By Natalie Whitehead, Secondary 1

John had been waiting for his next mission from the Veiled Brotherhood. When the email finally came in, he excitedly clicked it—but it was in a language he didn’t recognize.

John used Google Translate. The message read, ‘Snuggle all the pandas in China and bring us proof. Good luck!‘

John blinked. “Snuggle pandas? Well, they are cute… but wait, I need to focus!”

 He stood there for a moment then walked over to grab his bag just as another message made a ping! on his phone.

Your bag is packed on the back porch, your flight is leaving in an hour. John  turned around and headed out to the back porch as his loyal golden retriever bounded around at his feet. 

“Goldie, you can’t come, it’s going to be dangerous!” Goldie turned and glared at him as if to say; you are going to snuggle pandas, that’s the opposite of dangerous, I’m coming! 

“Alright, fine. Come on, get in the car.” John said as he nudged the stubborn dog into the small mobile. A few hours later John was squished on the planetrying to apologize to the lovely couple sitting next to him while also trying to get Goldie to behave. Luckily Goldie fell asleep and only woke up when they landed in China’s capital, Beijing. They checked into their hotel and waited for nightfall before breaking into the first zoo to snuggle and take pictures with the pandas. 

John took pictures with around 1,800 pandas over the next two weeks, with his loyal golden retriever by his side. After posting about a third of the pictures online to show others of his amazing adventure, he jumped on a plane headed back home. He saw the news about a strange man who had broken into every zoo in China and snuggled all the pandas. 

When John met the Brotherhood leader, he proudly handed over the photos and info. The leader stared at him, then asked, “Where did you relocate the pandas?”

“What do you mean? They’re still at the zoos. You said to snuggle with them!”

The leader’s face turned red. “I SAID SMUGGLE!”

Original Artwork by Natalie Whitehead