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THE STORY OF PAN DOO By: Lorre Heston
In the high misty mountains of the Wool-long are the most mysterious forests where the Panda Bears live. These are quite real and large Pandas, and aren't at all like the one that sits on your dresser with the torn ear.
The Pandas live only in these bamboo forests, and if the forest were to disappear, the Pandas would disappear with them. As it is, they blend in there so perfectly that they almost seem to hide.
They glide through the bamboo quietly--which isn't easy for so large an animal--so when the Pandas pass, the forest moves to fill the path in. Much as the space I have warmed when I sit on your bed and read you stories fills up with little hands and feet when I get up.
As I talk of hands and feet, there is something you must know about Pandas that is important to this story. They may seem like funny bears, and are even called Bears by us, but really, a Panda is more like a large raccoon. They have black mask-like circles around their eyes like a raccoon, and very importantly, they are very clever with their hands as a raccoon is.
In the wilds of the Woolong was one very special young Panda whose name I can't pronounce, since I don't speak Panda-ese. But, we will call him Pan Doo, because as you will see, he does DO a lot of things. One day, Pan Doo was eating bamboo, which he does all day long and everyday. To get to the most tremendously tender tips, one can bend the whole bamboo cane to the ground--which is a good thing, because Pandas are far too heavy to climb such a bendable branch.
Pan Doo munched away at his green stalk, and the farther he ate it down, he noticed how the bamboo bends and how hollow it is inside. He figured there must be something that could be done with this stuff besides eat it--which is practically all he did. But he didn't think about it too much then, because he was a young Panda, and he went off to play.
Playing is hard work, and it makes one hungry, so of course Pan Doo had to eat it again. As he ate his bamboo--which is all Pandas eat--he noticed what a pretty curve it made as he bent it to the ground. "That's it!" he thought. "I can bend it into shapes in all directions."
And so, the forest was soon filled with canes bent into all sorts of shapes. The other Pandas thought that these were wonderful places to sleep and rest--as long as they didn't eat them. As Pan Doo lay one night in a small cane hut he had made, it rained. He watched the water drip from the leaves, and the bamboo stalks rustled in the breeze.
All his thoughts came together at once. "If the bamboo is so light and bendable, and the wind blows it so easily, I can make a shape that the wind will move." He was so excited that he got up then and there and started bending shapes and tying them into place.
By morning he had made the most beautiful thing, although it didn't have a name then. But it was so large the wind could not move it.
Then he thought of the light flat leaves moving in the wind, and it came to him that was the way he could make it move. It would just take a lot of leaves and a lot of wind and a lot of time. He didn't know it, but he was making a kite. Pan Doo set to work weaving leaves. It took time, and all the Pandas in the forest came and watched, and they laughed at him because they couldn't see any use at all in what he was doing.
Finally, one day his work was done. All of the Pandas came out to see the thing finally put together. Pan Doo had waited for another stormy, windy day. As he tied the last bamboo mat in place, an enormous gust of wind picked his kite up and blew it away with Pan Doo holding dearly on.
Up high into the storm he went, as he climbed and held on tighter with his nimble hands and feet. Whoosh into the clouds he went with the rain and wind and thunder booming about his head. Then as it seemed neither he or his kite could take any more, the wind dropped him down with a crash. Pan Doo found himself in a town, although he had never seen a town before. He wandered around with the last of the storm raining lightly on him, until he came to a zoo. There were animals there, so it seemed as though it was a good place to go. No people were about because of the storm, and Pan Doo roamed freely. Then he heard a familiar sound and followed it to a place that someone had taken great care to make look like the mountain home of the Pandas, but it wasn't the same. There, quite by herself, was a little Panda. Pan Doo excitedly called to her.
She hadn't seen another Panda since she was very young, and she was startled, but she came to the edge of her cage. In Panda-ese--which comes easily to all Pandas--they talked. Pan Doo asked where he was. She told him the town of Quehong, and she told him the name that had been given her: Zhen-Zhen, because she couldn't remember her own name. More than anything, she wondered how he got there, for she couldn't remember how she got there. So he told her about his kite and the storm that carried him away and was still blowing around them. Of course she told him it WAS a kite, which until now he didn't know. She had seen many of them fly overhead as she dreamed of high, far away places.
Zhen-Zhen laughed when she heard about the woven leaf sheets, and told him how people had made kite for a long time with colorful light silk cloth that made the kites move in the lightest breeze. Pan Doo admired her cleverness and wanted Zhen-Zhen to help him. He asked her to follow him to his kite and help him rebuild it. Zhen-Zhen was shy and she had to think about it for a minute--but only a minute. He helped her leave 3the cage and they found their way back to the kite. Luckily for them, and this story, on the way they found some beautiful silk sheets that had torn loose from a banner in the storm.
In a short time, the kite was put back together better than before. Pan Doo had to leave before somebody saw him and tried to capture him. But he knew he had to take Zhen-Zhen back to see her mountain home. Zhen-Zhen was timid and had to think about it for a minute, but only a minute.
They both climbed on, and the last light breeze of the storm carried them up and away. They found that they could change the direction of their flight by moving their bodies in the way they wanted to go, and by doing so, found their way. At last, on the second day, they flew over the most beautiful place Zhen-Zhen had ever seen. And, as if it were meant to be so, the breeze dropped them down from the clouds. Pan Doo said, "This is your home." Zhen-Zhen sniffed the misty mountain air, and listened to the quiet sound of the forest, and she knew that she was home.