by J. Burchett
They arrived at the wooden gates of the sanctuary. It appeared open but no one was sitting at the ticket booth. They could hear Chinese voices and the sound of hammering and sawing.
“I can’t see any tourists,” said Zoe, peering round, worried. “I hope it’s open.”
“Can I help you?” said a voice in English. A Chinese man in a white coat was approaching. There was a solemn young girl with him who stared at them from under a thick fringe of shiny dark hair. She wore a blue sweatshirt with a panda logo. She looked about seven.
“We’d like to see round the sanctuary please,” said Zoe. “Is that possible?”
“Our guides are all busy,” said the man, with an apologetic shrug. “They’re doing repair work. I don’t like to turn visitors away, but I’m afraid there can be no tours today.”
“I can show them round, Father,” said the girl, pulling at his sleeve. She spoke in Sichuanese and Zoe and Ben had to pretend they hadn’t understood. “We won’t get in the way, I promise,” the little girl went on.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” replied the man, also in his own language. “We’re in such confusion here.”
Ben and Zoe had no choice but to turn and walk away, desperately hoping the man would agree with his daughter before they had gone too far. “Walk slowly,” muttered Ben.
“Go on, Father,” they heard the little girl beg.
The man sighed. “Wait a minute, please,” he called in English. Ben and Zoe spun round. “My daughter, Xu Mei, knows a lot about what we do here and will show you round. There will be no charge, of course.”
“Thank you so much!” cried Ben and Zoe, running back eagerly.
“That’s settled then,” said the man. He patted his daughter on the head and went off to one of the buildings.
“Come with me, please,” said Xu Mei in English, grinning broadly.
“You speak our language very well,” said Zoe.
“I learn it at school,” said Xu Mei. “What are your names?”
“She’s Zoe and I’m Ben.”
Xu Mei gave them a small polite nod, then led them between two grey stone buildings into a courtyard. People in blue sanctuary sweatshirts were carrying buckets of vegetables and planks of wood about. They smiled at the children and carried on with their jobs.
“This is the visitors’ area,” said Xu Mei, with a sweep of her arm. “Here’s the café and the gift shop, and over there is the information office.”
A red banner with some gold Chinese characters hung over the open door that Xu Mei was pointing to. ‘Find out all about our pandas’, it said in English underneath. Through the doorway they could see a large, brightly lit room. Inside, display boards showed photographs and descriptions of life at the sanctuary.
“And there is the enclosure for the panda cubs.” She smiled shyly at them and nodded towards a solid wooden fence. “That’s my favourite place.”
Zoe raced across the courtyard and looked eagerly over the fence. The grassy compound beyond was much lower than the courtyard. There were wooden huts around the edge with small entry doors and what looked like a child’s climbing frame in the centre. A group of young pandas was playing on it, tumbling slowly over each other, biting each other’s ears and paws. Others were lumbering about on the grass, or lazing on their backs, chewing bamboo.
“I’d love to go in and just hug them!” breathed Zoe.
“You could be their mummy!” teased Ben.
“They do need a mother,” said Xu Mei earnestly. “They are all…what is the word…orphans. They are just the same as little children. People think they like to live alone but these little ones are very friendly – with each other and their keepers. I even go in and play sometimes – when a grown-up is there.”
Zoe looked enviously at her.
“That’s bamboo, isn’t it?” said Ben, pointing at a little thicket of tall, waving plants in the corner, “and I can see you give them vegetables. I’ve read all about it. They’re given vitamins, rice, honey, carrots and apples. And a special bread.”
“We give them milk as well,” Xu Mei told them. “In bottles just like babies have. They grow much bigger than pandas in the wild.
Wild pandas have to eat bamboo all day just to get enough goodness.”
“Did all your pandas survive the earthquake?” asked Zoe, with a glance at Ben. She knew they mustn’t admit they already knew about the lost panda. They had to hear it from Xu Mei. Keeping Wild a secret made things difficult at times.
“Yes,” said their guide, “but they were very scared and some of the buildings fell down.” Her face fell. “Then last week one of the panda cubs escaped from here. The fence got broken by an aftershock, you see.”
“Oh dear,” said Ben gently. “Has it been found?”
Xu Mei shook her head. “We all searched for him but we have no more time now. He was my favourite.” Her eyes filled with tears. “There are clouded leopards in the forest. My father has seen one attack a wild panda there. Jing Jing is in big danger.”
CHAPTER
THREE
“That’s terrible,” said Zoe. “Do you have any idea where he went?”
At that Xu Mei began to cry, her body shaking with sobs. Zoe felt awful. They needed to find out all they could about Jing Jing, but she had never meant to upset the little girl like this.
She put her arm round her. “Would you show us the rest of the sanctuary?” she said. “We’d really like that and it might cheer you up. You’re a very good guide.”
Xu Mei gulped and wiped her eyes.
Zoe took her hand and led her towards the information office.
“Let’s look in here,” she said.
“What are you doing?” whispered Ben, following them in. “I know it’s a great place, but if we’re going to find out about Jing Jing –”
“Got an idea,” Zoe whispered back.
Ben shrugged. There were times when he just had to trust that his sister knew what she was doing. He wandered around, absorbing as much information as he could about panda habits.
Zoe quickly scanned the photos on display for a picture of Jing Jing. There were tiny pink pandas in incubators, mothers with their cubs and a whole board of photos of young panda cubs sleeping and eating and playing. None of the names underneath were Jing Jing’s.
Then her gaze stopped at a picture on a wall-mounted board. It was the photo of a young girl cuddling a tiny baby panda and feeding it from a bottle. It was so young that its markings were only just beginning to show through its fuzzy white fur. “That’s you, isn’t it?” she asked Xu Mei, who was following her silently round the display. “And the panda?” she added.
“Jing Jing,” Xu Mei said, almost in a whisper. “He is the one who is lost.”
She pointed to the next photo. It showed a line of tubby panda cubs with their noses deep in their feeding bowls. “Jing Jing is the one at the end,” she explained. “He is trying to eat his friend’s dinner.”
“And this one is me with Jing Jing,” Xu Mei said, smiling sadly.
“He is much bigger now,” she explained. “He is one. He was only a few days old when my father found him in the wild. He was with his mother, but she was dead. He was half underneath her and his back paw was squashed. The one on the left. It’s a funny shape now and two claws are missing.”
Ben gave Zoe a secret thumbs up as Xu Mei moved along the display. This must be Zoe’s way of getting the information they needed – and it seemed to be working.
“What had happened to his mother?” asked Ben.
“She had not got enough food,” said Xu Mei. “The bamboo where she was living had died.”
“It was lucky your father found Jing Jing when he did,” said Zoe.
“I do not think Jing Jing will be so lucky this time,” said Xu Mei desperately. “He cannot live for long on his own in the wild.
He will not know what to do to eat and how to keep safe. He might not find any bamboo. I wanted to go and search for
him but my father said no, it is too dangerous for me in the mountains. Remember the leopards I told you about?” A tear ran down her cheek. “Poor little Jing Jing. I hope he doesn’t meet one.”
Zoe took her hand. “Supposing we look for him,” she said. “Ben and I, I mean.”
Xu Mei stared at her with sudden hope in her eyes.
“You can do that?” she said. Then she shook her head. “But how? You do not know these mountains.”
“Jing Jing may not have got that far,” explained Ben. “He could be hiding somewhere close by, too terrified to move.”
For the first time Xu Mei’s face broke into a smile. “Then I will come with you. I will get some of Jing Jing’s food for us to take, and a feeding bottle. He will be so hungry.” She darted out of the door.
When she had gone, Zoe gently stroked the photo of the tiny panda cub lying in Xu Mei’s arms, his little pink mouth guzzling at the bottle.
“I hope we can find him.” She sighed. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“Xu Mei is relying on us – and so is Jing Jing,” said Ben firmly. “We can’t let them down.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
“So this is where Jing Jing got out.” Ben bent down at the side of the road to examine the boarded-up area of fencing.
After returning with some panda food and a bottle, which Ben and Zoe stowed safely in their backpacks, Xu Mei had led them out of the sanctuary and straight to Jing Jing’s escape route.
“He must have squeezed through,” said Zoe. “Did he leave any paw prints?”
Xu Mei shrugged. “Lots of people were around and the ground got all messed up. We couldn’t find any.”
Zoe turned away from the sanctuary fence and looked at the land beyond. In the distance she could see water glinting off the rice fields. Just on the other side of the road was a cluster of low buildings and people working in the fields amongst a sea of waving yellow stalks.
“I recognise that crop,” said Zoe. “It’s wheat, nearly full grown. Would Jing Jing eat that?”
Xu Mei shook her head. “He wouldn’t like it,” she said. “He would have kept on going – and he would soon be lost.”
“But supposing he didn’t,” said Ben suddenly. “What if he got scared and hid in a barn or something? He could be there now.”
“Don’t be daft,” scoffed Zoe. “The sanctuary will have told everyone to be on the look out for Jing Jing. The farmer must have searched for him already.”
“He says he has but I think he has been too busy since the earthquake,” said Xu Mei.
“So it’s possible that Jing Jing is hiding on the farm!” said Ben.
Xu Mei nodded eagerly.
“Let’s ask the farmer if we can search,” suggested Zoe.
“Mr Chen is a bit grumpy,” said Xu Mei, “and he does not speak English.”
“Then it’s lucky you’re with us.” Ben grinned.
The three children walked along a wide track past a ramshackle barn. Zoe peered in, hoping to catch sight of the little panda. She got a quick glimpse of a pile of empty sacks and some straw before they moved on.
At last they reached the single storey farmhouse and stood uncertainly under the corrugated metal sheet which overhung Mr Chen’s front door. They could hear the sounds of noisy chickens from behind the house. The untidy yard was full of ladders, piles of wood and broken bricks. The ground all around was cracked and pitted from the earthquake. A dog barked from somewhere nearby.
“Still got your translation earpiece in?” Zoe whispered to her brother.
“You bet.”
“Remember we mustn’t show we understand,” Zoe reminded him in an undertone.
The door was flung open at Xu Mei’s timid knock. Mr Chen was a solemn man, and he didn’t look pleased at being disturbed.
“I know you!” He spoke rapidly in Sichuanese to the little girl. “You come from that sanctuary. What do you want?”
The translated voice was crystal clear through the BUG earpieces.
“I am so sorry to trouble you, sir,” Xu Mei said quietly, “and I hope you will forgive me.” She looked at the ground as she spoke.
Zoe was glad that it was not her and Ben negotiating. They knew so little about Chinese manners, which seemed so different from their own.
“We are trying to find the panda that got lost,” Xu Mei went on in a rush. “We would be so happy if you would let us look in your barn.”
Mr Chen sniffed. “If you have time to waste. I haven’t seen it there.”
All of a sudden, there was a faint rumbling sound and the ground beneath them vibrated for a few seconds. They flexed their knees against the movement to keep their balance.
Ben and Zoe looked at each other.
“Aftershock!”
Dust showered down from the farmhouse roof. A piece of tin sheeting slipped down and hung at a dangerous angle.
Mr Chen waved them away impatiently. “Even more work for me now. Off you go.”
Xu Mei bowed her head politely and walked away. Ben and Zoe did the same.
“He says we can look in his barn,” said Xu Mei.
They hurried over. Broken boxes and rusty tools lay about the floor. At the back, straw bales were stacked high against the wall. Ben began to poke about amongst some broken machinery in a corner while Xu Mei climbed up the mountain of bales.
“Nothing here,” she called down.
Zoe helped Ben ferret among the bits of rusting metal. “Wait!” she said suddenly. “What’s that? Behind the thing with the prongs. I can see white fur.”
There was a movement among the dark shadows. Ben got a torch out of his backpack and shone it into the corner. Xu Mei immediately leapt down to join them. She dropped to her hands and knees and wriggled under the dirty machinery.
“Jing Jing!” she called softly.
“Yowwwwl!”
A scrawny white cat shot past her outstretched hand and disappeared behind the straw.
“I’m so sorry,” said Zoe. “I got your hopes up for nothing. I don’t think Jing Jing can be here, Xu Mei. We’d better –”
She stopped. Behind them something had come into the barn. Then there was a terrifying sound that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up on end.
CHAPTER
FIVE
A deep, threatening growl filled the barn. The children turned slowly to see a guard dog in the doorway, teeth bared. It was squarely built and strong – and it looked angry.
“Back off, everybody,” muttered Ben out of the side of his mouth. “But no sudden movements.”
“And don’t look it in the eye,” added Zoe.
Keeping their gaze lowered, the three children shuffled backwards until they felt the sharp stalks of straw against their legs.
The dog advanced, snarling all the time, its heavy chain dragging behind.
“Good thing it’s tied up,” said Ben. “I don’t think it can reach us.”
“Yes it can,” wailed Xu Mei.
At the end of the chain a stake was being dragged across the ground.
“It must have come loose in the aftershock,” gasped Zoe. “Climb – as fast as you can!”
Turning in an instant, they scrambled up the straw mountain. The dog lunged, snapping at the air beneath their feet. Zoe felt its hot breath on her ankle. The dog hurled itself at the straw bales again but they were too high and it fell back, snarling.
“We’re stuck!” cried Xu Mei.
Zoe peered down at the dog who was clawing away at the straw, veins standing out on his neck. He wasn’t going to give up until he had his quarry.
“I don’t understand,” said Zoe. “It’s a Shar Pei. The only ones I know are friendly family pets.”
“They can be trained as guard dogs though,” Ben answered. “We wouldn’t stand a chance against those powerful jaws.”
Xu Mei’s eyes looked wide and frightened in the gloom. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“I can fe
el a breeze on my back,” said Zoe suddenly. She turned to investigate. “Look, the wall’s broken here. That’s where the air’s coming from.” She hooked her fingers into the split wood and pulled. It came away with a loud crack. The guard dog rapped out a fierce bark at the sound.
“Well done, Zoe. We can squeeze through,” said Ben, cautiously poking his head out. “There’s a bit of a drop but we’ll have to risk it.”
He edged in between the shattered planks, gave a push off and disappeared from sight.
Zoe looked down. Ben had landed on a pile of twigs and small logs, ready for kindling. He beckoned silently and Zoe and Xu Mei followed him. There was no sound from the dog.
They dashed for the fence, not daring to stop until they had left the farmer’s land and reached the river. After checking to make sure they hadn’t been followed, they sat down to get their breath back.
“No sign of Jing Jing,” said Xu Mei.
“We’ve only looked in one place,” said Zoe. “Let’s have some lunch and think about what we’re going to do next. We got these from the guest house we’re staying in.” She pulled out the packets Mr Zhi had given them and offered one to Xu Mei.
“Delicious!” Ben sighed as he tucked into his pancake filled with vegetables and chunks of chicken. “Ahhh!” he gasped. “Spicy!” He grabbed his bottle and took huge gulps of water.
“You must be staying at the Panda Palace Hotel,” said Xu Mei with her mouth full. “My friend Wen lives there. You saw the roof that fell in the earthquake? He got hurt.”
“Is he all right?” asked Ben.
“He was bleeding a lot,” said Xu Mei solemnly. “He is in the Chengdu Hospital. My mother said it is a pity the new medical centre is not built yet.” She pointed at the stretch of deforestation Ben and Zoe had noticed earlier. “He would have got help much quicker.”
“We should have realised the people here have a good reason for tearing up the forest,” Ben muttered to Zoe. “We were only thinking how bad it was for the pandas.”
