Panda Panic - Running Wild

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“Thank you,” he said, getting to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy.”

“You! Busy!” sniggered Choo. “The last time I saw a busy panda was never!”

“He’s busy paddling in the water,” snorted Foo.

“Paddling’s for babies,” Choo roared. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be wearing armbands?”

“I am not paddling,” said Ping. “I am surfing.”

Never before had the monkeys laughed so hard. Their jags of laughter skimmed across the surface of the water like sharp stones.

“We’ve seen your surfing before, Ping, and there is only one way to describe it,” sniggered Choo. “It STINKS! Talking of which, we’ve got a new name for you – Ping PONG!”

This time the monkeys laughed so hard that they couldn’t catch their breath.

Ping had had enough of their jibes. He’d jolly well show these stupid monkeys. He waded out into the middle of the river, which was running a whole lot faster than he had thought, and hopped up on to his board. At first he found it almost impossible to get his balance. His arms whirled, his knees buckled and he wobbled around like a jack-in-the-box on a spring, but then he bent his knees, spread out his arms and sat back on his haunches… and suddenly he was in control. The current grabbed hold of his board and, with a kick like an outboard motor, whooshed him off downriver.

“Wooooohooooo!” Ping yelled. “I’m doing it! I’m the King of the Surf!” He couldn’t see them, but he could hear quite distinctly that the monkeys had stopped laughing. The river bent sharply to the right, allowing Ping to glance back over his shoulder, where, to his delight, he saw that the monkeys were so shocked to see him surfing that they had fallen out of their trees and were thrashing around in the water trying to get out.

“You should have had some armbands!” hollered Ping. “So long, suckers!” And with a final cry of, “Now you see me, now you don’t!” he disappeared round the bend.

The River Trickle twisted and turned through the Wolagong Nature Reserve like a miniature train in a zoo. It carried Ping past all of the other pandas, who seemed strangely unperturbed by the extraordinary sight, as if a panda on a surfboard was something they saw every day. They turned their gentle eyes to watch him pass, but not once did they stop chewing.

Ping floated past the fat ranger, who was madly searching for something in the garden outside his office. Upon hearing Ping’s cry of “Cowabunga!” the fat ranger lifted his head out of a bush and pointed at Ping’s surfboard.

“There it is!” he screamed. “There’s my back door!”

“Back door!” gulped Ping, looking down at the board beneath his feet. Now that he studied it more closely he noticed that it had a handle and a cat flap. The fat ranger loved his cats.

“And the paint’s wet!” shouted the fat ranger.

Nothing I can do about that, thought Ping. That’s the problem with surfing – everything gets wet… my face, my legs, my feet, the board, the paint. He noticed that the fat ranger was waving a paintbrush. “Oh, I see what you mean!” gasped Ping, lifting up his feet to discover that underneath they were bright green. “You mean the paint’s still wet. Sorry!” he cried as he sailed past. “I’ll have the door back in two shakes of a cat’s tail.”

But the cats would have to wait a little longer than that, because Ping’s bright-green door-board showed no sign of stopping.

“Look at meeeeeeee!” Ping screamed, punching the air for all he was worth. “I’m living the dream!”

An hour later, swept along by the roaring river, Ping was miles away from home, in a part of the reserve he had never been to before. At last, he was in the middle of his own adventure. It was all he’d ever wanted. And it felt good.

he further downriver Ping went the more he discovered that there was nothing about surfing that he did not love – the spray in his eyes, the wind in his ears, the zip of his board across the water and the thrill of knowing that at any moment he might wipe out and crash in a waterball of arms and legs. He even liked it when frogs jumped off the bank and joined him on the fat ranger’s back door. They would sit at his feet and together they would make up songs about surfing and sing them at the top of their lungs while the water roared around them.

We’re brave, we’re brave, we’re on a wave,

We’re wet the whole way through.

We’re great, we’re great, when we do skate

On rivers deep and blue.

Our floor, our floor, is fatty’s door,

No time to eat bamboo.

The rocks, the rocks scare off our socks,

I really need a poo!

Ping sang the last line on his own. The frogs stopped the moment they heard the words and looked at Ping with their wide mouths wide open.

“That is the rudest thing I have ever heard,” croaked a matronly frog called Lu Chu. “What possessed you to sing it?”

“I need a poo,” said Ping matter-of-factly. “It’s no big deal. We pandas poo forty-seven times a day. We talk about it all the time.”

“Well, we DON’T!” harrumphed Lu Chu. “Our best friends are the high-born emperor ducks, and if they were ever to hear us croaking such crudities they would terminate our friendship immediately!” And with that she belly-flopped into the water and disappeared in a ripple of red rage.

When he wasn’t singing with frogs, Ping was making all kinds of other friends. He gave extreme-waterskiing lessons to baby crocodiles by letting them hang on to his tail with their teeth. “There’s only one rule,” he informed them at the start of each lesson. “No biting!”

He rescued a squirrel from a floating log, skimmed over the backs of water buffalo as they waded across the river in front of him and, with a cry of, “Bullseye!” he jumped through the body loops of a surprised python while it dangled from a tree.

But by far his favourite friends were the fish, which swam alongside his board and jumped out of the water like hungry dogs leaping for a juicy steak on a hook in a butcher’s shop.

“What sort of fish are you?” Ping asked one of them, a cod-faced fellow with whiskers.

“A catfish,” the fish replied.

“Does that mean you’re half cat and half fish?” enquired Ping. “Does the cat half of you look at the fish half of you and think, ‘Gosh! I look delicious. I could happily eat myself with a saucer of milk’?”

“Funnily enough, no,” said the fish gloomily. “I’m a fish through and through. Are you a pandafish?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Ping. “I’m a panda through and through. I know it looks like I’m swimming, but actually I’m standing on a surfboard.”

“Well, there you are,” said the catfish, diving back into the water. “Don’t ask such stupid questions!”

“Ignore him,” shouted the other fish. “He’s been grumpy ever since the day he was spawned. Play with us instead.”

For the next hour Ping happily surfed with the fishes, until suddenly, not looking where he was going, he ran over a submerged rock. It acted like a ramp and before he knew what was happening his surfboard had taken off. Ping found himself flying through the air in the middle of a flock of chattering parrots.

“It’s a flying panda!” they screeched. “Ooh, look at you with your great big arms and your funny flat feet.”

“That’s not my feet, it’s a surfboard,” explained Ping. “And I’m not really flying.”

But nobody was listening. Parrots love the sound of their own voices, which is why they never stop talking. Regardless of what Ping said they simply carried on squawking.

“Panda bird! Panda bird! We’ve never seen a bird that’s furred!”

Then suddenly a cold shadow fell across the flock, and with a shriek of terror they were gone. For a fleeting moment, Ping’s imagination took over. Why would parrots flee in fear from a shadow? What was it in the sky above him… plunging down towards the top of his head… probably with claws? Surely not a snow leopard? No. Even as he entertained this thought Ping realised it was ridiculous. Snow leopards couldn’t fly. Then again, neither could pandas. With a big splash that brought him back to his senses, Ping’s surfboard reconnected with the water and, steadying himself, he dared to look up. Above him, with a wingspan twice as wide as the stretch of his own arms, was an eagle – a majestic beast complete with hooked beak, razor-sharp talons and a gimlet eye.