Murder On Safari*

“This is nice,” I say as we walk through the safari park.  “Going out for the day, like a normal family.”

“We’re not a normal family,” my brother says.  “In a normal family the children aren’t thirty three and thirty six or…”

“That’s not what I mean,” I say, as a wallaby hops past.  “What I mean is that we’re here, not at a hospital or something.”

“Can we get on the little train that takes you round,” Dad says.  “There’s an awful lot of walking.”

“Look,” I say, as we pass an enclosure with buckets of bamboo underneath a large oak tree.  “It’s your favourite person, Mum.”

Someone is walking down the tree.  Someone red with a striped tail.

“Hello red panda,” Mum says.  “Oh, I just want to give him a cuddle.”

He saunters over to the bamboo at the bottom of the tree and sits on his haunches.  He proceeds to munch his way through the stems of bamboo, holding them in his front paws.

Here he is:

  
Attached photo is some of the lions, sleeping…

Happy Saturday everyone!
*1938.  By Elspeth Huxley.  Murder mystery set in Kenya.