For Ben, Jack, Charlotte, Jolyon, Isabel and Robbie who at some stage in their lives have all run around with a Little Bear behind.
Contents
Dedication
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