Destroy My Cunt; Not My Planet - a WIP

[EddieDavidson]

The Human Petting Zoo story was a bit of a rough draft - I got two chapters deep and realized I wasn't happy with it.

I am not married to this title, but I once saw a t-shirt that said "Destroy my cunt, not my planet" - so I am open to ideas that would accurately reflect the story direction and setting.


I decided to change directions but use the same characters, and I renamed the older sister to hailey - since I model her on Hailey Dunphy from the the Modern Family TV series.

I decided to cut the dad out entirely of this scene, and start with some exposition. The first chapter is about 18 pages long, so I am not sure if I can fit it all.

I will say future codes may involve pee, as I want them to demonstrate how to handle jellyfish stings.

it's mostly a girls don't need modesty story though. I know i have several in the works, but sometimes you have to write rather than edit when you are inspired.

This is kind of a "Work in Progress" meaning that it's not well edited, not illustrated, and it's more like I am hoping for CONSTRUCTIVE feedback - not "I hope you continue" although I appreciate that support. It's more like "Hey, there was a point you said they would have to do (this) but then you said they didn't.." continuity issues, or maybe some recommendations of things that can happen.

this is a softcore story, so getting railed on the beach is not in the cards - it's Tampa and people can get away with all sorts of nasty shit out in public but this is not that story.

In fact, I scaled back drastically from my original vision for the human petting zoo as it involved clit stretching and inserting a rubber ball in their twats to keep out fingers.

"I think I'd rather have fingers inside me then this giant ball" Hailey may have quipped, and Carol would say that can be arranged if she desires.

"The ball is to set a boundary - they can pet, not finger bang."

[EddieDavidson]

“Mom, I don’t care what we have to do. We just HAVE to help Mrs. Baskins save the environment!” My little sister, Greta, was practically bouncing up and down, her thick, ashen-blond braids bouncing as she worked herself up into excitement.

My sister loves causes – environmental, social, going green is her thing and has been for as long as I can remember.

“I don’t know about saving the world, Greta. It’s just a favor for Mrs. Robbins. I doubt you are going to save the world in one day,” My mother was ever pragmatic. She immigrated to America before I was born, but she still had the Swedish practicality that she had been raised with.

We were affluent and well off, but I’ve grown up hearing about how she grew up in the cold, bitter north and learned to cut her own firewood, trap her food, and make do with very little. Those practical lessons made her a dour and sometimes harsh mother.

She also has strong opinions about the role of women in the household. My sisters and I are the ones who have to do most of the housework, while my father is the breadwinner and my little brother Hans is my mother’s golden boy, who can do no wrong (and no chore).

“This sucks, I hope you don’t plan on leaving me with that crazy lady,” Hans complained. He looked identical to his twin sister, only where Greta had thick braids, he had a short crew cut. Greta hadn’t developed much yet, and she may have been able to pass as him if she wore baggy jeans and a t-shirt.

Today, she was wearing a thin, white one-piece swimsuit with the words “Destroy Plastics, Not My Planet!” emblazoned across it. Hans simply wore a pair of white shorts with sneakers.

“Beata and Hailey are going to volunteer, so you are as well,” Mom decided. I should mention that my mother is also quite stubborn, and the best way to get her to tell you to do something is to tell her you don’t want to do it.

I was secretly glad that Hans would have to join us on whatever it is we were being “voluntold” to do today. I didn’t like how she always seemed to side with him and dote on his every whim.

“Don’t we get a choice in the matter?” my older sister Hailey moaned. “This is Greta's thing. Fuck the planet, I don’t give a shit about that,” my older sister said bluntly.

Our little sister Greta hissed and made a face like she smelled the biggest fart in the world- clearly offended.

“Haily Ernman! You have such a pretty face, but a foul mouth,” Mom shot back. It was true, my older sister was gorgeous. She’s often been compared to the actresses Sarah Hyland or Natalie Dormer. Her face is incredibly expressive, and she’s a lot bolder and more extroverted than I’ll ever be.

“It’s true, so why wouldn’t I say? I -DO-NOT-GIVE-ONE-FUCK-IF-THE-PLANET-BURNS!,” she drew out each word by scratching the sand with her sandals. “Nothing we do here today will make any fucking difference at all. It’s just a chance for some rich assholes to feel good about themselves, and a waste of a day I could be out doing shit.”

“Shit like polluting, increasing your carbon footprint, Indulging in consumerism and unnecessary materialistic purchases that are produced by exploited child workers – some as young as you and me!!” Greta scowled.

“Yeah, doing shit like that,” Hailey smirked wickedly with a shrug. “Why shouldn’t they work? It gives them something to do, and Mom is putting us to work. You have no idea if you are going to have to shovel shit or break rocks, and you are acting like you are the savior of mankind to do it.”

We were passing families on the beach that were offended by the arguing and cussing, but Hailey and Greta didn’t care. Hans seemed to delight in the back and forth, but our mother futilely chided them both for bickering and cussing.

“I don’t care if we have to shovel the biggest turd in the ocean; if it helps in some small way, moves the dial even an inch even though it has a mile more to go than I am down to do whatever it takes,” my little sister stubbornly folded her arms and pouted.

I admired her dedication to causes, but I was too bookish and shy to involve myself in their argument. I am the classic middle child, and they are the Marsha and Jan of our little Brady Bunch. No one cared about Jan in that TV show – she was just a character in the background, and that was how I felt most of the time.

“The biggest turd in the ocean would be you when you go for a swim, stinky butt,” Hans teased his twin sister, and pulled on the back of her swimsuit to expose her buttocks slightly before letting them snap.

“OW! HANS!” Greta was about to blast her brother when she noticed Mrs. Robbins standing in front of a desk in a roped-off area. She noticed us as well and waved us over.

“Oh, HI,” Hailey bounced up and down, and waved like she hadn’t seen Carol Robbins’s daughter in years, even though we were neighbors on the same cul-de-sac. “River!! HEY!!” Hailey jumped for joy while River quietly waved back. “I hate that fucking cunt,” my sister said under her breath – we were far enough away that only my family heard.

“HAILEY!! You grew up with River. Why did you wave at her if you don’t like her?” Mom said.

It was true, my older sister had been best friends with River for years. River started going to parties and running with a crowd of mean girls about a year ago, and my sister fell out of the clique for some reason. They also never talked now, but they both feigned friendship and camaraderie whenever they saw each other.

“I just said why, Mom! She’s a fucking cunt and a brat! I can’t believe you are going to make us hang out with that beached whale! Aren’t you afraid her bad habits and shitty attitude will rub off on us?” Hailey asked somewhat sarcastically.

River was hardly a whale. She was full-figured, tall, blonde, and very popular at school. She didn’t have a lot going on upstairs – she was basically an airhead. We were actually the same age, but she always acted more mature, and we never had anything in common to hold a conversation over.

“Hailey is right, for a change,” Greta agreed and scrunched her nose. “I am surprised she is not out spreading microplastics in the Gulf of Mexico right now!”

“Hailey is right? Ooh, say that again, Munchkin,” Hailey preened, and poked our little sister in her puffy boobs over her white swimsuit. “I guess you don’t want to do whatever this is after all?”

“I don’t care what it is, or who it is with – we all share this earth and we have to get along,” Greta preached, although her face suggested she’d rather not share it with Hailey or River.

River’s mom is the local hippy-dippy owner of a Tiger Sanctuary. It runs from the back of her house, all the way to nearby Lake Park just off Dale Mabry Highway. It was a seedy part of town, but almost every part of Tampa was seedy.

We were fortunate enough to live in a gated community North of most of the strip clubs on Dale Mabry, so it wasn’t quite as bad. Tampa is the kind of place that has huge bare tits advertising plastic surgeons on billboards, and there is a strip club on almost every block.

That’s why it was kind of a surprise that my neighbor set up this beach event all the way out in Dunedin on Honeymoon Island. The beach wasn’t nearly as busy as nearby Clearwater Beach. It was a sunny Florida Saturday in June, so there may have only been about sixty or so people in the general vicinity.

I noticed a bunch of hot guys in the distance wearing red shorts and doing exercises in the sand like they were training.

“Beata, put your eyes back in your head, you are here to work and not flirt,” Mom insisted as she closed the gap between her and Mrs. Robbins and shook her head.

Carol had staked out roughly thirty feet of shoreline and turned it into a makeshift camp. Tiger-striped pennant flags—those little triangle ones you see at ren-fairs—ran from pole to pole, with her sanctuary’s banner flapping in the middle. A long wooden trestle table sat in the sand, piled with glossy flyers, a dented red cooler, and a couple of oddly shaped clay storage tubs. Beyond that, it was just bare sand and the water lapping close by.

There was a single placard that was most likely biodegradable that read “Tiger Girls from the wild – for entertainment and education.”

Under the title was a picture of a zoo with a throng of rowdy people laughing and teasing a lonely tiger in a cramped zoo enclosure. The audience snapped pictures and lacked any empathy for the tigers conditions. It was probably taken at Joe King’s roadside zoo near Busch Gardens. That place had been cited for numerous animal cruelty violations over the years, but Joe never got shut down by the corrupt Pinellas Sheriff’s office.

He came from old money; his father had run the stand and was once mayor.

The sign highlighted what visitors could expect.

Life-Saving techniques and basic CPR
Beach Minimalism 101
Essential and natural ways to apply skin-safe, plastic-free suntan lotion.
Cruelty-free, locally sourced, organic drinks and snacks
Dialogue about important social and environmental issues.

Donations needed to make a difference at the Freedom Sanctuary in Lake Park, followed by the address on Dale Mabry highway.

I didn’t know exactly what we’d be doing, but that lineup sounded like pure catnip for my sister. She wanted to do it and would be heartbroken if we didn’t.

Hailey didn’t even bother reading the sign. “This looks like a fucking ren fair someone ordered from Temu, designed by a deranged cat lady on quaaludes,” she observed loudly enough that Mrs. Robbins heard her hurtful remarks.

I have to admit that I couldn’t help myself, I stifled a giggle or two. The thing about Temu is that you can order something that looks really cool, but it’s always underwhelming when you finally get it. Hailey was really clever when she wanted to insult someone.

Carol was clearly offended, but didn’t dignify Hailey’s dig with a response of her own. Mrs. Robbins definitely seemed like someone who would love ren fairs and cats. She wore flowers and a headband in her long, straight blonde hair, and a few turquoise bangles around her wrists. I was surprised she wasn’t wearing sandals because the sand must have been incredibly hot.

I was also surprised by how spartan the camp was -I was genuinely curious what we were supposed to do today – but also apprehensive. I didn’t like change or attention – so I hoped it was just clean the beach and educate people about the cause du jour on the plight of the sea lions or beach erosion.

I almost missed that Carol had squeezed herself into a tiger-print bikini a size too small. Her big, droopy natural tits hung nearly to her stomach, and the bottoms disappeared under the same soft curve.

Her daughter River stood motionless and passively waited behind her, wearing the same bikini but making it look good with her big natural boobs. She was also barefoot, and I could tell from how she hopped from foot to foot occasionally that she wasn’t enjoying it, yet she didn’t complain.

That struck me as odd.

Her husband Don sat under an umbrella in a folding chair, next to a cool. He was her second husband, and I rarely ever heard him speak. I just knew that he was relatively affluent and that Carol’s first husband had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

That was a real sore spot for Carol, so it was best never to bring that up.

Her son Albert sat next to Don. He was about the same age as Hans and Greta. Him and my brother were fast friends – like frick and frack. They did everything together around the neighborhood – playing video games, riding bikes, and playing pranks.

Lately, I hadn’t seen much of Albert around the house, so I wasn’t sure if he and my brother had a falling out the way River and Hans did.

“Oh hey! Maybe I will volunteer if Albert is here,” Hans immediately ditched us and jogged to his friend to catch up.

“I don’t need another boy to volunteer,” Carol stuck her nose up in the air, and said that she was hoping to have seven female volunteers in total. “I may not have enough girls that are willing to help save the Sanctuary and educate people about the dangers of microplastics at the beach!”

That was all it took for Greta to nearly begin to salivate!

“My brother can help! Gender should have nothing to do with someone’s capabilities. River, me, my sisters, Hans, and Albert,” she counted off that was six people, and with Carol, that would make seven. “Mom, would you volunteer with us? PLEASE?” Greta implored my mother like it was a matter of life or death.

“I appreciate your being an eager beaver,” Carol smiled. She liked Greta, but despite their obvious similarities, they didn’t spend a lot of time talking to each other. I think Carol believed strongly in her causes, but she was still a neighborhood Karen like so many rich middle-aged women in our neighborhood.
A Karen is the type of woman 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 that Carol 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.

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. She was, however, the anti-Karen. She’d never complain at restaurants, and I think she’d rather have just made the meal herself than she would dine out.

However, they seemed to have one thing in common, which shocked me.

“Actually, I can’t use boys in today’s demonstration. I estimated that I need seven girls in addition to River in order to properly perform at all of the stations and raise sufficient funds for the tiger sanctuary,” she frowned at her clipboard.

“Dress my brother and Albert up in those little tiger swimsuits you are wearing, and nobody will no the difference – they’ll just think they are flat-chested girls like Greta,” Hailey joked wickedly. I thought River would join in the laugh, but she suppressed a snicker and kept her eyes straight ahead.

Her mother glanced at River as if she expected her to laugh and seemed pleasantly surprised by her daughter’s reaction.

“You girls could learn a little by River and Beata’s example, girls don’t need to be vulgar, crass, or rude. It doesn’t impress anyone, and it reflects upon me that I’ve raised such a cruel girl,” Mom scowled at Hailey with disappointment.

I was glad that my mother cited me as an example, but the truth was that I was laughing inside, and I would have made the same joke if I wasn’t so painfully shy.

River preened like she had just been nominated for an Oscar for the greatest performance as a Sainted paragon of feminine virtue.

You say girls shouldn’t talk up, but then you say we don’t need modesty! Which is it?” Greta fired back, siding with Hailey. If there is one thing that my little sister can’t stand besides social injustice or pollution, it’s hypocrisy and double standards.

“When I say modest, I don’t mean the kind of modest that keeps you from speaking your mind or preening because someone stroked your ego,” Mom’s eyes flicked up at River to indicate she didn’t approve of that either. “I’m talking about the fussy kind of modesty—It’s ironically a form of pride. Girls who care more about makeup and won’t get their hands dirty. When you are a grown woman, you can have modesty and vanity, but until then, just be a girl.”

“I agree,” Carol nodded, and my mother’s expression changed to one of recognition over a common opinion. “Women are the earth-mothers who are born to give milk, bear the children, raise the family, while the men are out hunting. It’s biological, primal, and hormonal. That is why it is the responsibility of women to protect the earth while men destroy it. It’s a girls job to listen and learn from their Earth-mothers, and not try to fly before they can walk,” she glanced at River to make sure that her daughter knew she was speaking to her directly, “and that is also why I need more girls for today’s demonstrations.”

“What kind of demonstrations?” Mom agreed, leafing through the flyers on the table.

“Me and my tiger girls will be raising awareness for a variety of causes, such as all of the consumer items that people bring to the beach. We’ve got a minimal camp here to demonstrate you don’t have to bring anything to enjoy the beach, because what people often bring, they leave behind to harm the ecosystem.”

Greta began to rock back and forth with glee, unable to contain her enthusiasm. The term tiger girl didn’t shock me at all – Carol’s life was tigers, so it made sense.

“The Tiger Girls will be performing EMT demonstrations for the lifeguards over there when they are ready,” Carol indicated the handsome dark haired boys who were doing push-ups and running into the waves as part of lifeguard practice.

It was Hailey’s turn to swoon and smile quickly faded when Mom glared her.

“Pinellas County is paying me to provide EMT training, so we will do minimal demonstrations on life-saving techniques, everything from the two-seat carry to how to apply sun tan properly to avoid skin cancer. It could save some lives, but also anyone who donates will be helping the sanctuary.”

My mom seemed impressed–not overly so, but it was more than evident that she approved.

“The demonstration is also intended to highlight the exploitation of young women. I have literature here about how girls are 9 times out of 10 more likely to be trafficked than men,” she held out a flyer for my mother to confirm her statement.

My mom waved it away and said she believed it. “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, “We like to think 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 like that.

Carol glanced at her husband, Don. He was staring at us, ogling us, really. He was quiet and shy–very mousy.

“Mom, Carol is working to change that perception! We have to first bring attention to the problem if we ever want to do anything about it! I’m on board,” Greta confirmed that she hadn’t waivered her support and admired Carol.

“It may be unconventional, but extreme issues require extreme solutions,” Carol glanced at her daughter, River, before looking back at my mother. “The girls will wear these tiger-themed bikinis representing the intersection of how tigers are exploited for entertainment, just like girls are for eye candy.”

“Wait, we get to be eye candy?” Hailey’s snarky expression was entirely facetious – she feigned being interested in participating. “Shit, I love that bikini,” Hailey smiled and admired how River looked in it. I wasn’t sure if it was some left-handed compliment, but it seemed genuine.

“We’ll also be talking about tigers, obviously and that’s where the swimsuits come in,” she pulled her swimsuit top, lifted her boobs and allowed them to flop back down.

“I am not worried about the skimpy bikinis – the girls don’t really need any modesty when it comes to bikinis and I am sure they’ll see girls on the beach wearing far less.

It was my turn to sigh and express my discomfort. I let out a quiet “meep,” but my mother noticed.

“In Sweden, all the beaches are nude or topless – it’s not a big deal there because people don’t make it a big deal. it’s just skin,” Mom shrugged.

“I agree, the human body is beautiful, and natural and we are meant to just wear our skin but we silly humans would rather bring Lycra and polyester to a hot beach simply because we were taught the holes that our poopy and peepee comes out of is naughty,” Carol made a poopy-doopy sort of hippy face as she swiveled her hips for dramatic effect.

I cringed a little in fear.

“You’ll each get one of these bikinis to keep for participating, They are made of 100% hemp, hand-painted with biodegradable, skin-safe paint that we’ll use to paint you up like tigers as well! But you absolutely must bring them back with you if you intend to come back tomorrow!”

“We get to come BACK!!” Greta was over the moon with jubilant enthusiasm.

Our older sister mockingly did the same thing, in an exaggerated jiggle – unlike me and Greta, she actually has a few curves, so a few nearby guys stared and watched. My sister glared at them – giving them the stink eye for being creepy.

“Attention is what we need,” Carol observed. “As Joe King has proven time and time again with his lewd, crude, and inappropriate stunts, any publicity can be good publicity.”

Mrs. Robbins’s Tiger Sanctuary is her life’s purpose and pretty much all she talked about all of the time. The only other thing she spoke about was her rival – a local Tampa celebrity named Joe King. I knew that sooner or later, the subject of her nemesis would come up.

“Bring me and dad a water,” Albert insisted from his shaded chair. His older sister didn’t hesitate. She stopped hopping from one foot to the other to protect her pretty feet, bent over at the cooler next to the table and asked politely “A Coconut or an Ooho?”

“A Ho,” Hailey chuckled under her breath.

“An Ooho? YOU have them?” Greta could not contain her fanatical excitement, but none of us knew what it was. It looked like a clear ball of water – impossibly held together by gravity and air.

“That’s all we have,” Carol's big blue eyes widened when she had the chance to brag about her commitment to environmentally friendly alternatives. “We’ve got Ooho sea-weed water bubbles sourced from Mother Earth. We’ve got fair trade, cruelty-free coconuts, hand-harvested by a co-op I vetted myself. Chilled in my biodegradable clay cooler treated with mushroom mycelium panels grown in a hemp mode. I wouldn’t put my lips around a plastic water bottle if I were dying of thirst.”

“That’s utterly brilliant,” Greta complimented Carol and said eagerly that the cost to produce the orbs to produce was significantly less than the cost of water bottles.

“That is why you will ask for a minimum donation of five dollars for the water and six for the coconuts,” Carol smiled sweetly.

“But you said that you needed seven girls, or you would fold up camp.” Greta was astonished, considering herself fortunate.

Hailey said much the same thing, except that she reminded Carol that she should fold up shop because there weren’t enough girls.

“I said water,” Albert snapped his instruction to his sister, before asking my little brother what he wanted. “Three waters, can you count that high or do you need to take off your top to do it?” he snickered.

“I’d shove that water pod up that boy’s ass so fast,” Hailey promised under her breath.

“Sorry, Albert. I understood you. I just thought you may like a Coconut,” River surprised us by being polite and considerate – more so than even I could have done.

“I wish my girls were like your daughter,” Mom shifted from one foot to the other, clearly growing bored waiting.

“Then sign the consent waivers, and leave them to me, I’ll handle them and maybe some of River’s new attitude will rub off on them, but we really do need to get cracking if we want to save the sanctuary.”

“Consent?” Hailey scoffed while my mother looked over the legalese on Carol’s clipboard. “Fine, I don’t consent. I don’t want to do whatever the fuck this is.”

“Parental consent,” Mom scowled and signed the paper without reading the rest of it. There was an awful lot of paper for a simple day of volunteering, and I was a little worried that my mom hadn’t even skimmed the waivers before signing them.

“Yes, consent is key – but girls often don’t know what is best for them.” Carol glanced in the direction of her daughter. She was carrying three small orbs daintily to her stepdad, brother, and Hans. I was shocked to see that she performed an invisible curtsy as she served her little brother Albert.

“My daughter was a little monster; she was lazy, cruel, and disrespectful. She refused to set foot in the tiger sanctuary and help; she was failing classes, staying out all night with boys, but we put a stop to it. I’d love to talk about it, but I really do need to orient your girls, and this is the only help I’ll get today.”

“C’mon Hans,” Mom finished signing about 20 pages of forms in less than 20 seconds. “It’s just the girls today – you lucked out.”

“Aww, Mom, can I stay?” Hans didn’t stand up. He stared at River’s butt as she walked toward the table.

I think my mom realized he probably had a crush on the neighbor’s daughter, but she asked him why he wanted to stay anyway.

“I’d like to stay and be a helper like Albert,” Hans sang innocently – which worried me tremendously. Greta was genuinely ecstatic that her twin brother had a change of heart, but I think my mother was skeptical as well.

“I thought you said it was girls only?” My mom pursed her lips and glanced skeptically at Carol – as if our neighbor was trying to pull a fast one.

“I have seven bikinis for volunteers to wear as uniforms today – and as you can see, they are for girls,” Carol indicated herself and her daughter. “Albert’s participation as a helper is more to supervise and make sure the girls are behaving and not at each other’s throats bickering – you know how girls can be.”

My mom was still skeptical and silently stared at Carol, hoping for a more detailed answer.

“I’ve gone over my reasons for inviting only girls to be part of the demonstrations and bring awareness to the needs of the sanctuary,” Carol answered curtly – perhaps a little reluctant to say more. “Albert has recently taken on more responsibility at home and helps ensure that little things like our lawn maintenance and housekeeping are carried out to my satisfaction and bio-ethical standards. He’s here to help me, and I don’t need a second helper.”

She glanced at her husband as if quietly indicating he was no help at all.

“I can help, Mrs. Robbins!” Hans pleaded. It was not a good sign as far as I was concerned because it wasn’t like Hans to give up a day playing video games and doing what he wanted to save the earth.

“I am sure you can, Mr. Ernman, but I do not have time to orient you on how I expect things to be run. Albert will take care of the detailed things for me without my direct supervision while I focus on maximizing our impact and donations. I can’t have the girls bickering or lollygagging, and he’ll be my eyes and ears. He'll make sure they stay hydrated and on task.”

It was quite a job and one I wouldn’t want. I’d rather put on the bikini and prance around like a dippy bimbo in tiger print than tell anyone else what to do or supervise.

“Two eyes are better than one,” Hans countered.

“It’s four eyes,” Greta corrected harshly.

“YOU are the four eyes,” Hans shouted back and made fun of Greta for wearing glasses. She didn’t need to wear them all the time, but I did. I was used to Hans getting away with teasing us, but my mom put her foot down and shushed the two of them.

“Do you see why Mrs. Robbins doesn’t want you to stay, Hans? You are making me look like a bad mom. she doesn’t need someone to be disruptive and put the girls down all day while they are trying to work. Let’s go and leave them to their work,” she insisted.

“Mom, I was just like Hans before you gave me a chance to prove myself and trusted me to handle things. You gave me the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. I’d like to do the same for my buddy – I’ll take Hans under my wing. He can be a helper’s helper!” Albert offered graciously.

My little brother seemed pleased by that and smiled eagerly at Carol, but she wasn’t convinced.

“I’ll be frank,” Carol said.

“I thought you were Carol,” Hailey laughed at her own joke, and Greta and I giggled a little at the timing of her pun – my big sister could be hilarious when she wanted to be.

“The three of you girls are undisciplined and may be more trouble than you are worth. I am rethinking this entire enterprise. I could be with my tigers today, but I am here because the sanctuary desperately needs money, and as I’ve said, extreme problems require extreme solutions.”

“Extremely,” Hailey pushed her joke a little too far, and the nobody laughed. She glanced at us angrily for leaving her hanging.

“Your daughters won’t respect MY authority, and if Albert tells them something, they’ll probably laugh in his face and make his life harder. I’ve seen them bicker with each other, with you, and with your son, and that sends the wrong message to potential donors. They are supposed to seem like vulnerable tigers in the wild, not ferocious man-eaters that insult everyone who engages with them,” Carol observed harshly.

“Cut us in on the donations, say 5% off the top and I’ll pretend to be a tiger, a lion, or even a llama,” Hailey joked.

”Actually,” Carol over-enunciated the word actually for dramatic impact. “If your mother had read the extensive documentation that she signed, she could tell you that I’ll be generously compensating the tiger girls who come every weekend over the summer, rain or shine, and donate their time as an incentive to bring in more endowments to the sanctuary.”

“Whatever I might earn, I will donate back to the sanctuary! I’ll behave! I’ll do anything you tell me,” Greta promised.

“I don’t want to hear empty promises, Greta,” Carol warned sternly. “I haven’t seen any evidence that you are capable of behaving yourself and not making wisecracks just like your sister. I would expect you to give your all, and that means respecting me and Albert while we are putting on the demonstration.”

“I will, I will, 100 times over, I will,” Greta said, repeating selflessly that she didn’t want the financial incentive and she’d donate it back.

“Greta, I am still not convinced that I want you as a participant, even though you are eager.” Carol’s frown dampened my little sister’s gleeful mood. “You really should see how much of an incentive I am offering before you promise to give it to me. Don convinced me that if I make it worth a Tiger Girl’s while to perform, they will be less likely to complain or flirt with boys when they should have their mind on the mission. I am not a materialist, and money means little to me,” she said.

She had a 6-bedroom house with a screened-in swimming pool in an affluent neighborhood, and a new Jaguar in her garage that said she did value money, but I wasn’t going to interrupt.

“Money means food, medicine, and more care for my tigers. Unlike Joe King, who profits from the exploitation of tigers in his roadside tourist traps, I take in the tigers that were abandoned and cannot return to the wild. I ask for donations to provide for them, and we’ve got a tremendous need for more. I am willing to share those donations to pay for your services, just as I pay for a veterinarian or the maintenance crew that works tirelessly to unclog the toilets at the sanctuary. They get paid by the hour, but the more we earn – the more you earn. If someone offers a $300,000 endowment because of something we did at this demonstration to educate them on the cause, then you and your sisters would split $9,000 at the end of the summer for that alone.”

“Okay, I am down,” Hailey agreed unequivocally with a simple nod of her head.

“You are the worst of them all and the one I have the least faith in – it took months working with River to change her attitude. You are going to change yours in a day?”

“For 9,000 dollars, I’ll single old man river in a frog suit,” Hailey promised – I have to admit, we all had a good laugh over that one, even River and her mother found it amusing.

“What about you? You are so quiet and bashful,” Carol acknowledged me, and I quaked nervously. I didn’t expect to be called out. I had said almost nothing and barely laughed at any insults or wisecracks.

“How can I use you if you can’t look me in the eye? I need tiger girls that can stand up straight, chin out, shoulders back,” Carol indicated toward River as an example. River snapped into a more poised and less relaxed, almost military-style position with her eyes straight ahead.

River was also a cheerleader and a baton-twirling majorette in the marching band. She was used to performing in front of a crowd- I was a meek nobody that everyone knew as the office aide who went around from class to class to collect attendance for the office.

I was no extrovert – Mrs. Robbins may as well been asking me to grow a tail and breathe underwater like a mermaid.

“You have to stand up like a teacher does before her class and make them want to listen to you, you have to use whatever you can to grab their attention,” Carol reached up as if grabbing someone’s balls – although she didn’t say that. “While you have it, you have to tell them what is important in a way that sticks with them. I have no doubt that you won’t give me any trouble, but if you stand there like a lump, then you may as well have remained at home.”

It wounded me most of all because it was true. I was quite literally planning to do the least possible today to avoid making any mistakes, or criticism, and thinking about ways I could fade into the background, even though there was no place to hide inside Carol’s enclosure.


“You gave Albert a chance to make mistakes and learn from them,” Hans interjected with unlikely support for us. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him speak up for us.

He squared his shoulders and sat up in his chair, looking straight at Carol. “You’d take in a tiger that nobody wanted, because it had a history of biting people, wouldn’t you?”

“Rather than have them destroyed, yes, absolutely,” she answered, palms open in that calm-earth-mother way of hers- but not yet seeing where my brother was going with the question.

“You have patience, Mrs. Robbins, and a kind heart,” he went on, and he may have just been stroking her ego, or he may have actually meant it. All I know is that it clearly resonated with Carol and our mother.

“Hailey can be rude and inconsiderate; Greta is liable to scold anyone wearing a rubber flip-flop for its carbon footprint, whatever that is,” He smirked in an endearing way without being a jerk about it.

Greta growled a little and simmered angrily, but didn’t interrupt her twin since he was speaking up all of us and seemingly doing a good job of it.

“Beata stays quiet and shy until you actually talk to her. But give the four of us a chance. We cannot change if we are never allowed to prove ourselves. I’d like to help out today and be a helper of a helper. If I get in the way or am disruptive, then I’ll call my mom and have her come get me. As I see it, you wanted seven tiger girls and you’ve got three tiger cubs that need some guidance.”

“Well said,” Mom added but warned that she wasn’t coming back for any of us. “I didn’t plan to be here this long. I have things I need to do today, and if you make Mrs. Robbins' life harder than it needs to be, then just wait for me down at the public restrooms,” Mom indicated a public restroom and bathhouse about a quarter of a mile down the beach when we first arrived. “There is a covered picnic table, and a snack machine – you can piss away the day there – that’s assuming, that Mrs. Robbins will even take you four.”

“We’ll be done at 6 pm, but I’ll drive them home since they live next door,” Mrs. Robbins said, adding that it will be a tight fit in the Jaguar, but she’d ensure we got home.

“That’s very neighborly of you, Mrs. Robbins,” My mom said and asked if she should go and get some food for lunch since it would be noon in a few hours.

“Please call me Carol, and that’s not necessary at all. I’ll feed my tiger girls, and my helper and helper of a helper,” she snickered before adding as an afterthought. “I don’t have waiver paperwork for your son to participate. I didn’t think I’d have any need for boys or more helpers – if he comes back tomorrow, I’ll have some things for you to sign, but I can’t promise any additional donation contribution if he does.”

“Haha, you aren’t going to get paid,” Hailey snickered when she heard that our little brother wouldn’t get a cut of the donations – which didn’t do her any favors. Everyone glared at her audacity, and Hailey shut her mouth abruptly.

“Don’t get ahead of yourselves, if Mrs. Robbins…I mean, Carol wants you back, then you’ll be here bright and early in your tiger bikini, and if you make it through the summer, then you’ll split any money you earn four ways,” Mom promised.

Hailey didn’t object to that but winced when Mom reminded her that she’d have to pay back the 800 dollars she owed for denting her car in a fender bender a few weeks earlier, before she got any money.

Hailey didn’t argue that either – it was entirely her fault, and she made it worse by fleeing the scene and getting caught. Dad had to pay the guy she hit with their car extra to stop him from reporting her to the police.

“If River is here doing the same things you are, then I am sure you three will be fine,” Mom said encouragingly. She smiled at Hans and nodded, “I may swing by later and check on you, but I think you are all in good hands.”

It was settled then – we were officially tiger girls. A mixture of excitement, nervousness, and even panic probably ran through all three of us as Mom waved goodbye and prepared to head back up the hill to run her errands for the day. “Do as Carol tells me, and don’t make me regret this,” was the last thing she said before walking away.