While it was not family day at the Shedd Aquarium, Tuesday certainly was kids� day. After all, I had 11 of my 14 junior girl scouts there and I had activity sheets. They looked at paddlefish, fish of the Amazon, a giant cockroach and some tarantulas without incident. But there�s one part on which they are sworn to secrecy�not by me but by each other�and it involves the Oceanarium.

No, it has nothing to do with the marine mammal show. It�s true that the Beluga whales suddenly decided to swim off in the middle of the show. The trainers explained that Belugas are social creatures and sometimes get more interested in each other than in the show. No problem. My sixth graders understand that. They�re often more interested in each other than in any planned activity themselves. Snack used to be a fairly quick affair. Now it is accompanied by chatting and it takes a while to catch up with all the news of things that have occurred between the time of dismissal and the time they�ve gotten down to the cafeteria for the meeting.

It isn�t about the penguins either. Yes, it was fun (and funny) for a few girls to imitate the movement of the penguins and I suspect they are glad I had no video camera to capture the moment. (I didn�t even have a still camera. I find I can either participate or photograph but not both.) The rockhoppers appropriately hopped on rocks and the other penguins swam and walked as penguins do.

No, the secret is the otters. The otters were doing things that make a family but are not generally considered family viewing. The girls were a little ahead of me and the first hint I got was when I heard, �The otters are nibbling on each other. Are they fighting or playing?� As I came around the corner and began contemplating the situation, I heard a collective �EEUUUUWWWW!� Then I saw it, pink and erect. Third graders might have missed the significance but the sixth graders didn�t. There was no doubt about it. The otters were X-rated. The otters were mating. In public. (Of course, if they had wanted to do it in private, and I doubt otters care, there was no privacy.)

We went from sex to snack. The girls sat around a table and thought long and hard. They discussed the nibbling. They discussed how disgusting otter behavior was. They discussed how interesting the boys at school would consider the otter behavior. They discussed how the boys would get ahold of the subject and not let it go. They discussed how annoying it would be when the boys discussed it and discussed it and discussed it, especially when the boys did not see it.

And then came the pact. Now, you might assume that they agreed not to discuss the otters at school. But that was not the pact. What they agreed was that they would not discuss the Chicago trip at school. As they explained, they did not think that they could discuss the Chicago trip without being tempted to discuss the otters. It therefore was safest for everyone to promise not to discuss the trip.

How long did the pact last? Well, it didn�t even last to the school�s in bell this morning. They discussed Chicago but if anyone discussed the otters, I didn�t hear about it----yet.

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