Nayeli wiped the bead of sweat that tickled her temple and readjusted her cap. The sun beat down on the blacktop and the multitudes that had decided to spend the day at the zoo. She stuck a colorful pamphlet in her back pocket. She didn’t need it anymore. It had been a long day.

As Nayeli wandered toward the entrance where families still poured in, a blood-curling scream rose above the clamor somewhere to her right. She pushed through the sweaty crowd. The scream came again. It was coming from the African exhibit.

People lined the cement wall, eyes wide, gesturing down into the field below, shouting. Workers were pushing through. Nayeli spotted a tree feet away and grabbed a low-hanging branch, pulling herself up. She peered out over the frantic crowd, into the African sanctuary.

Nayeli’s heart hit her chest as she silently gasped. A child was just inside the field, sitting stunned from the fall. A woman was in hysterics, trying to clamber out of the sky lift while a man with her restrained her. Two more workers were standing near the employee entrance, in intense conversation. Security detail was on the radio.

A deep growl bellowed from several yards away, and the crowd started shrieking as a rhinoceros pounded the ground, charging toward the child.

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