“What am I looking at?” said Danny.
The man’s gauntlet clacked against the counter as he drummed his fingers in contemplation. He checked the label on the inside of the costume and shrugged as much as his suit of armor would allow.
“It’s a panda,” he said.
“You sure about that?”
“No, but it’s what the label says.”
Danny stared at the costume, still not convinced. If it really was a panda, then it was the saddest panda he’d ever seen, one that had lived an exceedingly long and disappointing life full of unfaithful partners and unreliable betting advice.
“It smells funky,” said Danny, his nose twitching involuntarily.
“I won’t lie to you,” said the man, “some kid hired it for Freshers’ Week and puked all over it. It’s totally clean, don’t get me wrong, but it still has the faintest whiff of Jägermeister vomit.”
“How much do you want for it?”
The man thought for a moment.
“Tenner?”
“I’ll give you five.”
“Give me a tenner and I’ll throw in Boris for free.”
Danny pulled a crumpled five-pound note from his pocket and slapped it onto the counter.
“I’ll give you five,” he said.
“Deal,” said the man.
* * *
Back at the park, Danny locked himself inside one of the public bathroom stalls and commenced his graceless metamorphosis, almost putting his foot in the toilet as he struggled to remove his clothes in the cramped confines of his makeshift dressing room, and then almost doing the same with the other foot when he tried to feed his leg into the costume.
“All right?” he said to the man at the urinal who gaped at him as he emerged from the cubicle. The man nodded, unaware that he was missing the urinal by a good few inches as he watched the giant panda check itself in the mirror.
Danny wandered around the park in search of a suitable place to perform. He thought it was a good idea to keep his distance from the other acts for the time being, partly because he didn’t yet have the confidence to approach them and partly because he didn’t want to risk a potential territorial dispute on his very first day. By turning up uninvited without first introducing himself or asking for acceptance, he might be breaching some unknown code of honor which might or might not result in a gangland-style punishment beating or, at the very least, some unpleasant staring.
Deciding on a spot that was far from the other performers yet still close enough to keep an eye on them should he need to make a hasty getaway, Danny dumped his bag of clothes on the grass behind him and placed his open lunchbox by his feet. Lining the container with a handful of pocket change, he nervously adjusted his costume and thought about what to do next.
As if smelling his fear, a little girl suddenly appeared in front of him while her mother hovered nearby. The girl wore a yellow dress, blue glasses, and pigtails in her hair, but despite her seemingly innocent appearance Danny couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit intimidated as she silently waited for him to do something. Unable to juggle or play the guitar, and without a cat to balance on his shoulder, Danny did the only thing he could think of. He waved.
The girl continued to stare at him, her eyes wide because her glasses were thick and not because she seemed even remotely wonderstruck by the weird-smelling panda in front of her.
Already out of ideas and feeling increasingly awkward, Danny waved again. The girl looked at her mother, who smiled at Danny almost apologetically before removing her purse from her handbag and giving her daughter some money.
“For me?” said Danny as the girl approached with a pound coin pinched between her fingers. Instead of giving him the money, however, the little girl, hypnotized by the sight of the other coins in the lunchbox, quickly grabbed a handful of change and stuffed it into her pocket while her mum, still smiling, looked on in total oblivion.
“Hey!” said Danny, instinctively grabbing her arm.
The girl screamed so loudly that several people stopped to see what was happening.
“Tamara!” shrieked the mother. “Get away from her, you pervert!”
“She stole my money!” said Danny as the woman ran over and scooped her daughter up in her arms.
“The bad man touched me!” wailed the girl.
“I didn’t touch her!” said Danny, addressing the bystanders, one of whom had started to film the encounter on his phone. “I mean, yes, I touched her, but I didn’t ‘touch’ her,” he added, making inverted commas, which only made him look worse.
“You’re lucky I don’t call the police!” said the mother.
“You’re lucky I don’t call the police!” said Danny, prodding his furry chest. “I’m the victim here!”
“Victim!” said the mother. She pointed to her daughter. “She’s five years old!”
“So was the kid in The Omen!”
“Are you calling my daughter the Antichrist?” She looked at the man who was filming. “Did you get that? He just called my daughter the Antichrist.”
“Can you please stop filming?” said Danny.
“No way,” said the man. “This shit’s going on YouTube.”
“What’s an Antichrist?” said the girl.
“Nothing, darling,” said the mother. “Come on, let’s move away from the bad man.”
The woman marched off with her daughter in tow. The girl looked over her shoulder and paused her theatrical sobbing just long enough to flash Danny the smuggest of grins.
He picked up his lunchbox and sighed. Over half his money was gone. Before he could calculate precisely how much was missing, a little boy came out of nowhere and kicked Danny hard in the shin, causing him to drop the lunchbox and send coins flying everywhere.
Danny clutched his leg in pain and lolloped after the scattered change. The boy giggled and kicked him again.
“Stop that!” said Danny. He waved his arms at the big man in the small suit who was barking aggressively into his phone nearby, but the man was too busy telling somebody called Dave what an incompetent wanker he was to notice what his son was up to.
The boy picked up a two-pound coin and taunted Danny with it.
“Give that back!” said Danny. The boy shook his head.
“Give. It. Back,” he repeated in his best Dad Voice, and this time the boy relented. He presented the coin in his little doughy palm, but when Danny tried to retrieve it, the boy jerked his hand away and hoofed him in the shin again before laughing like a maniac and running off to show his dad the two-pound coin he’d just “found” on the path.
Danny got down on his hands and knees and wearily combed the ground. He didn’t see the other children approach until their shoes appeared in front of him.
“What are you?” said the owner of the red shoes, a little girl no older than six who clutched a floppy-eared rabbit to her chest.
“He’s a badger, stupid,” said her brother, who had the same ginger hair and freckles as his sister.
“I don’t like badgers,” said the girl.
“I’m a panda, actually,” said Danny, climbing to his feet and patting himself down.
“I don’t like pandas,” said the girl.