There was a unique feel to the air that morning when Max had awaken. He had felt a twinge of excitement within his heart, and an eagerness within his mind unlike any other. The little organ within his chest had pattered wildly as he leapt from bed; his brain had echoed its continuous comments that it was going to be a spectacular day. After all, Kenneth had promised. Unlike any other promise, it was one Max knew to be perfectly true. He had seen the tickets himself, and had heard the reasoning. Max had sat still for one whole day. Well, perhaps not a day, but he had sat still for an entire meal several nights before, and had continued to do so under the agreement that they would be taking a trip if he were to behave properly for once. All of the waiting had led to the precise moment. They were going to the water park! Now, one had to wonder what they would do at a water park in the mid of winter, but it wasn't any water park. It was indoors.

Max had to admit that he had been intimidated by the idea of Kenneth's promise. The man had failed to keep so many of them in such a short period of time. There was always the 'we'll go out in th afternoon' or the 'we'll do that later', which was never kept. Max had little regard for Kenneth's integrity, yet he continued to believe that there was at least a sliver of sincerity to some of his statements. That had led him to hoping until the night Kenneth had shown him the passes and ruffled his hair good-night (a gesture he had never before received). They had said their farewells that evening, and then the morning had came. He had sat, bouncing within his bed for several hours. When the clock stuck ten, he had found he could not wait any longer. He had gathered his pool rings on his tail and had rushed out of his own door to wake up the man he had dubbed 'Pie' - and that had led to the entertaining sequence of events of the morning and early afternoon. Breakfast had been a frenzy of a mess; Max had wolfed down his apple slices, had drank his water, and had been rushing to the door without any other word than 'Hurry!'.

And there they stood within the building, amongst the variety of unusual things that Max had never before laid eyes upon. There were slides beyond his imagination, and water in amounts he never would have suspected. It enthralled him, and it had taken all of his energy not to pull his hand from Kenneth's to rush through a line and to the front. To make the anticipation easier, he had danced in place. His rings had clacked the ground of the indoor park, and his eyes had fleeted to and from in earnestness. With a wide smile on his face, he had began tugging at the educator's arm, whining loudly about having to stand still while he observed what appeared to be a map. "Stop reeeeading!" The otter had piped. He had tossed his head about, his uneven hair fluttering. Its multiple tones had captured the light, almost shining about the brightest of areas. "That one, that one, dat on!" Max had pointed off in some random direction, his mantra growing to the point of which his words had appeared terribly mispronounced. "Pie!"

Kenneth had snorted loudly at the feeling of one of his hands being pulled. His other had struggled to observe the map he had grabbed at the entrance, and to analyze it for some form of direction. He had never truly been the best with amusment park maps. They were decorative rather than assistive, which had never made reading them an easy task. Naturally, it did not help to have a whining little boy harrassing him in the midst of his tracing steps mentally to find particular places. Glancing away from his map, he had managed to glimpse his ward's face. The pout had left his gut boiling. All of the trouble he had gone through seemed so under appreciated by that obsessive zeal with water. He wasn't even certain if Max could actually swim, and that left him reluctant to actually move away from his spot. Yet, it was an inevitable action. Deciding to wing it rather than waste time, he had stuffed the map into the pocket of his swimming trunks and had smoothed out his crinkled green shirt. His fingers had pushed his glasses up the brim of his nose, and he had opened his mouth to speak, only to realize he had released Max's hand and freed him of constraint. As could be expected, the young child had wasted no time in running away in some random direction, still crying 'that one' aloud.

"Max, what did I tell you this morning?!" Kenneth had yiped. The last thing he wanted to do was lose the kid in the middle of a theme park.

That certainly would not be an easy thing to explain to anyone.