Chapter 116: So-eun's Show (2)
"Bboni!"
"You called?!"
Far off, Bboni had been basking in the crowd's adoration, but the instant she heard So-eun's shout she came tearing over. So-eun sprang up with the ease of long practice and landed squarely on her back.
"Let's go!"
At So-eun's demand, Bboni cleared the safety fence in a single bound. It wasn't as high as the iron bars a tiger had once leapt, but it was still a considerable fence, and she sailed over it as if it were nothing.
"Whoa. If that one ever hit the racetrack, it'd be insane. She'd eat every racehorse alive."
"You didn't see the video last time? A horse that takes first like it's nothing could barely keep up with her tail. Because of her, any horse that's been under the Shinsoo's care is banned from racing."
"Really? I don't follow horse racing, so I had no idea."
Having drawn gasps from the onlookers, Bboni trotted up to Bbwoobbwoo, her hooves tapping light and quick against the ground.
"Bbwoobbwoo, pick me up!"
So-eun slid down off Bboni, walked right up to him, and spread both arms wide, asking to be held.
Well used to the routine, Bbwoobbwoo curled his long trunk gently around her and lifted her up onto his head.
"Kyahahaha!"
Spun once through the air before she settled atop his head, So-eun burst out laughing, utterly delighted. When he flapped those broad ears — enormous, the way only an elephant's are — and sent a breeze washing over her, her joy only grew.
"Bbwoobbwoo, do the thing! Whoosh!"
Still beaming from her seat on his head, So-eun drummed on his skull and made a demand.
He'd been through this more than a few times already, so he lumbered off as if to say he understood, headed for a corner, and began dragging over a thick blue mat of the sort you'd find in a gym. He hauled it into place on the ground, bent down a little, and let his trunk hang to the floor in a gentle diagonal curve — a slide, to put it more precisely.
The moment she saw the trunk in position, So-eun rode it down exactly like a playground slide.
"Kyahaha!"
Coming off that thick, long trunk, she burst out laughing with pure delight, then raised her hands to Bbwoobbwoo again. Catching on that she wanted another turn, he lifted her once more, and she wasn't satisfied until she'd ridden the elephant slide several times over.
"Thank you!"
When she'd had her fill, she wrapped her arms tight around his leg and patted it, as if thanking him for his trouble.
"Aaaah, she's so cute!"
The onlookers took one look at her and lost their minds, stamping their feet and crying out over how adorable she was.
But there were others making a fuss in an entirely different sense. The children, to be exact. Some visitors had come as couples and some had come alone, but the single largest share was families of three or more with kids in tow — which meant, of course, that the grounds were full of children.
"Me too! Me toooo! Meeee tooooo!"
"Waaaaah! I wanna ride the elephant slide!"
"Mommy, I wanna do it too..."
"Daddy! Buy me an elephant!"
The children weren't watching So-eun's Show so much as watching So-eun simply having the time of her life, and they were throwing fits of pure envy — which left their parents looking thoroughly at a loss. None of them could leap an enclosure ringed by a moat, and buying an elephant was equally out of the question.
And all that commotion reached So-eun's ears as well.
"Mmm..."
She studied the children for a moment, then tapped Bboni and launched into a flurry of gestures, as if issuing some demand. Seeming to grasp exactly what she wanted, Bboni scurried off and slipped back out of the elephant enclosure.
"Hop on, please. I think the new master wants it!"
"G-get on? You're telling us to get on?"
"I can't tell what it's saying. Just get on!"
"Whoa! A horsey!"
Once she was outside, Bboni set about ferrying passengers into the enclosure, giving priority to the children. Some parents grew anxious at the thought of their little ones being carried off toward an elephant, but just as many reasoned that if So-eun had done it, it couldn't be dangerous.
In no time, more than ten children had swarmed around Bbwoobbwoo, touching him and stroking him all over.
"Hahaha! I've got so many new friends!"
Watching him, I found myself thinking back to our first meeting — the hopeless attention hound who, starved of anyone's gaze, had finally lost to boredom and started bellowing that he wanted a mate. He'd been a show-off from the start, and he was already overjoyed that so many people had poured in. Children clustering around him on top of that only made him happier.
The result was that Bbwoobbwoo played with the little ones with his whole heart. He lifted them in his trunk and gave them rides, and he volunteered himself as one magnificent slide.
"Hehe, fun, right?"
"Yeah! Thank you!"
Being thanked by a child bigger than she was seemed to please So-eun so much that she planted both hands on her hips, the very picture of triumph.
Watching her, I started thinking I might change the rules — not throw the elephant enclosure wide open, but at least allow visitors in with a keeper alongside them. Seeing how Bbwoobbwoo, true to his attention-seeking nature, actually liked the children coming close, I didn't think it would cause any trouble.
And having tossed the children off into his care like that, So-eun lost interest almost at once. She climbed onto Bboni, escaped the enclosure, and set off somewhere.
"Ah—"
I hurriedly assigned keepers to guide the children back to their parents, then hurried after her.
I followed So-eun as she toured the zoo on Bboni's back, and at some point she came to a stop. Looking closer to see why, I found her staring fixedly at something.
"Would the Princess like one too?"
What held her gaze was the sort of shop every zoo seems to have — a stall selling balloons of every kind, twisting long ones into shapes and filling others with helium so they bobbed and drifted overhead. The children were each carrying one, and So-eun had been watching as if she wanted one of her own.
"Please!"
At the sight of her holding both hands neatly out in front of her, the employee in charge of the balloons smiled softly. He blew a long balloon up in one smooth breath, then bent it this way and that with little squeaks until a rabbit took shape. So-eun's love of rabbits was so well known that he seemed to have chosen one on purpose.
"Whoa! A bunny!"
Balloon in hand, So-eun clapped and broke into a bright, innocent smile, as pleased as could be.
And then someone crashed the scene.
"Keek! I can do it better!"
What had burst in at the sight of So-eun's joy, insisting he could do better, was Wonsungi. He was a white-handed gibbon, a fellow who had grown fairly close to her while they waited for the zoo to open.
"Hey! You can't take that!"
Wonsungi charged straight into the balloon stall, found a balloon identical to the one the employee had just turned into a rabbit, and pulled it out. He must have been studying the employee's hands very carefully, because he blew it up himself. Just as the man had done, he seized the end the instant it swelled, tied it off, and set to twisting with squeaky determination.
"Oh... ohhh...!"
"Never thought I'd live to see a monkey twisting balloons."
"Damn, look at those hands go."
Just as the crowd marveled, Wonsungi twisted the balloons with dazzling fingerwork — and not one balloon, but dozens of them. The result was every bit as flashy as the hands that made it.
"It's a Pegasus! That's a Pegasus!"
"No, look closer! It's the Princess riding Bboni!"
It was spectacular. He had rendered, in full, the sight of So-eun astride Bboni.
"Thank you!"
Gifted a balloon sculpture modeled on herself and Bboni, So-eun flung aside the rabbit the employee had given her. With both hands now empty, she hugged the balloon she'd received from Wonsungi tight against her chest.
"Khk...! This is my defeat!"
Watching the balloon he'd made get cast aside, the employee dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, the very picture of a beaten man.
"Keek-keek!"
Wonsungi stroked the head of the balloon artist now prostrate before him — comforting the loser and mocking him in the same breath.
But that was his mistake.
"P-Princess, where did you go, keek!"
So-eun, his original objective, had long since hugged her balloon and left the spot. She'd gone looking for her mom, announcing that she was hungry. Naturally Wonsungi moved to go after her — but he couldn't move.
"Master! Pass that skill on to me!"
The employee, maker of the balloon So-eun had not chosen, had seized Wonsungi's arm and was hanging off it.
"Keek! Let go of me!"
Everything about him said he wanted to find So-eun no matter what, but the employee would not let go. I watched the two of them tussle for a while, and only moved on once I saw the man and Wonsungi twisting balloons side by side in perfect harmony.
"So-eun, is it yummy?"
"Mm!"
Thanks to Bboni, who seemed to come with a built-in person-finder, So-eun had located her mom in no time and was putting away a delicious lunch. She ate until her belly was round, then set off to roam the zoo once more — holding a grand nursery-rhyme sing-along with the parrots, asking a bear to smash open a watermelon so she could eat it for a snack, and touring the place in the highest of spirits.
And thanks to So-eun, who roamed the grounds treating everyone to all sorts of wondrous, rare sights, the phone lines and website of her kindergarten blew up.
The crash came from people calling to confirm which days her kindergarten was closed, and from others flooding the website in search of that information.