A New Year with Mick*

“Gotta wear our masks, Poppy.” Harper tightened her mask and pulled a red bandana over her miniature poodle’s muzzle.

Harper knew she was breaking the rules. She often did. Like last week, when she used Mommy’s red and green Sharpies to draw stars all over Poppy’s white curls and Mommy took away Harper’s iPad.

But Harper also was following an important rule: don’t wake up Mommy and Daddy before 7 a.m. Last night was New Year’s Eve, and Mommy and Daddy stayed up way past their bedtime drinking glasses of fizzy drinks while Harper blew a sparkly gold paper horn. They must be tired, because they didn’t hear Poppy whining and they didn’t hear Harper break the most important rule: don’t open the front door without a grownup.

Harper hadn’t gone anywhere lately because of the panda, Mick. It was why she had to rub smelly goo on her hands and do Zoom preschool. Harper couldn’t understand why grownups were so scared. To think there was a real-life panda named Mick roaming Laguna Beach! And today, she would find him.

“Poppy, if you were a panda, where would you go?” Poppy wagged his green tail and wriggled his nose free from the bandana.

Her teacher had told them about pandas. They came from China and played in the snow. Laguna didn’t have snow, but Harper knew two cold places a panda might go.

She closed the gate and, gold paper horn in one hand and Poppy’s leash in the other, skipped down Anita Street. Two blocks away, a cold breeze ruffled the tinsel wrapped around the light poles on PCH.

“Mick!” She honked on the horn, breaking the early morning silence. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

The road sat empty of cars, and the windows of Active Culture—the best place for a panda to find a frozen yogurt breakfast—were dark.

“When we find Mick, we’ll come back for a treat.” Harper patted the red star on Poppy’s head and, looking both ways like her parents had taught her, crossed the street.

The roar of the surf washed over Harper and Poppy as they made their way down the wooden staircase to Anita Beach.

“Wow!” Across the narrow strip of sand, a wave curled into a perfect barrel and crashed with a thud. The beach disappeared as the whitewash rushed towards them, stopping just short of the bottom step. Poppy growled.

“Quiet, Poppy.” Could pandas swim? She scanned the beach for Mick. Just up the shore at Thalia, she glimpsed a flash of black and white bobbing in the swell.

“Look, Poppy! It’s him!” Harper waved her arm and blew the horn. “Hey, Mick! Over here!”

Another wave approached, growing so tall that Harper could no longer see Mick. The wind sprayed them with an icy mist. Poppy scrabbled up the steps and snapped at the leash, knocking the horn from Harper’s hand.

“Bad doggy!” Behind her, the wave hit, its thunder drowning out her words. She turned and reached for the horn—just as the water crested the steps and swept over them off the stairs. Poppy’s leash slipped through her fingers.

“Poppy!” The freezing current tumbled Harper like a piece of driftwood. Flashes of black and white appeared amongst the bubbles and seaweed. Was it Mick?

“Mick! Help!”

Arms flailing, she bumped into something hard and felt herself being pulled from the water.

“Mick?” Coughing, she found herself clinging to a white surfboard held by a surfer in a black and white wetsuit.

“Hold on tight!” He dove back into the whitewash and resurfaced with a wriggling ball of red and green fur.

“Poppy!” Tears poured down Harper’s cheeks.

“You okay, kid?” The surfer steered them towards the stairs. “You’re lucky I saw you. Where are your parents?”

“I wanted,” Harper’s teeth chattered, “to find Mick!”

“Mick?”

“Yeah. The panda, Mick.”

“Panda Mick? You mean ‘pandemic’?”

“He’s a panda named Mick. I saw him, but then the waves—” She was too cold to finish.

“Let’s get you warm and find your parents.”

Shaking, Harper buried her face in Poppy’s wet fur. She understood now why grown-ups hated the panda Mick. He didn’t play nice. He was hiding. He could be anywhere. And because of him, she was going to be in big trouble.

“Mick,” she whispered, “I wish you had never come here.”

* Originally published in the Laguna Beach Independent's Holiday Digest on December 29, 2020.