Oceans for Backyards

“Safaa, hold your brothers hand while we go through this crowd.”

“Mom, I’m not five anymore I think I can go through a crowd without having to hold Zayn’s hand.”

“Hey stop being a brat.” Zayn said. “You too cool to hold my hand?”

Safaa rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, “Yes.”

Zayn rolled his eyes, mimicking his youngest sister and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The Malik family decided to go to the aquarium before the younger girls started school again and it seemed like the entire city of London had the same idea with how busy the aquarium is. There were multiple times during the day that one or all the girls held onto Zayn for support to push through the crowds. Zayn isn’t even that big or even menacing looking, it’s just that he doesn’t really care if he steps on peoples toes, literally. He also has this strong urge to protect his mom and his three sisters, especially when his dad isn’t out with them. Being in their family his father is the one to protect all of them and that responsibility fell on Zayn’s shoulders as well, not like he minded either way.

Finally the crowd trying to make their way into the dolphin tale show was moving and everyone started pushing a bit. Zayn kept a firm grip around Safaa and he noticed Doniya and Waliyha linked arms. He grabbed his mother’s hand and together they went into the theater.

“Ooh, let’s sit in the splash zone!!” Waliyha said pulling Doniya to the center front rows.

“Oh come on Wali, let’s not.” Zayn said trying to go up the stairs.

“Don’t be such a wuss Zayn, it’s just a little water.” Doniya said rolling her eyes.

“As if Zayn would want to ruin his perfect hair.” Safaa said giggling.

“It does look quite good today.” Their mom, Patricia, added making Zayn glare.

“Whatever, let’s just sit.”

Once they were all situated Patricia and Doniya started a conversation and Waliyha and Safaa started whispering together which left Zayn to mess around on his phone. He had a few texts from his friends, one of them from his roommate Niall saying something about needing food and ‘bring me beer’. He ignored Niall because he wouldn’t be back at the flat for another few days so if Niall wanted food and beer he’d have to find it himself. His other messages were a few from Liam asking him to come back soon because he can’t stand Harry and Louis being all cute and couple like and Niall is just stealing his food. Zayn decided to send a group text making fun of them all and scrolled through his twitter not really doing anything but passing time.

It was finally time for the show to start so Zayn tucked his phone away and made his sisters quiet down. Some video started playing and Zayn knew right away that this show was going to be unbelievably cheesy and it was. Some guy came out and started singing and he couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Where are the dolphins?” Safaa asked him but Zayn just shrugged. “This is so lame; I just want to see some dolphins do tricks.”

Safaa didn’t have to wait for long, trainers lined the pool and dolphins were swimming in the tank and doing flips in the air. The audience gasped and the people in the first couple of rows, Zayn’s family included, jumped from the water hitting them. The show was still really cheesy and it made Zayn laugh but something about seeing the dolphins hypnotized him. At one point in the show the trainers swam up to the front and held onto the glass, Zayn catching eyes with one of them. Her blonde hair was braided showing off her adorable freckles and bright green eyes. Her smile was big and wide as she stared out at the crowd. Zayn couldn’t help but smile right back at her especially when they signaled for the dolphins to swim up to the front and stick their front fins over the glass. They weren’t supposed to take pictures but Zayn pulled his phone out and quickly took a picture of the dolphin (and the cute girl).

“Zayn! Look at how cute!” Safaa cried waving to the dolphin, “Wave Zayn!”

Zayn laughed and started waving at the dolphin, making eye contact with the trainer again, who waved right back at him. Zayn stopped waving and looked away feeling like a loser and just looked around the theater. When Zayn felt less embarrassed he looked back at what was happening in front of him, eyes trailing to find the blonde trainer. He watched her for the rest of the show, loving how excited she seemed to be while interacting with the dolphin. The show ended too quickly after that, Zayn just wanted to keep watching the dolphins. He led his family out of the theater and listened to Safaa go on and on about the show and how cool the dolphins were.

“I want to see them again!” Safaa cried out.

“Well they said they’ll be back in the exhibit a few minutes after the show so let’s head that way, okay?” Patricia said.

Safaa nearly ran off but Zayn caught her hand and made her slow down so she wouldn’t get lost. Once they were at the exhibit Safaa wanted to go right up to the glass while Doniya, Waliyha and their mom wanted to hang back so Zayn agreed to bring her to the front.

“You really liked those dolphins didn’t you?” Zayn asked his little sister.

“Yeah!”

Zayn nodded but he knew his sister would be fascinated with something new next week and would forget all about this sudden interest. It was kind of nice though, seeing her have such a good time on their family outing.

“Zayn! Look!”

Zayn looked in the tank and saw four dolphins swimming around the tank. Suddenly someone came on the speaker and started talking.

“Good afternoon everyone my name is Mackenzie and I’m a dolphin trainer here at the aquarium. I’ll be giving you some facts about the dolphins and if you have any questions you can ask away. I’m to the left of the tank in the wet suit.”

Zayn whipped his head to the side and sure enough just a few people away, was standing the trainer he couldn’t keep his eyes off of.

“The bottlenose dolphin is what we have here and they are usually 8 feet long and usually weigh anywhere between 440 to 660 pounds.”

“Holy shit.” Zayn mumbled.

“Does anyone know what dolphins eat?” Mackenzie questioned the crowd.

“Little girls!” Zayn said tickling Safaa who let out a squeal.

He could hear someone else laugh so he looked around to see who it was; he locked eyes with Mackenzie who was smiling at him.

“I heard someone say little girls and that’s not quite right, sorry to say.”

“I guess you’re safe.” Zayn told Safaa, tickling her once more.

“Dolphins eat fish, squid and crustaceans. Does anyone know what baby dolphins are called?”

“Calf!” Safaa yelled.

Mackenzie looked in their direction again and smiled, “That’s right! Good job.”

“How did you know that?” Zayn questioned.

“It was a question before the show, duh.”

“Duh.” Zayn mimicked rolling his eyes.

“Dolphins communicate through various noises like clicking and whistling. We use clicking to help train them as you might have heard if any of you saw the dolphin show. We use positive reinforcement with the dolphins so when they do something well and what we asked of them, they get a prize. Can anyone guess what they get?”

“Fish.” Zayn called out.

“That’s right. Alright let’s see if you can answer this next one.” Zayn realized she was directing the question at him and he immediately became panicked. “How do dolphins breathe?”

He didn’t know, he really had no clue but he knows they don’t have gills and they have a blowhole so he called out, “Blowhole.”

“Right again! I think we have a dolphin lover here. Wanna try another?” Zayn shrugged and smiled so Mackenzie asked another question. “How long do dolphins usually live?”

Zayn shrugged and looked at Safaa, “Do you know?” Safaa shook her head and shrugged. “Uhm, 30 years?”

“Close! The average is 25 years but some live up to 40 years.”

“That’s as old as mom.” Safaa giggled.

Zayn hit Safaa’s shoulder and looked back at Mackenzie who winked at him.

“Alright I’ll stop picking on you now. I’ll let everyone enjoy the dolphins now. Again I’m to the left of the tank if anyone has any questions.”

The siblings stayed in front of the tank for a little while longer when Zayn told Safaa they should let other people have a chance to be up front. He guided Safaa out of the crowd and brought her to their sisters and her mom.

“We have to take a bathroom break, Safaa do you have to go?” Patricia asked.

“I guess so yeah.”

“Alright well we’re going to find the bathroom, do you have to go or do you just want to stay here or what?”

“How about I just stay here so it’ll be easier to find me when you’re done.”

“Okay, just make sure you have your phone on you just in case.”

“Of course.”

He watched his family walk away before he turned back to the tank trying to decide if he should go talk to Mackenzie. Seeing her look at the dolphins with such a calm smile made him want to go talk to her so he took a deep breath and walked right up to her.

“Ah, if it isn’t my favorite dolphin enthusiast.” Mackenzie said with a giggle. “Sorry I kept picking on you.”

“Oh it’s alright, I didn’t really mind. Though I’m really not much of a dolphin enthusiast as I really seem.” Mackenzie’s smile seemed to fade so Zayn backtracked. “They’re really cool though. I never thought I’d be interested in them but they’re kind of fascinating.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Mackenzie questioned watching them again.

“Yeah, like they’re so smart to know all those tricks you did in the show. How do they know how to do that?”

“Well they’re really playful and like you said they are very intelligent creatures. The dolphins have to share a special bond with the trainer for them to really get trained. When I first entered the program a few of the other trainers were leaving or getting switched or whatever the reason so me and the other new trainers had to interact with all of the dolphins for quite some time before they picked us. Claire, the one that is swimming toward the glass now, picked me so she trusts me to touch her and feed her and teach her essentially. We don’t force them to do anything they don’t want to do.” Mackenzie explained. “I could come into work one day and Claire will let me swim with her, let me stand on her nose and everything but the next day she could want nothing to do with training. I can’t make her do anything and I wouldn’t out of respect for her. And like I said we use positive reinforcement and once they realize they get fish out of doing something well, it doesn’t take much for them to keep doing it.”

“That’s so interesting. Like the fact that animals can be so smart and they can do what they do.”

Mackenzie nodded, “It really is honestly. If you really want to learn more we have an education program and we also offer dolphin encounters. So you can swim with them and everything. It’s all really cool. You should check it out if you can.”

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.” Zayn told her.

“I’m one of the trainers who does it if it gives you a little more incentive.” Mackenzie spoke.

Zayn licked his lips, “It does.”

Mackenzie smiled, “Cool.”

Zayn’s phone started ringing so he excused himself for a moment, stepping away a little bit to answer his mom’s call. He hung up seconds later and waited for Mackenzie to finish answering a little girls question.

“I gotta go but it was nice meeting you, Mackenzie.”

“Yeah it was nice meeting you too. Wait what’s your name?”

“Zayn Malik.” Zayn said sticking his hand out for her.

She put her hand in his, “Mackenzie Jacobs.”

“Cool, see you around Mackenzie.”

“You too Zayn.”