"Hurry up slow poke!" my friend warned.  "We have to be first in line if we're going to get to sit in the back of the bus!"  We rushed to put our lunch bags in the cooler and headed to the door.  The charter bus was waiting in the parking lot.  Over a hundred excited 4th graders waited to board.  Today was the day we had been waiting for . . . our field trip to the Asheboro Zoo.
    At 8:30, the buses were loaded, and we were off.  The miles flew by.  "Today, the feature presentation is an old movie version of Doctor Doolittle," our teacher announced.  She plugged the video in the VCR.  We weren't paying any attention to the movie.  Instead, we passed notes and sang to ourselves.
    In a flash, the elephant statues at the zoo entrance welcomed us.  "Let's be in the same group, O.K.?" three girls asked me at the same time.  After we entered the gate, our first stop was the Polar Bear exhibit.  The playful bears were enjoying the damp dribbles of raindrops, and the cool weather made them even more active.  They played with plastic trash cans like they were babies' teething toys.  The largest bear even tossed one of the cans up in the air.  "Imagine what they'd do with you if you fell in that water?" my friend whispered.
    The next stop was the falcon cage.  We had been reading a book in class, My Side of the Mountain, that was about a boy and a peregrine falcon.  It was exciting to see a real falcon.  Although, it didn't act like the one in the book.  This bird just sat there on its lonely limb looking sad and forlorn.  A part of me wanted to reach across the fence and open its cage to set it free.
    Finally, it was time for the best part of the whole trip.  Our teacher said, "We have about 20 minutes to visit the gift shop before we leave to go home."  Giggling, our group counted coins and converged on the merchandise.  Without saying a word, I pulled a feather pen from the shelf and gave the clerk my change.
    As we lined up to load back on the bus, a brisk wind blew past my face.  Suddenly, the wind snatched the feather right off the end of my pen.  The fluff flew up, up and away.  I'll always remember that field trip to the zoo.  And when I think of the trip, I imagine that one day the falcon escaped just like the feather off my pen.