- During the week, Mam asks Victor if he wants to go to the zoo. He's a bit old for it, but he says yes anyway because he knows that Mam likes to go.
- She can only get into the zoo after noon on Wednesdays if she wears her uniform and is accompanied by Victor. It's yet another rule in town separating the white people from the black people.
- When they get on the bus, Victor insists on sitting at the front with Mam because she is technically allowed to ride up there with him, even if the other white people don't like it. He wonders why she doesn't get madder about all these rules.
- At the zoo, Mam catches a kid trying to pick on a giraffe and yells at him. He stops, but they can hear him calling Mam by the n-word, which infuriates Victor.
- His parents have left him some money, so Victor suggests that they get their photo taken at the zoo. Mam says that they can't do that because the people in charge of the zoo don't let black people get their photos taken.
- Victor's sick of all these rules, so he goes up to the photographer and starts stuttering a lot and telling him about how Mam nursed him back to health and now she's moving back to California and he needs a photo to remember her by.
- The story is a total fabrication, of course, but it works on the photographer and he lets them take a photo. They take their picture and get back on the bus to go home.
- Mam looks at the photo and smiles—then starts laughing. They both laugh a lot and don't even care that everyone else on the bus is staring at them.