Pandas on the Eastside

by Gabrielle Predergast

  Mostly I thought about the pandas, and how they were going to have a new home in Washington, and how happy they were going to make people there. I knew that’s all they wanted from life—to make people happy. Then I knew for sure that was all I wanted too. I had made people happy, just like I’d wanted to. I had turned people’s eyes away from the puddles and the steamy school and the smell of Jack’s coat and the dirt and the poverty. I had made them look at each other instead and see friends. I had let them see the pandas and see beauty.

  I had changed the world. Me. Journey Wind Song Flanagan Chaparro had changed the world.

  With all the help I had, it didn’t even seem that hard.

  Author’s Note

  In 1972 the government of China gifted two giant pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, to the people of the United States in a friendly gesture that has come to be known as “Panda Diplomacy.” Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing lived long, lazy panda lives in their enclosure at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, and their playful antics were enjoyed by many millions of visitors. Since then China has given or loaned pandas to zoos in countries all over the world, strengthening their ties with those countries as well as establishing giant pandas as ambassadors for China and the wildlife-preservation movement.

  The relationship between the US and China in 1972 was somewhat fraught, the US embroiled in the Vietnam War, and China deeply entrenched in communism and anti-American sentiment. Despite that, the gift of Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing and their arrival in the US went off without incident.

  This book imagines a “what-if” situation in which the pandas’ journey was not quite so smooth.

  Acknowledgments

  First, I would like to thank the people of the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, British Columbia, for always retaining their pride in the face of criticism and scorn. Like all lower-income downtown neighborhoods throughout the world, the DTES has its share of problems. But it also has a rich history and a diverse population of artists, business owners, families, new arrivals, students and professionals. I hope that in spinning this little yarn, I will help readers see this part of the world and all urban “slums” in a gentler, more understanding light.

  Thanks to Kris and Carolyn for believing in this book and to Sarah for once again being an editor who gets me. I couldn’t have written this book without the support of my husband, Len, who works in the DTES every day and rarely complains, and my daughter, Lucy, who is turning out to be a great little beta reader.

  Finally, thanks to Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, two pandas who probably never knew how important they were.

  Gabrielle Prendergast wrote her first book in crayon at the age of about four and has seldom stopped making up stories since. She is the author of two YA verse novels, Audacious and Capricious, and Frail Days in the Orca Limelights series. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband and daughter.