"Nothing can go wrong this time, and we're going to make sure of that."

"Of course, of course, because the both of us are mature, responsible adults looking after this one toddler, surrounded by cages and habitats specially made for some potentially large, carnivorous animals that could break out at any moment they wanted to. This is completely safe," Nicholas replied, smiling as he did so.

Helen only managed to stare at him, though tightened the grip on her child's hand as they waited in line for entry into the zoo. "Just have to ruin everything for me, don't you," she muttered, looking back to the front. "If you had put it that way before, I would've just went and gotten tickets to, like, a little petting zoo, not some place like this," and now she was nervous and fidgeting and was about to turn around and get the hell out of the line in a split second, except that toddler just had to go and say, "Hey, hey, it's our turn!"

"But education obviously comes before safety, doesn't it? I thought you would have considered all the possibilities before you came here, you know," and it took all of Helen's strength just to hand over their tickets and not kill someone in the process.

"Just get in there before I change my mind, these tickets were really expensive for the three of us," she droned, but pushed Nick in front of them, as a sort of shield.