Panda's

Pandas are one thing, Reggie reflected. Oh yes, Panda’s are one thing. They may be cute and fuzzy, and they may be adorably endangered, but at the end of the day he knew how they worked. How they thought.

Now Koala bears, Reggie shook his head at eh idiocy of it all, they were something entirely different. Koalas, I ask you…

In forty years of zoo keepering he had worked with pandas, all day every day. And now ‘the man’ had told him he had to work with the new Koalas.

Regie wasn’t sure who ‘the man’ was, it was something his son had said to him once, and it had sounded impressive. It was probably just a general term, and in this case ‘the man’ was Mr. Grumbled.

Prematurely bald and spiteful Mr. Grumbled looked at him sternly from across his self assembly desk and the forest of unwashed mugs. Arching his fingers and speaking infuriatingly slowly he said:

“James-”

“Reggie.”

“Reggie, we’ve decided to reassign you.”

Reassign him? He wasn’t even aware he was assigned in the first place. When he had been interviewed, before this little snot was even born, he had been interviewed for a job.

“Erm…” Reggie had said.

“Yes?” Mr. Grumbled had shot back.

“I like pandas. I know all about the pandas. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Koalas,” was the answer.

“Koalas?” the answer was repeated.

“Yes.”

And that was that it seemed. Now Reggie was faced with a grey thing that looked like a crotchety old man with a peach for a nose. Presently it was clamped its tree like some kind of furry limpet. Reggie toyed distractedly with a piece of bamboo and bit his lip.

The Australian chappy who had brought him over told him that they only ate a special kind of leaves. Special leaves from a special tree. Bloody hell.

“All right then you little weirdo, lets see you eat some of your precious leaves,” he offered out a handful, “Here ya go tree limpet.”

A furry little head spun slowly and a little alarming around to look at him. Large eyes regarded him carefully for a moment.

Slowly, it began to make its way down the tree and stretched out a stubby little arm tipped with weird little grasping fingers.

Reggie studied the three inches of empty air between the weird little digits and the leaves. He raised an eyebrow.

“Come on now tree limpet, surely you can do better than that.”

Eyes crossed on concentration the furry creature stretched out further. It was able to make up another inch before it fell heavily from the tree.

Thud.

Reggie shook his head in exasperation. Koalas, I ask you.