Young Writers Society

"It makes me feel so fat," Aurora groaned.

"I'm really sorry," Patrick said, peeking out from inside the hut. A small plane had just flown past and he'd plastered himself against the wall in case any passengers were curious as to why a zookeeper was lounging around having a chat with a panda at half past midnight. He sighed and pulled himself up right into a proper sitting position. "Look, I used to be much leaner than I am now. But I'm old. It happens. I can't compare myself to younger humans. You are a panda. You're just going to have to do your best not to hold yourself to the standards of human lifestyle magazines. Who gave you those anyway?"

She shrugged. "One of the bats, I think."

"Right, well, if you can figure out which one I'll give them a talking to. I wouldn't let my granddaughter touch one of them; you're not getting near them either." Patrick folded his arms and locked eyes with her.

She raised her big, fluffy arms. "Alright, alright."

Patrick nodded and looked over at the hole in the ground beside them. Once he'd got on board with the project, he'd arranged a nighttime rota for himself and the monkeys to widen the hole so that Aurora could actually fit down it, his announcement of which was the source of Aurora's body image anxiety.

It really was terrible. Somehow she'd been dragged out of the bliss of normal panda consciousness and now she had to deal with the nonsense humans threw at each other. And of course, nothing he'd learned all year gave him any idea how this had happened. It had been three days, and he had nothing. All he could ever hope to offer her was a meagre apology.

"Oh, by the way, I've given some thought to my act," Aurora said. "I want to give people hugs."

Patrick frowned and tilted his head to the side. "That's not really an act... Maybe they could have to do something to reach you? To earn the hugs?"

Aurora glared at him. "You shouldn't have to earn hugs."

Patrick chuckled. "It's well saying Chip's the first person you spoke to."

Aurora smiled a little. "Chip has a lot of opinions about hugs. But yes, I see what you mean. How about I'm at the end of an obstacle course - an easy one - and if they get to the end without falling off, they get a hug."

Patrick grinned. "Sounds good, buddy."

Aurora's frown fully disappeared and she lay back against the wall. "Alright then, getting digging. You need to start working out the logistics in your lab. And I want to learn to read."

It took another week and a half for Patrick to get the obstacle course set up. Annoyingly, most of that time was spent waiting on a timber delivery, as well as a few batches of other materials like chains to be walked on like tightropes, springs for under planks and a few large tyres. Rope he had already, so he built a rope swing with the spare wood he did have lying around, then twiddled his thumbs until everything else got there.

Fortunately, that gave him plenty of time to get to know Aurora, and, once the tunnel was finished, to introduce her to the rest of the animals. A few of them had been visiting in her hut, which seemed to be how she'd already become so fluent in speech, but it gave Patrick a warm fuzzy feeling to present her to all her new friends.

He took the trip with her, grinning at her delight as he switched on some warm yellow lights in the chamber at the bottom of the ladder. He led her to the door that Chip had shown her, then walked her along the underground corridors. At every painting she gasped and stared, seemingly enchanted by their ability to transport her to somewhere else.

"Come on," Patrick said after her fourth time pausing to drink one in. "I'm glad to see you like the decor, really, but you can come back whenever you like."

Her head jerked around to face him, then she smiled as his words sank in. "Whenever I like?"

He shrugged. "I hope so. My plan is to tell people that you sleep in your hut, and as far as everyone knows, that's where you'll be."

Aurora padded forward to keep up with him, all four of her paws surprisingly quiet on the wooden floor. All the construction over the past few weeks had brought back memories of when Neuromax had put it in. It had been quite shiny back then, as if they had actually put thought into it. But the lounge had been unfurnished, without even wallpaper. His heart fluttered as he remembered hanging the paintings. That was the moment it had really felt like home.

He smiled at Aurora. "I really am glad you like the paintings."

"I do," she said, "I'm going to spend so much time just sitting here looking at them. So, how come I get such special treatment anyway? Chip says everyone else has to go on a rota to keep up appearances for anyone flying overhead."

"Yeah," Patrick muttered. "Trust Neuromax to choose a zoo a mile away from an airport. Well, I figured since there's only one of you it would be entirely reasonable to suppose that you sleep in your hut. None of the others would have any hope of all fitting in together, so that would be very obviously a lie."

Aurora chuckled. "Fair enough. Man, are we almost there yet? How far away did you put me?"

"Actually, this is us now," Patrick said, coming to a stop before a set of plain grey double doors. He was suddenly hit by the memory of going through them little over a fortnight ago to inform the crew of their new arrival. The dread that had eaten at him... and they had gotten Aurora out of it. She was kind, like Chip, but, like with the obstacle course, she seemed to understand Patrick's trains of thought, which was no easy task. What a blessing in disguise this had been.

"Okay," Aurora said. "I'm ready."

Patrick nodded, pursing his lips. He opened the doors.

"Welcome to Tayburn!" shouted literally every off-duty animal in the zoo that could fit in the room.

There was Chip at the front, with a party hat at a jaunty angle on his head. He was flanked by Dexi and Rita on either side, and Treego was on his shoulder. He spotted Gerry the toucan hovering in the air with some of his tropical bird friends. Other birds stood in the crowd, along with the other frogs, crocodiles and monkeys. There were bats in the air and on the ground, and somehow Freya the rhino had even made it downstairs. It really was a shame that the elephants and giraffes couldn't be there, Patrick reflected, but Aurora would get their phone numbers soon enough.

Dexi blew loudly on a bright green kazoo, then spat it onto the ground. "Let's get this party started!"

----

Patrick grinned at the memories of the party as he surveyed the finished obstacle course. With the low, late afternoon sun beating down on his back, he walked across some well spaced out wooden cylinders, the top faces of them so small that he had to stand on tiptoes or fall off. He remembered Chip playing Twister, and how devastated he'd been to be beaten by the surprisingly flexible Rita. Apparently spider monkeys ought not to lose at Twister to crocodiles.

Then Patrick ran his hand along a small bridge made entirely from chains, with a single chain in the centre to walk along while holding onto another at either side. That brought back pass the parcel, oddly, as he'd run his hands absentmindedly along the discarded ribbons from each layer of wrapping just like that when he was tidying up. Dexi had almost squashed Treego with the parcel trying to pass it to him.

"Grandpa!" came a high pitched squeal from somewhere behind him.

He whirled around with a flourish, and bowed to Scott, who was pressing his face up against the fence of the panda enclosure. Holly stood beside him, though a few feet back. Patrick had closed the zoo for a final day of testing Aurora's act before opening it to the public, which was almost the truth, other than the fact that it was the first and only day of testing.

"Can we come in, Grandpa?" Holly shouted.

"Course, honey." Patrick sprinted over and opened the door, bowing as he swung it open to allow them through. "Welcome one, welcome all... well, two. Anyway, I bring to you, the HugQuest!"

They both bounded over to the ramp that started the obstacle course, jumping on the monkey hang it led to and swinging to the other side in a matter of seconds. Then they were on the springboard, the rope swing, the tunnel into the ground that only a child could crawl through, hence the need for guinea pigs. A few climbing walls, one cargo net and the chain walk later, and they were completing their Quest by jumping bravely from one wooden cylinder to another.

Scott hopped off at the end first, and stuck his tongue out at his sister. Holly rolled her eyes at him, but the grin on her face was enormous.

"Well, do we get to meet her now?" she shouted at Patrick, whose leisurely stroll had barely brought him level with the springboard.

"Who? Aurora?" he called back, jogging the rest of the way. He leaned on the chain walk for a quick moment to catch his breath. "She's downstairs, sorry. I just need you to tell me if that was hard enough. Does it feel like you have earned a hug with a panda... if you can put it that way."

Holly slammed her hands against her hips, which must have really hurt, but got the point across. "I have so earnt a hug from a panda, Grandpa. Look how dirty my knees are after that tunnel!"

"Yeah!" Scott agreed. Patrick expected him to add something, but he just glared up at him. This was possibly the most angry Patrick had ever seen his grandson.

"Alright, alright," he said, "We can go meet her. But it was definitely fun, right?"

"Yes!" they exclaimed in unison.

"Fine, fine." Patrick raised his hands in surrender. He checked the skies. Maybe he really was being paranoid, probably in fact, but he was not getting caught out just because he hadn't considered the fact that his grandchildren would want to meet a talking panda. There didn't seem to be anything in sight, so he ushered them inside Aurora's hut and down the ladder.

They found Aurora in the corridor, gazing at a painting of a Scottish peak called The Cobbler. It wasn't the tallest hill in Scotland by any stretch, but it was known for the way its rocky top curled upwards into a summit in two different places, and could often be seen with children climbing through the eye of a rocky needle to get to the true top of the mountain.

Aurora looked over as they approached. She grinned at Patrick. "I'm scared looking at it. Just looking. It's just paint, on a canvas, and yet I'm scared. How amazing is that?"

"It's pretty cool," Scott said.

Patrick laughed at the wide, surprised eyes of Aurora, who clearly hadn't registered the two younger humans standing in front of her.

"Um, hi," she said, "I'm Aurora."

"Hi, Aurora," Holly said, "We're Patrick's-"

But before she could finish Scott shot forward and wrapped his arms around Aurora. Holly looked from Scott, to Patrick, then back to Aurora. One foot looked ready to spring forward too, but it wasn't until Aurora smiled at her and gestured with her head that she followed her brother and flopped forward into a hug.

"I'm guessing we have our first winners of the obstacle course," Aurora said, her voice slightly muffled through waves of Scott's hair.

"The first of many, I hope," Patrick said.