“Can you do kung fu?” said the boy.
“Pandas can’t do kung fu,” said Danny.
“Kung Fu Panda can,” said the boy.
“Kung Fu Panda isn’t a real panda,” said Danny.
“Neither are you,” said the boy.
Danny had no response to that.
“Do kung fu!” said the boy.
“Yeah, do kung fu!” squealed the girl.
“No.”
“Why?” said the girl.
“Because he can’t,” said the boy.
“Precisely,” said Danny.
“You’re the worst panda ever,” said the girl.
“Okay. Fine. Here,” he said, throwing out a pitiful combo of clumsy karate chops. “Happy now?”
“That was rubbish,” said the boy.
“That was rubbish!” repeated his sister.
The boy pointed across the park. “The man over there does magic,” he said.
“Good for him,” said Danny.
“Make me disappear!” shouted the girl.
“I wish I could,” said Danny.
“Can you juggle?” said the boy. “Another man was juggling.”
“Yeah, juggle!”
“Look,” said Danny, taking a coin and holding it up. “Here’s fifty pence. You can have it if you promise to go away.”
“Fifty pence each?” said the boy.
“I want a pound!” said the girl.
“If she gets a pound, then I want a pound,” said her brother.
Danny sighed and shook the box as if he were panning for gold.
“Here,” he said. “Two pounds. One for you and one for you. Now, please. Go. Away.”
The children snatched the money and ran off arguing about whose coin was bigger.
Danny sat down on a nearby bench and buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there when he heard the bench creak beneath the weight of another person. He looked up and saw the young street musician rolling a cigarette beside him. His cat was perched on his shoulder wearing a stylish violet cardigan while the man wore a tatty tweed jacket, a wilting bow tie, a pink pair of corduroys, and a low-rise top hat with a pigeon feather sticking out of it. Danny thought he looked a bit like a scarecrow, but one with rolling tobacco sprouting from his pockets instead of straw.
“How’d you get him to stay up there like that?” asked Danny, nodding at the cat.
“Milton?” said the man without looking up from his rolling papers. “He climbs up there himself. He pretends he likes the view, but I know he really just likes the sense of superiority.” He slipped his cigarette between his lips and extended his hand. “Tim,” he said.
“Danny.”
“First day?” said Tim as they shook hands.
“Last day more like.”
“That bad?”
“Well, let’s see, I’ve been called a pervert, I’ve been kicked in the shins, I have less money than when I started, and I only started twenty minutes ago.”
“Sounds a lot like my first day,” said Tim.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Well, nobody called me a pervert. They called me plenty of other things though. Tramp. Student. Wankpuffin, whatever that means.” He licked his finger and dabbed his cigarette to stop it from burning unevenly. “Wait, why did they call you a pervert?”
“I touched a little girl,” said Danny. He shrugged. “No big deal.”
Tim took a long drag on his cigarette. “Right,” he said.
“Not like that,” said Danny. “She stole my money so I grabbed her arm and, well, it all got blown out of proportion.”
“You want to be careful doing stuff like that. You could end up losing your license.”
“License?”
“Your street performer’s license,” said Tim. Danny frowned. “You do have a license, don’t you?”
“Obviously,” said Danny.
“You don’t, do you?”
“No.”
“Then you better get one before the coppers come sniffing. They love to catch illegal street performers, they think we’re all just glorified beggars or something.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Look, just get yourself a license. Without it, you’re nothing but a weirdo in a costume.”
“And with it?” said Danny.
Tim shrugged. “You’re a weirdo in a costume with a license.”
“How long does it take?”
“Five or six weeks, give or take.”
“Five or six weeks!” said Danny.
“Maybe four if you’re lucky.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“You don’t really have a choice,” said Tim. “Not unless you know someone who can get you a fake one.” He blew a smoke ring that was fatter than a doughnut. Milton looked like he was contemplating eating it. “What’s the rush anyway?”
“I’m two months behind on my rent and if I don’t pay up in the next six weeks, then my landlord, who I’m starting to think is either Satan himself or a very close relative, is going to beat me up and evict us.”
“Us?”
“Me and my son, Will.”
“And you thought that becoming a…” Tim pointed at Danny’s costume but failed to find the right words.
“Panda bear.”
“Right,” said Tim, not entirely convinced. “You thought that becoming a panda would somehow solve this problem?”
“No, I thought that doing overtime at the building site I worked on would somehow solve this problem, and then when I got fired I thought that finding another job would somehow solve this problem, and then when I couldn’t find another job I saw how much you guys were making and thought fuck it, what do I have to lose?”
“Some of these guys make a pretty decent living, that’s true, but they’re talented and they work hard. You’re going to need a really good act if you want to survive in this business.”
“Act?”
“Yeah, like, what do you do?”
“This isn’t enough?” said Danny, gesturing to his costume.
“Yeah, it’s enough to get you evicted.” Tim took a drag on his cigarette. “Do you know how to play anything?”
“Badminton?” said Danny.
“I meant an instrument.”
“Oh. Then no.”
“Do you know how to dance?”
“About as well as I know kung fu.”
“You can do kung fu?”
“Nope.”
“Get yourself a cat, then,” said Tim. “This fella right here? Money magnet. Everybody loves him. Well, except El Magnifico. He doesn’t like him much.”
“El Magnifico?” said Danny.
Tim pointed at the magician across the park. “That guy. Proper weirdo. Thinks he’s a real wizard, like Gandalf or some shit. He tried to set Milton on fire last week.”
“With what?” said Danny.
“With his mind,” said Tim, tapping his temple. “Keep well clear if I were you. The guy’s got more issues than Reader’s Digest.”
“Thanks for the warning,” said Danny.