by J. Burchett
“True,” Zoe whispered back. “Chengdu is a long way to go if you’re injured.”
They munched away at their lunch for a few moments.
“Where shall we look now?” Xu Mei carried on, fingers wrapped firmly round a bean shoot pancake. “My father said I must not go into the mountains but I think we have to.”
Zoe suddenly felt dreadfully guilty. They’d already dragged the little girl into a dangerous situation. This was their mission and they shouldn’t have risked her safety. She’d never have forgiven herself if the farmer’s dog had attacked Xu Mei. They would have to continue hunting on their own. She made a big show of looking at her watch.
“I don’t think we have time to search any more today,” she said. “Aunt Erika will be expecting us.”
Ben gave her a puzzled look. “But she’s –” “Waiting,” interrupted Zoe firmly. “So we have to go back to the hotel.”
“Listen. I’ve an idea where he could be,” said Xu Mei eagerly. “He could have gone back to where he was born – where my father found him.” She shaded her eyes and looked at the mountain slope beyond the cleared land. “It was near a big waterfall, he said. Somewhere up there.”
“I’m sorry, Xu Mei, but after meeting that dog I think we’d better leave finding Jing Jing to the grown-ups,” said Zoe, ignoring Ben’s look of astonishment.
Xu Mei’s eyes filled with tears. “But Jing Jing needs us now. You said you would find him with me.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” said Zoe.
“Tomorrow will be too late.” Xu Mei jumped to her feet. “I thought you were my friends!”
Before Ben and Zoe could stop her she ran off sobbing.
“What did you do that for, Zoe?” protested Ben. “Wild sent us here to search for Jing Jing, right?”
“And that’s just what we’re going to do,” said Zoe. “I know it looked mean but it’s not safe to take a seven-year-old with us. We’ve already led her into danger once.”
Ben nodded. “See what you mean.
So what’s our next step?”
“Xu Mei might be right about Jing Jing going back to his birthplace.”
“Don’t be silly,” scoffed Ben. “He’s not a salmon.”
“We don’t know what goes on inside an animal’s head,” insisted Zoe. “Anyway, it’s as good a place to start as any.” She pulled out her BUG and brought up an image of the area. She tapped in waterfall and pointed to the displayed map. “This has got to be it. It’s the only waterfall near enough.
Doesn’t look too far.”
“But it’s a climb so it’s going to take a lot longer than you think,” said Ben. “Let’s get going.” He stuffed the remains of the lunch in his backpack and marched off in the direction of the forest. Then he stopped suddenly. “I’ve just thought of something.”
“What?” asked Zoe.
“It was what Xu Mei said,” Ben explained.
“She told us the bamboo had all died where Jing Jing was found. I’ve read about bamboo. Whole areas die at once and then they take years to grow back. If Jing Jing has gone there…”
“…he’ll have nothing to eat!” exclaimed Zoe. “The poor thing will be starving!”
CHAPTER
SIX
“Look at this, Ben.” Zoe was crouched under a huge tree, amongst a carpet of long pine cones that lay scattered over the ground. “I’ve found tracks at last.”
Ben ran over to join her. “Are they panda?” he asked wearily. “I was beginning to think we were in the wrong place.”
The hour-long climb through the dense forest had been steep and exhausting with no sign of Jing Jing’s tracks. Twice it had rained so hard that Ben and Zoe had been forced to take shelter. Now the light was fading and they were still some way from the waterfall. The air was full of the last of the birdsong, interspersed with harsh monkey cries.
“They’re definitely panda,” insisted Zoe. “This is a front paw. There are five toes with claw marks and a pear-shaped pad. The same as on the BUG.” She held the gizmo next to the imprint in the soft earth.
“Hang on,” said Ben. He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out their night goggles. He put his on and at once everything was clear – bathed in a green glow.
He bent down to inspect the ground.
“Well done, Zoe. It’s hard to see in this light without goggles,” he said, handing over her pair. “You’re not as dim as you look!”
Ben gently felt the marks in the earth. “The prints are fresh,” he said. “They’ve still got sharp edges so they must have been made since the rain. Surely the panda can’t be far away.”
Zoe scanned the ground.
“Here’s another one,” she said eagerly. “And another. The trail goes uphill – towards the waterfall.”
“Is there a deformed print, like Jing Jing’s?”
“Haven’t found one yet,” said Zoe, still searching. “But we’d better follow. It’s the only lead we’ve got.”
As they walked on through a grove of overhanging tung trees, a strange haunting cry filled the air.
“What’s that?” hissed Zoe. “It’s really eerie.”
Ben feverishly worked his BUG identifier. “Clouded leopard,” he said. “Their cry’s not like other big cats. Xu Mei warned us about them. They’re very rare – but very dangerous. We must be careful. They attack anything up to the size of a deer. So we’d make a good meal.”
“Quick!” said Zoe. “Scent dispersers on! Then it won’t detect our smell.”
Ben and Zoe pressed the keys on their BUGs and they walked on, treading softly on leaves and small twigs.
“Can you hear that?” Ben listened hard. “The sound of water in the distance. We must be near the falls.”
But Zoe didn’t answer. She was standing in front of a clump of tall brown withered stalks sticking out at odd angles from the ground. Dead leaves and flowers hung limply from them. When she looked up she could see the sky clearly for the first time since they’d entered the forest.
“What’s happened here?” she asked.
“It’s dead bamboo,” Ben told her. He crumbled one of the dried, shrivelled flower heads in his hand. It scattered over his boots. “This is really serious for the wild pandas.”
“Do you think we’ve reached the area where Jing Jing was found when he was tiny?” said Zoe. “Xu Mei said there was dead bamboo all around and it was near the waterfall.”
“Keep following that trail,” urged Ben.
The forest twilight gradually faded to complete darkness. Ben and Zoe pushed through the thicket of sharp stalks, their boots crunching on dead wood. The trail of paw prints was getting harder to follow now. Zoe strode on ahead, keeping her eyes to the ground. Ben followed close behind. They could hear the distant waterfall.
“Wait, Zoe!” called Ben. “This looks interesting.”
They squatted down beside a faint imprint in the mud.
“It’s a back paw,” said Zoe, in excitement, “and there’s only three toes. It has to be Jing Jing’s. There must be more somewhere around here.”
They poked about in the bamboo, scratching their arms on the broken twigs.
Suddenly there was a tremendous pattering above their heads and heavy rain pounded down through the leaves. They quickly pulled on their waterproofs.
“The trail’s going,” Zoe shouted to Ben above the din. “The rain’s washing away the marks.”
“Carry on the way they were heading,” Ben shouted back. “It’s uphill to the water and that’s the most likely direction Jing Jing would have taken.”
They hadn’t gone far when the rain stopped. Now they could hear the waterfall pounding. Zoe suddenly stopped and picked up something from the ground.
“Look at this,” she gasped. She passed Ben a withered bamboo branch. “It’s got teeth marks in it. I bet that was Jing Jing, trying to find something to eat.”
“We’ve got to find him,” Ben nodded.
Zoe pushed through the last of the bamb
oo stalks and stood open-mouthed at the sight in front of her. A long stream of white water was thundering down from the steep rock above her head into a churning pool below. The pool looked treacherous. She shuddered as she thought of Jing Jing, hungry and thirsty, trying to drink here. He could even have fallen in and he might be too weak to swim.
Ben and Zoe moved slowly round the narrow bank, the water swirling violently in the pool below their feet. Halfway round they stepped over a narrow stream that trickled downhill away from the pool. “Where does the rest of the water go?” Zoe shouted above the pounding. “There’s loads coming over the fall but hardly any going into the stream.”
“Most of it must be draining into an underground river,” Ben shouted back.
He peered into the undergrowth, looking for signs of black and white fur. As he parted a clump of bamboo stems, something the size of a large dog started from the thicket and darted away in a panic.
“Only a musk deer,” Ben called to his sister. “No antlers – and did you see those long tusks?! It was a male. The females –”
“Save the lecture till later,” Zoe told him. “Keep your mind on the panda hunt.”
She suddenly caught Ben’s arm. “There’s something moving over there,” she hissed, pointing into the darkness. “See? By the fallen tree trunk.”
Something was shuffling slowly among the small, craggy rocks scattered in the undergrowth a little way from the pool.
Through their goggles they could just make out the occasional flash of light markings.
The shape stopped and plopped to the ground.
“It’s a panda!” whispered Ben. “I caught a glimpse of a black eye patch.”
“It’s got to be Jing Jing!” exclaimed Zoe. She felt a sudden stab of fear. What state was the poor creature in?
Ben put his goggles on zoom. “I can’t quite see it. It’s half hidden behind the rocks.”
They moved closer, stopped a short distance away from the panda and squatted down between two low boulders.
“I daren’t look!” said Zoe.
“I’ll do it,” said Ben, peering over the rock in front of them. When he crouched back down again his face was solemn. He didn’t want to have to tell his sister what he’d just seen.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
“What’s wrong?” asked Zoe. “Is he hurt?”
“That’s not Jing Jing,” said Ben slowly. “It’s a wild panda.”
“But it must be Jing Jing!” Zoe knelt up. At the foot of a sturdy tree trunk a few metres away, sat a huge adult panda. It was leaning casually against the tree, happily cleaning its belly. It was oblivious to the children. Zoe felt sick with despair. She’d been so sure they’d found the lost cub.
“There’s one good thing,” said Ben, trying to cheer her up. “That panda looked healthy. It must have found another patch of bamboo. Jing Jing’s probably having a slap-up meal right now.” He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt.
A ghostly cry filled the air.
“It’s the leopard again,” warned Ben. “And it’s close. Look at the panda.”
The panda stopped cleaning, tilted its head to one side and listened. Then it scampered off into the undergrowth.
“The leopard won’t be after us,” insisted Zoe. “We’ve got no scent. But it might be tracking Jing Jing. He’s young and weak – he’ll be easy prey. Come on, we’ve got to keep searching. We saw Jing Jing’s print so he must have been here recently. We’ve wasted so much time already.”
She jumped up to scramble over the rock but slipped, banging her knee hard. She slumped to the ground with a yelp.
“You OK?” asked Ben.
“I’m fine,” said Zoe, gritting her teeth as she rubbed her leg. “We’re not stopping now.”
“Yes we are,” said Ben firmly. “It’s too dangerous to go on tonight. We’re worn out after that long walk up here and we’ve no idea if Jing Jing really is nearby. But what we do know is there’s a leopard out there in the dark and, scent or no scent, if it sees us, we’ll look like dinner!”
“But we can’t just leave Jing Jing to his fate.” Ben could hear the wobble in Zoe’s voice.
“What good would it do him if we fell down a ravine or ended up in the belly of a big cat?” he asked, catching hold of Zoe’s arm. “Look, there’s an overhang of rock by those pine trees. It makes a sort of cave. We can get some sleep and then search again in the morning. The scent dispersers should stop the leopard from tracking us.”
Ben got out the sleeping bags and laid them on the forest floor, under the makeshift roof. “It’s not going to get that cold overnight but we’ll want some sort of covering and Erika said these are waterproof.” He kicked aside piles of sharp pine needles. “Don’t want these as a mattress though!” he added, laughing.
There were two of Mr Zhi’s wraps left. Ben passed one to Zoe. “Eat,” he ordered.
But Zoe only managed a few mouthfuls.
“I’m going to be awake all night,” she told Ben, handing him the remainder of her food. “I’m too worried about Jing Jing.” She climbed into her sleeping bag and stretched out, using her rucksack as a pillow.
“Do you want a drink?” asked Ben, holding out his water bottle.
There was no reply. Zoe was fast asleep.
Zoe suddenly woke with a start to find two eyes staring at her. She tried to move but something was pressing on her chest. Was it the clouded leopard? She could feel her heart thudding as the strange shape came slowly into focus in the pale dawn light.
A golden snub-nosed monkey was gawping down at her, its head on one side. Zoe burst out laughing in relief, sending the monkey squawking for cover.
“Whassgoingon?” Ben groaned and opened his eyes. “I was in the middle of a great dream. You were about to serve up a nice cooked breakfast.”
“You can have one of these.” Zoe held up a squashed Nutrobar. “Field rations,” she said with a grin. “Not the tastiest but they’ll stop our stomachs growling and frightening off all the wildlife.”
They sat on Ben’s sleeping bag, munching the rubbery fruit bars and swigging water to wash them down. Birds overhead called to each other with whistles and screeches.
“That’ll stop me being hungry for about five minutes,” said Ben. “Don’t be surprised if I start gnawing at a tree or something.”
Zoe rolled up her sleeping bag and checked her watch. “Six o’clock,” she said. “On with the search.” She peered out into the early morning mist. “If only we had an automatic panda finder!”
Ben couldn’t help grinning. “Hang on,” he said, pretending to search in his backpack, “I’m sure Uncle Stephen packed one for us.”
Zoe gave him a shove. Ben shoved her back. Zoe rolled away giggling. Then she came to a sudden halt. She scrambled to her knees and peered closely at the ground.
“I’ve found another print,” she gasped.
“Not falling for one of your tricks,” said Ben smugly. “You’re just trying to get me back.”
“I wouldn’t joke about this,” insisted Zoe.
“Look!”
Keeping one eye on his sister and ready for any ambush, Ben crouched and inspected the ground. “A back pad and only three claws,” he exclaimed. “We’re on Jing Jing’s trail again.”
“Got another one,” called Zoe from under a bush. “And another. They’re fresh and they’re heading for the waterfall.”
“There’s some tracks over here too,” said Ben. “But they’re certainly not panda. There are four toes and a roundish pad.” He aimed his BUG at them. “Clouded leopard!” he exclaimed. “And heading in the same direction as Jing Jing.”
Zoe joined him. “Looks like he’s being stalked,” she said grimly. “Let’s hope we find him before the leopard does.”
“I’ve thought of a good search pattern for us to follow,” said Ben. “We’ll check out the area round the pool in a semicircle, moving towards it as we go. That way we’ve got the best chance of homing in on
him. He can’t have climbed the sheer rock of the falls.”
Using the BUG map to plot their course,
Ben and Zoe advanced side by side through the forest, pushing aside ferns and bushes, and peering into all the shadowy places where a panda could hide.
“What’s that noise?” Zoe came to a sudden halt and listened intently.
Ben stopped next to her. “Sounds a bit like a small dog yapping,” he said.
“They were playing animal cries just like that in the infomation room at the sanctuary,” said Zoe, clutching Ben’s arm. “You know, where we saw the photos of Jing Jing. They’re from a panda.”
Ben quickly pressed a key on his BUG to identify the call.
“We’ll have to get closer,” he said, holding it up as high as he could. “It’s not picking them up from here.”
“They’re coming from that direction,” said Zoe, setting off into the densest part of the forest.
“But we’ve already searched that area,” Ben called after her.
“It can’t have been calling then or we would have heard it.” Zoe plunged into the dark undergrowth, pausing every now and again to check the direction of the sound. She turned to find Ben waving his BUG at her.
“You were right,” he said. “I’m picking it up now. It is a panda.”
As he spoke the call faded and stopped.
“Supposing we’ve scared him away,” whispered Zoe.
“Or he’s been attacked,” added Ben, with a worried frown. “Though I haven’t heard the leopard since last night.”
They crept among the ferns and branches, trying not to crunch too loudly on the cones and twigs underfoot as they moved towards where the call had come from. Redbacked beetles and small spiders scuttled out of their path.
“Why can’t we find him?” said Zoe. “He must be near here somewhere.”
“You know what Gran says when we can’t find something,” said Ben. “You haven’t looked properly.”
“But we have,” said Zoe. “Jing Jing’s either gone or he’s really well hidden.” She delved into her backpack and slipped on the special thermogoggles that Erika had given them. “I wonder if we’re near enough to use these.”