Fauna

- Nik Perring (Author of Not So Perfect, Freaks!) - Lucie McKnight Hardy (Author of Water Shall Refuse Them) - Tania Hershman, author of Some Of Us Glow More Than Others and My Mother Was An Upright Piano A panda appeared in our street, skewered to the railing outside my house. Let me paint the picture: there's the road outside my house, then there's this long strip of grass, then there's the houses opposite. And the grass has got these railings all the way around it, for kids to kick their footballs off and stuff, and this panda was just there that morning, stuck on a row of the spikes, directly opposite my house. So, I went up to it and I was like that to the kids who were playing out, I was like; who's is this panda, lads? And they were like; dunno, dunno mate and they didn't seem to care. So, I knocked on to my neighbour, Gail, and she comes out and I'm like; Gail. Check this out. A panda. And she's like; hmm, oh yeah aye. So how are you keeping Jon, are you well? But I'm like; Gail, it's a panda! What should we do? And she's like; leave it, it's just some kid's toy. And that's when I realised. The people of the street; they weren't seeing the same thing I was. They were seeing a stuffed toy, like a teddy bear type thing, all synthetic fur and glass-bead eyes. But I was seeing something else. I was seeing a real-life panda skewered on a row of the railing spikes. And the poor bugger was still alive. There was blood on the floor and the panda was squirming and crying out a bit. I didn't know what to do. I thought about trying to lift it off, but you shouldn't do that in case you hit an artery. Or it might get angry and start attacking me, or it might run off and hurt some kid. So, I thought; ring the RSPCA, Jon, but if I'm the only one who can see it's a real panda, they might end up locking me away instead. So, I just left it. I guess I thought someone else would figure it out, or it would free itself or something.