pretty pissed off.

“I know you like don’t believe me when I say I am sorry, I have to show it and everything, but like, we tricked you into meeting Molly for sex and putting your um…thing into a hole in the wall, and then we like put mouse traps on it and made it so you couldn’t get out, and then we like pinched you a bunch of times and handcuffed you and stuff.”

“And took my picture and sent it around school, so I will never live it down.”

Sarah laughed, before realizing that none of us were laughing beside her. I hadn’t seen the pictures but judging from Hans and Greta’s faces they had.

“So, like since I got to pinch you, you get to pinch me back,” River said quite agreeably – much more accepting of that arrangement than I would have expected.

“Only if you are naughty or misbehave,” Albert clarified immediately – as if any of us may have called foul. My mind was blown by what I was hearing.

“Don and I called it pinch week. We told Albert he could get even and take his revenge and pinch his sister’s bottom the same way she pinched his but he surprised us, didn’t he Don?”

Don was shocked to be included and when his wife called on him he blurted out “Oh. Oh, yes!”

“Albert only pinched his sister when she broke a rule or didn’t complete an assignment on time. I realized he was trying to make her follow the rules when I wasn’t home. We reached an arrangement where Albert tracks his sister’s chores, reviews her performance, and makes her do it over if she doesn’t do it right. He’s proven to be a very reliable helper, who NEVER oversteps his boundaries,” Carol said the word NEVER as if that were an important distinction she wanted everyone to hear and I got the impression that there was more to that.

“You intend to pinch my girls while they work for you?” my mom glowered. She clearly wasn’t smiling or nodding along in agreement, and I felt that was a good sign.

“Only if they misbehave, Mrs. Ernman. As I tell River. If she doesn’t want the pinching – all she has to do is follow the rules and do a good job,” Albert held up his fingers in a claw like pinch to demonstrate.

My mother was quiet for a while – a lot longer than she had any right to be. I was dying to know how she’d respond. The quiet told me that she was thinking of how to tell them this was far too out there.

“Chris, you’ve been quiet for a long time. What are you thinking?” My mom asked our father for his input.

“I’ve been quiet because you have been asking the right questions and I haven’t had anything else to add,” Dad diplomatically replied. It wasn’t that mom wore the pants in the family. They divided things up, and Dad decided on big issues. Mom was more of the day-to-day disciplinarian and she tended to only escalate to our father if we had a big issue like skipping school or once Sarah shoplifted from a Trader Joe’s for a thrill.

“Do you do more than pinch?” my mom asked Albert bluntly.

Albert looked to his mother for permission to respond, but my mom said she wanted to hear it from Albert.

“I have put soap in my sister’s mouth early on to try to get her to stop saying like and cussing when I pinched her but it didn’t take so I stopped,” he admitted.

Carol and her daughter didn’t say anything – River looked contrite and continued to blush while maintaining something of a straight face.

“Anything else?”

“We tried a few forms of corporal discipline, Malena, but they weren’t abuse if that’s what you are asking,” Carol insisted that they were always applied reasonably and out of a desire to see a better version of their daughter.

“You told me that he was allowed to get even – that’s not therapy or a loving, reasoned discussion about past misbehavior. That’s a consequence – I am trying to find out what else he subjected his sister to,” Mom made it clear she wanted to hear from Albert.

“Everything was ran through me first,” Carol replied defensively until my mother raised a hand to shush her and asked Albert to tell her.

“Okay, my sister was extremely vain, so we took away her ego and attitude – no fancy cars, no fancy clothes, and that meant taking her down a peg, so I’ve talked down to her and teased her the way that she did to me, if that’s getting even – so be it, but I wanted her to have a taste of her own medicine,” Albert said.

“Go on,” Mom frowned – disappointment registering on her eyes.

“I make her stand when she speaks to me, and stand in the corner when she is disruptive or focused too much on her phone,” Albert said like he was trying to think of what my mother wanted to hear and couldn’t think of it.

Mom arched an eyebrow and looked intently at him.

“Corporal punishment, it’s not designed to hurt River – just make her notice and stings her ego and pride more than anything else,” Carol explained but my mother didn’t want to hear from her. She seemed to be waiting for something else to be said.

“River, what is the harshest punishment that your brother gives you?” Mom decided to ask River instead.

“We don’t call it punishment. We call it a correction or attitude adjustment,” Carol interjected but once again my mother had asked River and expected her to respond.

“It’s not sexual or anything, and he doesn’t do it every day but if I had to like think of the worst thing that my brother would ever do to me if I mess up,” River’s eyes flicked up to the celling – clearly deep in thought.

“The answers aren’t on my ceiling, River. I asked you a question,” Mom seemed concerned - perhaps she was going to report this family. I wasn’t sure.

“Albert makes me bend over and spank my butt with a ruler, or on the boobs sometimes,” River admitted, seemingly very vulnerable and embarrassed but open about what her little brother did.

“Oh my god,” Sarah shrieked, and so did my sister. Hans tried to high five his friend but Albert didn’t’ return it.

Albert looked like he was trying to find a reason o make an excuse and Carol seemed offended.

“You seem to be upset that I am prying into your life, but you brought it up, even bragged about it and said that extreme behavior, requires extreme responses,” My mom repeated back Carol’s words. It was my neighbor’s turn to blush as she looked away from my mom.

“River, does it hurt when your brother spanks you?”

“Not really,” River admitted with an apologetic and forgiving look. “It’s embarrassing to bend over and grab my ankles and present my big butt to him. He doesn’t hit it hard enough to do more than make it red – but he does it in front of Mom and Don and then they look down their nose at me because I screwed up when I should have been paying attention.”

Albert looked a little hurt to find out he hadn’t left much of a lasting impression on his sister with his efforts.

Mom was quietly simmering – perhaps thinking about her next response.

“I am not mad though “ River offered, surprisingly coherently and without her normal inclusion of “like”.

“Oh?” Mom arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he’s doing it for my own good, because I messed up and I am learning – I’ve come a long way in the last few weeks and I am doing better. Please don’t make us stop – I kind of need a little pop every now and then or I forgot what I am supposed to do.”

Mom stood flat-footed, eye raised.

“What makes you think that I’d put a stop to how you live?” she asked dourly.

River replied that she thought my mom was judging her and angry.

“That’s resting bitch face. You have it, and your mom has it,” she offered a simple smile. “It’s a natural condition amongst some women, and we can’t really help it. I think it’s healthy. I am surprised that they don’t have a wooden paddle. My mother used a worn out old wooden paddle on my behind and I learned when my butt burned,” mom joked.

Carol and her husband brightened a little, a sense of relief washed over them as the tension deflated.

“I agree with your mother, Modesty just teaches a girl to hide; pride teaches her to think she’s untouchable. Neither keeps her safe. Knowing her place in the world—and how rough that place can be—does,” Mom said -I’d heard her say that many times. It was like her earthly wisdom of “Live, Laugh, Love” that some women put on their kitchen walls.

“I’ll agree to let Albert discipline the girls the same way that he disciplines his sister more and no less,” My mom said before taking a breath long enough for a collective, exasperated sigh to emanate from me and my sisters. “On two conditions,” she held up her fingers.

Carol seemed surprised and wanted to hear them. I couldn’t believe my mother was willing to entertain this at all.

“Girls, if you don’t’ misbehave or give Mrs. Robbins attitude, as I understand it, there will be no pinches or soap in the mouth, is that correct, Mrs. Robbins?” Mom asked her – for our benefit.

“Yes, obviously! We aren’t sadists!” Carol answered.

“Okay, then the first condition is that before you, Don, or Albert lay ONE finger on my girls – you will administer it on me first.”

I was floored – fully didn’t expect my mother to make that offer. I noticed Sarah suppress a giggle and choke it back, but the rest of us were stunned – dad most of all.

“I want to see how hard it is, how long the soap goes in the mouth, how many swats – the most you will give them, will that be a problem?”

“You are a grown woman, Mrs. Ernman! This is punishment for girls, very light – nothing to worry about.”

“I won’t let them swallow any medicine that I won’t swallow,” Mom made it clear that wasn’t negotiable. “I spent my share of time over my father’s knee, and we were usually spanked in the living room as a lesson to our brothers and sisters. It’s too uncomfortable for me – it’s certainly too uncomfortable for them.”

I wondered if my Aunt Katie and Uncle Lars had been spanked or ever witnessed my mother being spanked. It was hard to imagine my mother EVER misbehaving.

“What is the second condition?”

“You don’t have to pay my son, but you do have to let him help you as a zoo keeper or whatever it is that you want to call it.”
“Frankly, Mrs. Ernman, I am not sure I can agree to that. I know my son’s maturity level, and we’ve spent weeks teaching what is appropriate and what isn’t. There may be times when he is alone with my daughter during the exhibition and afterward, that hanky panky might occur. The girls will be partially nude during the petting zoo performances.”

“I gathered as much,” Mom shrugged ambivalently. “It seems River is no stranger to hanky panky, so it wouldn’t be the first time she experienced it, so I am not sure if you truly need to be concerned about preserving her virtue, Mrs. Robbins.”

My mom’s words struck a chord in our neighbor – and clearly seemed to be causing her to regret coming over to our house – which was good for me. It meant I wouldn’t be part of whatever spectacle she was planning.

A part of me suspected when I heard human petting zoo that we’d be dressed up like animals.

“Be that as it may, I’ve a responsibility to protect my daughter, as I would protect yours while we are engaged in this to ensure that fingers don’t go IN holes, and the petting is no different than in a traditional petting zoo. I’m body positive, and body affirmative, and body beautiful. I don’t want to sexualize the experience of petting the girls, I want to normalize it so that it is not seen as disgusting or dirty.”

Greta seemed moved by that sentiment, but remained in solidarity with me and Sarah that we weren’t interested in this.

“That’s what I wanted to hear, I agree,” Mom’s wintry smile spread honestly across her face as she let her harsh demeanor fade. “If you expect me to trust your son with my daughters, then you must trust mine. You can teach him when it’s appropriate to punish, and when it’s not – but if he molests your daughter, then you will not call me. You will call the law. If he doesn’t want that, then he won’t do it.”

Carol’s smile was far greater than my mother’s modest grin. The two women had reached an accord.