A Perfect Time for Pandas: A Merlin Mission (3 page)

“Now let’s go meet some of our panda keepers!” said Dr. Ling. She led the group over a stone walkway beside bamboo woods. Near a goldfish pond, several men in blue coveralls were waiting for them.

“These gentlemen are the panda keepers,” said Dr. Ling. “You volunteers will work in pairs in the different panda houses. Each pair will spend a little time helping take care of a panda.” She pointed to Jack and Annie. “You two go with Master Lee. He’s
Bing-Bing’s keeper. He’ll take you to her house. I hope your grandmother doesn’t mind.”

Sylvia smiled. “Oh! I’m not—” she started to say.

“Bye, Grandma!” Annie said with a laugh.

Sylvia laughed, too, as if she thought Annie was making a joke, and she waved good-bye.

“See you later!” Annie called. Then she grabbed Jack by the arm again and pulled him along after Master Lee.

Master Lee was quiet and very serious-looking. Without a word, he led Jack and Annie to Bing-Bing’s house. The panda’s house was a giant cage with a door that opened into a yard. The yard was surrounded by a rock wall.

“Bing-Bing lives by herself here,” Master Lee said. “She is an eight-year-old adult who joined us when she was quite small.”

When they entered the cage, Jack saw leaves and bamboo stalks scattered across the concrete floor. But there was no panda inside.

“Where’s Bing-Bing now?” said Annie.

“Somewhere in her yard,” said Master Lee.
He grabbed two brooms from the corner.

Jack and Annie looked through the bars at the yard. They saw trees and bushes, but no sign of a giant panda.

“She must have found a good hiding place,” said Annie.

“Yes. I do not think you will see her today,” Master Lee said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, no,” said Annie.

“Can we look for her?” asked Jack.

“No, Bing-Bing is very shy. We have to respect that,” said Master Lee. “I am going to get fresh bamboo now. You can clean her house by removing yesterday’s uneaten bamboo stalks and sweeping the floor.” He handed brooms to Jack and Annie.

“Is bamboo Bing-Bing’s favorite food?” asked Jack.

“Yes,
all
pandas eat bamboo for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” said Master Lee.

“Wow, they must really love it,” said Annie.

“Can humans eat bamboo, too?” Jack asked.

“If they tried, they would break their teeth,”
Master Lee answered without smiling. “Only a creature with superstrong jaws can eat bamboo.”

“So it’s very tough,” said Jack, growing excited. “Is it as tough as
wood
?”

“Well, yes …,” said Master Lee.

“And I’ll bet it’s really healthy, too!” said Annie.

“Uh, no …,” said Master Lee. “Bamboo is
not
very nutritious. That’s why a panda must eat a lot of it. Some pandas at the center eat eighty pounds a day.”

“Oh, okay,” said Annie, her shoulders sagging. “And I guess it’s not baked with love, either. Is it?”

Master Lee stared at Annie. He looked confused. “No … of course not,” he said.

“Darn,” said Annie.

Jack was embarrassed.
Like the waiter in the restaurant, Master Lee must think we’re really weird
, he thought.

“Well!” said Master Lee. “Shall we get to work now?”

“Sure,” said Annie.

“Sweep up the stalks, as well as the panda waste,” said Master Lee. “Then discard everything there.” He pointed to a trash bin in the cage.

“Panda waste?” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Master Lee. Seeing Jack’s expression, he added, “It’s not bad, I promise you. Their droppings look like little dry straw baskets.”

Jack looked around. He saw what he thought Master Lee was talking about. It didn’t look that bad.

“I will be back,” said Master Lee. “I am going to get fresh bamboo from the farmer’s truck.” Master Lee then left through the door at the back of the cage.

“Darn,” said Jack, “we struck out.”

“No special food here,” said Annie. She looked out in the yard. “And no panda here, either. I really want to see Bing-Bing!”

“How did this happen?” said Jack. “We should be working on our mission. Not stuck in a cage picking up panda poop.”

Annie giggled. “Don’t worry, we’ll leave soon,” she said. “Let’s just do our job first. It’s nice to help out here.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Jack. “Sweep fast.”

Jack and Annie began sweeping up old bamboo stalks and panda droppings. Jack filled a dustpan. As he dumped everything into the trash bin, Annie gasped.

“I see her!” she whispered. “She’s up in a tree!”

J
ack put on his brakes and jumped off his bike. Annie did the same. A huge boulder crashed down the mountain slope beside them. The boulder slammed onto the road right in front of them. They looked around wildly. Rocks were sliding and tumbling. Trees were whipping back and forth and then breaking apart. Branches, rocks, and dirt cascaded down the slope.

As Jack tried to figure out what to do, another boulder tumbled down—and then another! Jack pulled Annie off the road. They scrambled into a
rocky crevice and huddled down. Clods of dirt hit their bike helmets.

The ground finally stopped shaking and rumbling. For a moment, neither Jack nor Annie said anything. Then Jack uttered one word:
“Earthquake.”

“I know,” Annie said hoarsely. “Like—like that earthquake we lived through in San Francisco.”

“Except there,
buildings
crumbled around us,” said Jack. “Here, it’s mountains.”

“I think it’s stopped,” said Annie. “Let’s look.”

Annie started to stand up, but Jack pulled her back down. “Wait!” The ground had started shaking again. “Aftershock!” he said. “Watch out—more stuff might fall.”

No sooner had Jack said that than another enormous boulder crashed to the ground. Then another one tumbled down. The earth stopped trembling again, but the air was so thick with dust and grit that it made Jack’s eyes burn.

“I wonder if the pandas are all right,” said Annie.

“Oh, man!” said Jack. “Bing-Bing!” He pictured the giant panda in her yard, trapped under a rock or a tree!

“We’ve got to go back!” said Annie.

“I know!” said Jack. They both scrambled out to the road. “Where are our bikes?”

Jack and Annie looked around. As the dust settled, they saw massive damage up and down the highway. Fallen rocks, mud, and trees blocked both the way to Wolong Town and the way back to the panda center. A boulder the size of a car had crushed both their bikes.

Jack and Annie took off their helmets and dropped them to the ground. “We can’t go back to the panda center now,” said Annie. “We can’t go to town. We can’t go anywhere.”

“No kidding,” said Jack. “You’d have to be King Kong to get over this stuff.”

“King Kong,” Annie repeated. Then she looked at Jack and grinned.

“What?” he said.

“King Kong. No problem,” she said. “We can do it.”

“Do what?” said Jack.

“Turn into King Kongs!” said Annie. “Well, not quite as big as King Kong, maybe, but we could be five times bigger than we are now.”

“Ohhhh,” said Jack. He’d forgotten all about their magic potion!

“It’s perfect,” said Annie. “It’s the only way we can get out of here.”

“Yeah …,” said Jack, letting out a long breath. He reached into his backpack and took out the small bottle that held the potion.

“Five times our size,” said Annie. “You’re almost five feet tall. So you’ll be almost twenty-five feet tall. And I’ll be just a little shorter.”

“Right,” said Jack.

“But we can only use it once,” said Annie. “And we only have an hour.
And
we have to choose which way to go: back to Wolong Town or back to the panda center. If we go to town, we can keep
looking for the special food to save Penny—if the restaurants are still standing.”

“Plus we can leave in the tree house whenever we’re ready,” said Jack.

“Right,” said Annie. “But we’d have to leave Bing-Bing and the rest of the pandas behind. And we wouldn’t know what happened to them, and we wouldn’t be able to help.”

Jack stared at the bottle. It was a terrible choice. Then he thought of something. “Remember on our last mission, you said that when we do the right thing, it feels like it somehow helps Penny—even if it seems to take us
away
from our goal?”

Annie smiled. “Yep, and everything worked out on that mission, didn’t it?”

Jack nodded.

“Panda center!” they said together.

“You take a sip first,” said Annie.

Jack popped the tiny cork out of the bottle. He tilted his head back and took a quick sip. He licked
his lips, then held the bottle out to Annie.

Just as Annie took the bottle from Jack, the ground trembled with another aftershock.

Jack started to shake.

“Yikes!” cried Annie.

The aftershock ended, and the ground stopped trembling. But Jack kept shaking.

Annie yelled something, but Jack couldn’t understand what she was saying. His body was still quaking. He had started to grow!

J
ack felt as if someone was gripping his head—and pulling him up, and up, and up! He looked down and watched his arms and hands stretch out. His legs grew longer, his feet bigger.

Jack rocked back and forth, then stood still. He had stopped stretching and growing. His shoes, clothes, and backpack had all grown bigger to fit his new body.

“Jack!” Annie’s voice sounded distant.

Peering through the dust, Jack looked around for Annie.

“Jack! Down here!”

Jack looked down. Annie was standing next to him. She only came up to his knees! “I dropped the bottle and it broke!” she said. “I didn’t get to drink the potion!”

“Oh, no!” Jack boomed. Even his voice was bigger. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re huge!” said Annie. “How does it feel? Is it fun?”

“Not yet,” said Jack.

The earth trembled again with another aftershock. Annie lost her balance and fell. Jack leaned over and picked her up with both hands. He placed her on one of his giant shoulders.