The Cold Polar Bear

As we entered the museum, I could already tell I was going to hate it. It looked like it was about to fall apart if someone sneezed too hard. What kind of mother drags along their 13-year-old son to a museum for "bonding time"? I see and talk to her all the time but since summer vacation started I have been too distant, her words not mine. As soon as we enter, the smell of elders and an extensive amount of perfume ran up my nose. My mom even made me wear this weird Safari hat and wouldn't let me take it off. Great now I feel AND look stupid. We joined a random tour guide group, I was, of course, the only kid. We were touring around the place when I notice my mother floating towards a path heading away from the group. My legs followed the tour group but my eyes followed my mom. As she reached the sign that said: "Safari PathWay" she turned around and singled me to follow her. I tell myself the only reason I followed her was so I could finally sit down after walking for hours, but to be honest, I've always had a fascination with animals. In my room, if you push all the video games aside, you would see all the animal books I have. I really wanted to go on the Safari ride but didn't want my mom to be right, that I would enjoy myself. I walk towards her, slowly, to cover the fact that I was excited. We walk through a short hallway that almost immediately leads us outside. There was one truck leaving full of people and another coming towards us. Everyone got off the truck smiling and laughing, and it made me even more intrigued in this ride. As we entered the truck and it began to pull away we realized we were the only people on it. Things were starting to look up for me and the lame trip. The driver talked about the rules, and pointed out the water bottle crate that could be used at any time. We first passed by the lions where I try to get rid of my hat but sadly get caught by my mother. All the animals were free-roaming which meant they weren't in any cages. My mother and I had very different reactions to knowing this. As we begin to come closer to the next animal I noticed a bear-like animal laying in the sun. I point it out to the driver but she didn't know what it was either. Since we were the only people we were able to convince the driver to pull up closer to the unknown animal. As we got closer the driver remarked that it looked like a Polar bear. That was a dumb thought since this was a safari ride and polar bea- its a polar bear. The driver parked the truck and we all looked at the bear. I guess it could feel our eyes preying on it, and it looked up. The Polar Bear sats up and begins to walk towards us very slowly. We yell at the driver to drive the truck and she does. Unfortunately, since the safari truck is meant to let you capture nature, it didn't move fast at all. As the bear came closer to me, I couldn't move cause I was drenched in fear. When I open my eyes I realized I'm somehow still in one piece. I look at the bear to see him staring at the water bottles in the seat next to me. I open a water bottle and he sits down with his mouth open, like a dog almost. I look back at my mom and she's shaking in fear. I look at the bear and pour the warm water in its mouth. It closes its mouth and walks back to its original spot where we found him. I guess the Polar Bear was just cold and needed to warm up. The driver slowly moves towards me with her phone and ask if I could take a picture with the bear. I awkwardly smile as the driver snaps the picture. I look at the bear before we start heading off and it sits up again. I felt bad leaving it without any water, so I take off my hat my mom gave me and started to fill it with the warm water bottles. I hold it over the edge of the truck, still scared of Polar bear, and it gets up and bits the edge of the hat. He takes it and places it next to his sunbathing spot and begins to drink out of it. I had no problem getting rid of that ugly hat. We headed back towards the museum all silence trying to understand what just happened. When we were just about to leave the driver shouts over her loudspeaker that my mom and I had just found a new species called Cold Polar Bears. The name could use some editing but at the time I didn't think about that. As we walked through the museum, even though nobody was even blinking in our direction, it still felt like I was famous. We head home and for the first time all summer, I and my mom had a regular conversation without any fighting. When we arrived home the word had already spread. The next day it was all over the internet. I guess the driver went back to check on the bear and found it wearing my hat and decided to take a picture. Over time the bear, now named Royal, was given a friend which is a parrot named Stuart. We still are unaware how Sally ended up in on the Safri, but she is still treated like any other animal in the Safri. My mother and I are used to now visiting the bear every weekend and before we leave we always give it a nice, warm, hug.