“This is… not feeling the way I expected,” she told her cousin.
“How so? This looks pretty fun. My kids were really excited about it.”
She looked at him. “Your kids? You have some students here?” She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her that he would know some of the kids. Of course, he would.
He nodded. “A bunch of them. About ten of these kids were in my class this past year. And I’ve taught probably half of the older kids here tonight.”
Charlie turned toward him, resting one elbow on the fence. “You’ve taught here for what? Three years?”
“Just finished my fourth.”
“And you love it.”
“I do.”
“And you reached out and talked kids into coming tonight,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She’d just realized it, but she wasn’t surprised.
“I might have sent an email.”
She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
He chuckled. “It wasn’t a have-to. This is a fun event, and I knew they’d enjoy it. Besides, you know we all do our part for family stuff.”
They did. They were all a part of everything everyone else did. That, she was sure, could seem meddlesome, but it was nice.
Yes, working here with the Landrys and very few boundaries or guidelines was definitely different from her past jobs. But she was quickly getting used to knowing that there was a whole group of people who would have her back and believe in her no matter what she wanted to try.
“So, you think it’s going well?” she asked Fletcher.
“I do. Why don’t you?”
“This is the first major event we’ve hosted with multiple children.”
Over the past two weeks, they’d seen an increase in visitors, but all the children had been with parents, and there had been no formal activity.
They had definitely been enthusiastic about the jungle tour hats and the sticker books, but there hadn’t been one big coordinated activity for kids until now.
The other activities she’d tried, including an extra session of otter yoga and a knitting class held in the alpaca yard on picnic tables and using yarn made from alpaca wool—not wool from their alpacas yet, but that was on the research-this list as well—had been a huge hit. But those had been attended by adults. This was different.
This was a much bigger group and included kids from ages four to about ten. The kids were enthusiastic about hanging out with the goats. Maybe a little too enthusiastic. She doubted that anyone could really hear the movie over the excited kid chatter and laughter, and she tried to take that as a good sign. Of course she wanted people participating in their activities to be excited and laughing.
But she was a little bored.
Well, maybe not bored, exactly, but she was feeling restless. While the event had definitely brought more visitors in, it also seemed… gimmicky. The kids were interacting with the animals, but it felt chaotic, and she wondered if the younger kids in the group would somehow be misled into thinking the goats actually wore pajamas to bed.
And that was a sure sign that Griffin Foster was rubbing off on her. He’d spent the past week and a half insisting that no, she couldn’t have an event called Lunch with the Llamas because they didn’t have llamas, they were alpacas.
He’d made changes to nearly every one of the informational signs she’d wanted to put up around the otter enclosure. He’d tried to get her to offer bundles of hay to the guests tonight in place of the fruits and vegetables for the goats and hadn’t seemed at all concerned about the fact that hay bundles were not edible for the human guests.
She knew she was driving him crazy. And, apparently, he’d gotten under her skin as well because she didn’t want kids leaving tonight thinking that goats wore pajamas on a regular basis. She was now more worried about accurate animal facts than she was about their guests having fun and bringing in more business.
But people were having fun, and there was nothing wrong with that, she reminded herself. In fact, if people had fun, they’d be more likely to come back. So, in the future, she could do something more meaningful—whatever that would be—for the same crowd. Tonight was a great kickoff to more community and family activities at Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild.
She’d just started to believe her pep talk when she heard, “That’s enough!”
Charlie straightened immediately. That was Griffin’s voice. That was Griffin’s angry voice. Not that she had experienced a lot of Griffin’s angry voice. She was much more used to his obstinate voice. And his know-it-all voice. And his exasperated voice. But she didn’t have to have direct experience to know that that was most definitely an angry voice.
She located him immediately. He was standing near a family of five who was seated on two hay bales toward the middle of the group.
The father was on his feet facing off with Griffin, and one of the little boys was standing just behind his father’s leg, looking sheepish.
Charlie was through the gates and beside Griffin in seconds.
“Hey, back off, man. He’s just a little kid,” the man said.
“But he’s old enough to listen to directions from adults. He’s also old enough to be taught how to handle animals. In fact, the sooner, the better,” Griffin said.
“The goat’s fine,” the other man said, taking a half step closer to Griffin. “I’ve been around goats. You can’t really hurt them.”
Griffin took a step closer to the man. “No wonder your kid doesn’t know how to treat animals and doesn’t know the word no.”
“Hey, guys,” Charlie said, in her best calming and friendly voice. She stepped between the two men. “What’s going on?”
“This gentleman and his family were just leaving,” Griffin said, his eyes still on the man.
“Hey, we paid to be here. We’re not going anywhere.” The man glared at Griffin.
Charlie would’ve put serious money on the fact that Griffin was right. However, the man and his family were customers. Paying customers. And the confrontation was happening in the middle of the rest of their paying customers.
“Maybe we can take this discussion into the barn,” Charlie suggested.
“No further discussion is necessary,” Griffin said. “They’re on their way out, and they’re not welcome back.”
Charlie’s eyes widened, and she took in the other man’s tight jaw, as well as the clenched fist at his side. She didn’t have any brothers, but she’d seen more than one disagreement between her male cousins turn into a physical altercation. Every one of her cousins that she could think of at the moment had suffered a black eye and or a bloody nose at some point in his life inflicted by a family member.
“They’re goats, man,” the father said. “They’re not made of glass.”
“Yes, they’re goats. They’re animals. Living, breathing beings. And if your kid keeps yanking on Happy’s tail, he’s going to turn around and take a bite out of your kid. And I’m guessing you’re going to be pretty upset then.”
“He’s only six,” the man said. “He’s still learning.”
“And if you don’t teach him how to interact with animals, he’s never going to learn. Or he’ll learn by getting hurt,” Griffin said.