Читать книгу Panda Panic - Running Wild - Jamie Rix, Jamie Rix - Страница 6

hey were the ugliest bandits that Ping had ever seen – faces as creased as twisted towels and scars as thick as earthworms. They had snatched the Emperor of China from his golden carriage while he was visiting Emperor Qin’s terracotta army at the Great Wall, thrown him across the back of a horse and were preparing to escape into the hills with their prize. People stood around horrified, not knowing what to do. Only one person could save the kingdom. Ping the Unpetrified! The Emperor’s bodyguard! Standing up on his back legs beside the pottery warriors, the panda cub sucked in his fat tummy, held his breath and raised his head in a noble, warrior-like way. He was so perfectly camouflaged amongst the statues that the bandits walked right past him without so much as a glance in his direction. That was their mistake.

Ping leapt out behind them.

“Where are you going with my Emperor?” he growled.

“And who are you?” snarled Stinkie McScar, the bandit leader, as he turned round slowly and spat out a tooth.

“The name’s Ping!” said Ping. Then with a bloodcurdling wail of “Banshai!” he sprang forward, floored Stinkie with a ninja kick, snatched the Emperor off the horse and set off at a run down the Great Wall of China with the bandits giving chase.

“Where are you taking me?” the Emperor screamed as he bounced up and down on the panda cub’s back.

“To safety,” came Ping’s steely reply. “Now shut your royal cakehole and hold your breath.” And with that, Ping leapt off the top of the Great Wall and plunged three hundred feet into the river below. The water was cold and the current strong, but Ping was a powerful swimmer and in less than six strokes he had the Emperor safe on the bank.

“My moustache is wet,” said the Emperor.

“Just be thankful you’ve still got a head to grow one on,” said Ping. “We’re not out of the woods yet, Your Emperorship.”

Screaming blue murder, the bandits burst out of the trees and ran towards them. Ping wrapped his arms round the Emperor’s waist and back-flipped on to the top of a mound of dry earth.

“We’re safe up here,” he said. “Now blow them a raspberry.”

“But I’m an Emperor,” said the Emperor. “And Emperors must remain dignified at all times.”

“Then it’s lucky I’m here!” roared Ping, spinning round, waggling his bottom andblowing a raspberry at Stinkie McScar through his legs. Inflamed by the panda cub’s insult, the bandits charged, but just as they were within striking distance, Ping grabbed the Emperor for a second time and somersaulted off the mound.

“Hey, ugly muglies,” Ping shouted up at the bandits, who were now standing in a huddle on the top. “Check out what’s under your feet.” Even as he spoke the mound collapsed under their weight and the bandits were plunged into a nest of deadly termites, that crawled inside their heads and gobbled them up from the inside out.

That was when Ping woke up.

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” he groaned, taking in his surroundings. “Another day, another daydream.”

It was first thing in the morning, and Ping was lying on a bed of rhododendron leaves in a clearing in the Wolagong Nature Reserve. Next to him lay his mother, Mao Mao, and twin sister, An, both smiling serenely as they chomped on opposite ends of the same stick of bamboo.

“Bamboo in bed,” smiled Ping’s mother. “Heavenly. Do you want some, Ping?”

Ping shook his head.

“What were you dreaming about?” demanded his sister. “You were sucking in your tummy and jumping up and down and twirling your arms around like a windmill.”

“None of your business,” Ping said grumpily.

“You were dreaming about being the Emperor’s bodyguard again, weren’t you?” she snorted.

“Might have been,” said Ping evasively. “I don’t see why you think it’s so funny.”

“Because you’re a lazy, fat panda, not a fit, muscled action hero! The only way you could guard the Emperor is if you wedged yourself into the doorway of his bedroom so that nobody could get in.”

“If you must know, I was dreaming that I was actually doing something for once.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m bored!” he shouted. It wasn’t that Ping didn’t like eating bamboo, or digging a hole in the forest forty-seven times a day so that he could have yet another poo, or even that he objected to smiling continuously for the visitors’ clickety-clack cameras, but when that was ALL he ever did, his life quickly became rather boring.

“I’ve had an idea,” he said, jumping to his feet enthusiastically.

“Oh, here we go,” said An with a sigh.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, here we go’? I haven’t gone anywhere yet,” protested Ping. “If you don’t mind me saying so, An, that’s a rotten thing for a brother to hear from his sister just after he’s woken up.”

“It’s because you say the same thing every morning,” she explained. Then, adopting a look of mock excitement, she mimicked Ping’s voice. “‘Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! An! Listen. I’ve had a completely brilliant idea. I was wondering how you felt about climbing a tree today?’” She stopped imitating Ping and spoke in her own voice again. “The same as I always feel about climbing a tree, Ping. The same as I feel about swimming across a river, or rolling down a hill, or running in a race, or throwing a stick. I would rather I was sitting here eating bamboo with Mummy.”

“You’d never make an adventurer,” Ping observed.

“I don’t want to be an adventurer,” she said. “I’m happy at home.”

“As should you be, Ping,” his mother interjected. “A stranger who walks in a strange land knows not where to hide from the toothsome smile of a predator.” Ping had never been able to understand his mother’s sayings. It seemed to him that she just picked out unrelated words and arranged them at random into baffling sentences.

“You don’t understand what Mummy’s just said, do you?” jeered An. “You’re trying to look like you do, but you haven’t got a clue!”

“Of course I understand,” said Ping. “It’s got something to do with going on holiday and forgetting your toothbrush… I think.”

“Wrong,” said his sister, smugly. “It means that I am the clever one and you are not, because I do understand it. It means that panda cubs are safer at home, because the rainy season’s just finished and the snow leopards are coming down from the mountains looking for food!”

“I’m not scared of snow leopards!” Ping scoffed. “Is that why you won’t go exploring with me?”

“Yes,” said An. “When I’m at home I know where to hide. And that is why, in case you were wondering, I’m so much better at hide-and-seek than you.”

“No, you’re not!” said Ping. Then, realising he could turn this to his advantage, he added, “Prove it!”

An yawned.

“You don’t catch me out that easily,” she said. “Besides, I’m too young and pretty to be a snow leopard snack just yet, but you go ahead if you want to.”

Their mother chuckled.

“Nobody’s going to be eaten by a snow leopard,” she said.

“At least it would be a bit of excitement,” Ping replied, without thinking.

“That is a ridiculous thing to say,” his mother sighed. “The wise panda searches not for what he does not have, but is content with what is his.”

Ping was baffled again and scratched his head.

“Master the art of boredom,” she explained further, “and you will conquer the world.”

“How can you master boredom?” he asked. “Boredom’s just boring.”

“If you’re bored,” she said quietly, “it’s up to you to go off and find something to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like fishing,” she suggested.

“Fishing’s boring,” said Ping.

“Fishing’s safe,” his mother said.

“So long as you don’t fall into the water,” sniggered An. “Which Ping probably would, because he’s as clumsy as a fat fairy in concrete boots.”

“And it is the end of the rainy season, so the river’s running rather fast at the moment,” said his mother anxiously. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind, Ping. Maybe fishing’s not a good idea. Why don’t you ask your best friend, Hui, to play with you?”

Hui was a bright-blue grandala bird who entertained Ping for hours with his exciting stories about flying around the world.

“Because he’s busy catching insects for his winter nest,” said Ping. “He said I could help him, but I hate bugs. They nest in my fur and tickle me.” Ping scratched his nose and tipped back his head to look at the sky. “You know, sometimes I wish I wasn’t a panda. Sometimes I wish I was a bird, like Hui, because birds can go wherever they like.”

“You can’t be a bird,” said An, “because birds have got a head for heights. You’ve got a head for basketball.”

“I’m not staying here to be insulted,” Ping said, standing up in a huff. “And anyway, if my head is the shape of a basketball, yours must be too. So there!”

“Will you two please stop arguing,” said their mother. “You can go off and have a silly adventure, Ping, but don’t do anything dangerous, make sure you’re back for supper, and watch out for snow leopards!”

“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” he grumbled, kicking his way through a bamboo hedge and stomping out of the clearing.

The moment he was out of sight Ping felt guilty. He shouldn’t be speaking to his mother like that. After all, she was only trying to keep him safe. And she had actually met a snow leopard once, so she knew how dangerous they could be. He’d better say sorry… Yes, that would be the kind thing to do… Maybe not now, though. After he’d had his adventure. He’d do it tonight, when he came home for supper.

“Ping.”

Ping spun round, surprised to find his sister standing close behind him.

“Promise me,” she said seriously, “that whatever it is you end up doing today it won’t be anything stupid!”

Ping laughed at the very idea.

“As if I would,” he said. “As if I would!”

Then he disappeared into the bushes to find himself a surfboard.