Have you ever been to the zoo? Something tells me you have.  Have I ever been to the zoo?  Of course I have.  You could even say that I live in a zoo.  Why am I comparing my life to life in the zoo?  That might be because I actually do live in the zoo.  Why do I live in the zoo? Great question, my answer: I happen to be a penguin.  Yes, you heard me right, a penguin. 
Now, being a penguin and living in the zoo, I’ve seen some absolutely crazy things.  For instance, I‘ve seen a sea lion breakout and giraffes going for a leisurely midnight stroll.  But the incident I’m speaking of occurred on a pleasant, spring day sometime in early April.  The zoo had had a fairly quiet opening.  Only hardcore zoo-enthusiasts and zookeepers were around.  On this particular day the zoo was quiet until around 11:30 in the morning.  Then the kids arrived.  All dressed in different variations of the same thing: navy blue sweatpants or shorts with white writing and a white t-shirt with navy blue writing.  It was a scene I’ve gotten used to over the years, two words ?? field trip.  After a while you learn to ignore the zoo-goers and to continue to go about you business. 
I couldn’t tell you why I noticed the girl.  Maybe it was because she was extremely loud, and appeared to be rather overzealous in her enthusiasm.  She was hanging around with a group of four or five other girls, all with their hair up in a ponytail.  I was about ready to pass the load girl off as a bothersome zoogoer when the friend to her left exclaimed, “I just can’t believe that *harpy!  I mean seriously it’s like she doesn’t even like kids.  Seriously, if you don’t even like kids then why the heck did you become a freaking schoolteacher?”
“You’re absolutely right, Liv.  I seriously hope she gets fired by the end of this year.  She’s such a creepy witch,” agreed the only red-head of the group. 
“Amen to that.  Margaret, Jasmine, and I were coming back from doing an errand for Mrs. Patterson, and Mrs. Bahr just, like, appeared out of nowhere,” said the loud girl gesturing to the girl to her right and the girl beside Liv. 
“Yeah, she came up to us and was like what you three doing inside during recess?  Katie was like, ‘We’re running an errand for Mrs. Patterson, you know, our homeroom teacher.’  Then she rolled her eyes, and said, ‘She was going to have to talk to Mrs. Patterson about how we were inside during recess.’  Like, seriously? We’re only helping our teacher. Mrs. Bahr is such a witch,” Jasmine to the other girls. 
Then Margaret chimed in, “It doesn’t matter what Mrs. Bahr thinks anyway.  She’s just a huge pain in the arse, who will most likely not be here next year.  Besides everybody who matters knows you would never cheat Liv.  You’d never need to; you always study for every quiz and test.”
Suddenly the loud girl, Katie, let out a gasp and pointed at me, “Oh my God, look at the panda!”
“What? Panda? Where?” I thought looking around for the panda. 
“Katie, those are penguins.  You know the birds that can’t fly, waddles around on webbed feet, orange beak, black and white, live in Antarctica,” the girl next to the red-head explained with a slight smile and a roll of her eyes. 
“No, it’s not.  I can promise you that that,” Katie pointed at me, “is most definitely a panda.” 
“Katie have you ever seen a panda before?”
“Of course I’ve seen a panda before.  Have you ever seen a penguin before Kiersten?”
“Katie, I’m staring at penguins right now,” Kiersten exasperatedly replied. 
“No you’re not that is a p—“
“Don’t even think about it!” exclaimed Liv.  “Regardless of what you think Katie,” Liv spun around to point at me, “that is a penguin.”
Being brought into the conversation as such brought me out of my head a bit, allowing me to realize that I had unconsciously moved closer to the group. 
Katie walked a few steps closer to my habitat before turning around to face her friends and pointing back at me, “That is most definitely a panda.”
I squawked indignantly. 
“See, even he knows that he’s not a panda,” the read-head said. 
Jasmine shook her head, and grabbed Katie’s arm saying, “Come on Kate, let’s go look at the Great Pandas in the exhibit across the way.”
“I think you mean the Great Penguins in the exhibit across the way,” said Katie. 
Liv rolled her eyes, “Sure, whatever you say, Kate.  Let’s just go take a look at the great foreign bear exhibit across the way. 
As the group walked towards the Panda Exhibit I could hear them bicker over whether I was a panda or a penguin.  I knew I was going to have to pay my friend, Xiao Liu, in the panda exhibit a visit tonight. 

                                                                                                           

  I always love sneaking out of my exhibit because it makes me feel like a secret agent.  Xiao Liu is the zoo’s youngest great panda.  He can be hard to understand sometimes because his first language is Chinese.  Both his parents and all of his siblings speak only Chinese when it’s just them.  His parents learned how to speak English in order to communicate with the other animals in the zoo.  And they taught every single one of their children English as a second language.  All of this means is that Xiao Liu and his siblings sometimes mix up phrases and sentence structures.  For instance they might be trying to say, ‘Angry as a bear with a sore foot,’ but what they actually say is, ‘Anger and pain in the foot bears.’ 
As I reached the great panda enclosure I could hear Xiao Liu and his siblings horsing around and his mother calling out, “??????????.”
“???????????????,” calls out Xiao Liu. 
Suddenly I hear his mother, Gao Gao, switch to English, “Liu, your friend Butler is here to see you.” 
I watch Liu call back over his shoulder to his siblings, “?????????,” before walking up to me. 
“How are you Liu?” I ask taking a paw and shaking. 
“Good and how are you Pengyou?”
“Good… I actually have a question for you.”
“Ask away,” he says serenely. 
“Did you by any chance see the kids on the field trip?” I hedge. 
“Yes I did.  Why do you ask?” he asked looking perplexed. 
“I was wondering if you saw a group of five or six girls debating over whether or not you were called a panda or a penguin?”
I watch as his brow raises he chuckles, “Of course I did.  It is kind of hard to miss a teenage girl insisting that your species was misnamed and that you are in fact a penguin instead of a panda.” 
I suppress the urge to roll my eyes, “Thanks Liu.” As I turn to walk away I hear Liu asking me to answer a question in return.  “What do you want to ask?”
“Why were you asking about the crazy American girl?”
“I was curious as to what your take would be.”
“Well, I do believe I just told you Pengyou, I think that she and her friends were crazy.  I have never been to my parents’ home country in awhile, but based on the stories of the Chinese culture, your American teenagers are – what is the phrase I’m looking for – definitely hitting the happy juice hard.” 
“I could see how you’d think that.  Good night Liu,” as I turn to walk away I hear Gao Gao call out to me, “Would you like to sit with us a while Pengyou?  We were just about to tell stories from our homeland.” 
I smile looking at the family of panda bears I have come to look at as a second family to my own and say, “Of course Mama Gao.  I would love to stay and hear your stories.”
Maybe the loud girl, Katie wasn’t too far off base with her conscious mix-up of pandas and penguins.  Because looking around at the group of friends I have gathered in my life, the line looks a little blurred.