Marco || Liam Self Para Task #1
It was a couple days after Liam's tenth birthday when his father woke him up at the crack of dawn, a wide smile on his face as he took in his tired sons face.
"Dad?" He asked, his voice hoarse with sleep.
"Dad has a surprise for you, Penguin." His father whispered, pulling the covers off of his sons body. "Get dressed and meet me downstairs, but you have to be quiet because mommy isn't allowed to know."
Liam gave his dad a nod as he left the room and quickly got dressed in the a pair of shorts and a green top before throwing a bunnyhug over top to keep out the morning mist. He yawned as he came downstairs and his dad urged him to be a bit more quiet as he ushered him out to the car.
"Where're we going?" Liam asked as he watched the houses pass by in quick succession.
"The aquarium." His father answered, staring straight ahead at the road, a secret grin on his face.
"The aquarium? Dad, it's five in the morning. Couldn't we have gone in the afternoon?" Liam mumbled, falling asleep on the glass window. "It's closed right now.
"It's something special I set up just for you." He replied, pulling in to the back of the aquarium where the employees would enter. "Now get your lazy butt up and out of this car before I leave you behind."
Liam groaned and rolled himself out of the car as best he could and dragged himself across the concrete to the doors and inside. "You must be Liam." An overly excited blonde woman said and bent down to his level, and yes, he already disliked her.
"It's five in the morning." Apparently he had no filter in the morning.
"Indeed it is!" She exclaimed, laughing a little. She shoved something black into his arm and stood back up. "Now get that on; I've got something to show you, and they're awake!"
Liam's fathered motioned for him to go behind a partition to put on, what was apparently, a wet suit. He frowned but did as he told and pulled the stretchy material over his body before walking back out to where his father and the blonde lady, who had their own wet suits on, were waiting for him with over eager smiles.
"Alright Liam, if you could just grab that bucket of fish then we'll be on our way." Liam stared at the lady and then back at the bucket and grimaced; why the heck did they wake him up to carry a bucket of fish?
Nonetheless, he grabbed the, rather heavy, bucket and followed them into a bright room that also reeked of fish and water. His eyes widened as he took in the large room- the Penguin habitat. He looked up at his father and gaped at him.
"So Liam, are you ready to feed the penguins?" The blonde lady, that was actually named Nicole, asked him as she grabbed a small fish from the bucket and threw it towards one of the smaller penguins who caught it in his mouth.
Liam nodded vigorously and set the bucket up on a table and grabbed a larger fish and started his way towards one of the larger penguins, slipping slightly on the ice exterior in his haste. "Careful Liam!" His father yelled with a chuckle.
Liam stopped in his tracks and threw the fish a bit clumsily towards a group of penguins who sized up each other before going in at the fish. He watched in fascination as one of the larger penguins won and swallowed the fish whole.
One of the smaller ones, just a baby, stared at him though. It was almost like some sort of trance of staring contest until the baby squeaked at him. Liam jumped a bit and ignored the noises of the adults getting a little bit of a chuckle out of it before he retreated back to the bucket and grabbed a smaller fish and headed back to the baby.
"That's Marco," Nicole explained, "we found him abandoned in the Arctic."
"What happened to his family?" His father asked as he patted the head of a passing penguin who stealthily stole a piece of his fish from his hand.
"Marco didn't grow properly. He'd probably be the size of a teenager if he was 'normal', but something must have went wrong in his egg time and he never grew. So his family left him." Nicole regaled the story, one she had explained before.
"That's so cruel," Liam whispered as he offered his outstretched hand to Marco who was getting closer and closer to him. "Why would someone do that to their child?"
He ignored their answers as Marco approved and nervously took the fish out of Liam's hand and swallowed it down. The bird shook a bit and squeaked, causing a giggle to escape Liam's throat.
