Panda Panic (4 page)

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 onto 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 favorite friends were the fish, who 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?” inquired 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 cup 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 fish, 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 of a shadow? What was it in the sky above him—plunging down toward the top of his head—probably with claws? Surely not a snow leopard. No. Even as he entertained this thought Ping realized 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.

“Don't eat me!” shouted Ping fearfully as the proud eagle leveled out and flew alongside him.

“Eat you?” the eagle sneered. “Why on earth would I want to eat
you
? You're not a fish, are you?”

Ping shook his head.

“It's fish I love,” the eagle explained. “I spotted you from a mile up, flying with those noisy parrots and I thought I'd come down and see what you were. What are you?”

“I'm a giant panda,” said Ping, just as his board hit a second rock and took off again. The eagle rose effortlessly and stayed in close formation.

“I didn't know pandas could fly,” he said doubtingly, looking down his beak at Ping.

“I'm not just any panda,” Ping said as he splashed down again. “I'm the fastest panda in the East!”

“Pandas? Fast?” scoffed the eagle. “Don't make me laugh. From what I've seen pandas are the slowest creatures on earth. All you do is sit around all day eating and pooing.”

“I'm not doing that now, am I?” said Ping.

The eagle had to admit that he wasn't.

“Come on,” pressed Ping, “I bet I'm faster than you.”

“That is an absurd notion,” the eagle said contemptuously. “That is like saying a two-toed sloth is faster than a four-legged cheetah.”

“Then you won't mind having a race,” cried Ping, who was always up for a challenge. “Down to the third bend. On your mark, get set, go!”

And before the eagle could make his excuses, Ping shot off down the river, putting clear water between himself and his rival. The eagle gave chase, cutting through the air like an arrow, but the river was running fast and Ping was able to maintain his lead. In fact, Ping noted with alarm, the river was running
very
fast and the current was getting stronger. Much stronger. It felt like he was traveling on a runaway train going downhill. The riverbank flashed past in a blur as Ping hurriedly twisted and turned around the rocks that kept popping up in front of him. He was moving so fast that he could only snatch a quick glance behind him to check on his rival's position. The eagle was struggling to keep up.

“Who's faster now?” Ping screamed, sensing that victory was his.

“You are!” shouted the eagle. “Stop!”

“I'm not falling for that old trick,” Ping laughed. “You get me to stop, then fly straight past me. Forget it!” He set his eyes on the finishing post, but the flock of parrots suddenly reappeared and blocked his view. “Out of the way! Winner coming through!” Ping hollered as they hovered in front of him, frantically flapping their wings.

“Turn back,” they squawked. “Turn back, you fool!”

“The eagle's put you up to this, hasn't he?” yelled Ping. “He can't win fairly so he resorts to trickery.”

The parrots mouthed a reply, but Ping could not hear them over the roar of the river. Its sound had changed. The constant rumble was louder now—deeper and more threatening—and the air was full of tiny drops of water as if it was raining, yet the sky was cloud-free. In a flash, Ping realized what the birds were trying to tell him.

“Waterfall!” he screamed in panic as the current whipped his board around the next bend and revealed, through a cloud of fine mist, a one-hundred-foot-drop into a rockpool bubbling with frothy white water. It was too late to stop. Before Ping had time even to think about saving himself, the current hurled him out into the middle of nowhere. His surfboard dropped out of sight and for one brief, terrifying second, he seemed to hang in midair as if suspended on elastic. Ping had wished for many things in his life, but right now he would have swapped them all for just one—he wished that he'd listened to his mother's warning about not going near the river.

And then the elastic snapped and he went into a freefall.

CHAPTER FOUR

W
hile he was falling Ping must have bumped his head, because when he woke up he had no memory of how he'd ended up where he was. He was lying in the shallows of the riverbank with his head out of the water, resting on a log.

He stood up, shook the water out of his fur, and stepped onto dry land. This part of the forest was quite different from where Ping normally lived. The trees were tall and shaded the forest floor, which was as dark and gloomy as an open mouth. Ping shivered. Where was he and what were all those strange noises he could hear? The cry of a bird that sounded like a scream, the plop of a slithering beast as it slipped into the water, the whistle of an eerie wind. One thing was certain—Ping was lost.

“No. Stop! This is stupid,” Ping said out loud to himself. “Being scared is getting me nowhere. I wanted an adventure and an adventure I've got—just not the one I was planning to have! No, I shall be brave and walk along the riverbank until I find someone to help me.” Ping found that if he talked out loud it made him feel like somebody else was walking alongside him, and that made everything seem a little less scary.