I raise my knee without really thinking it through. The posh panda crumples satisfactorily and its companions all take a step back.
"I say!" one of them manages to say.
If that's the best it can do, we're all fine.
Vegetarians. I peed my pants over a bunch of vegetarian teddy bears. If that abomination of a guide ever mentions this to anyone, I'm gutting it and strangling it with its own damn entrails. First, I think I'll just explain how grave a mistake these furballs have just made.
I kick the downed panda and keep kicking until my foot and shin starts to hurt. Then I swap to the other leg.
"I say," the most outraged of the other pandas manages,"this just isn't on, you know."
"Bite me," I tell it.
It recoils.
"Leave it alone," hisses my guide.
"Sodding useless animal thought it could scare me!" I say between kicks. "I'm not letting it go until it's learnt better manners."
"Our manners are perfectly fine!" another panda protests weakly but they're all taking a step back from me.
"Yours could do with some work," another mutters.
I glare and they take another step back.
"It really is better to leave them alone," says my guide. "Let them have their fun and move n. It's just easier."
"They're bullies. They'll keep doing it until someone stands up to them," I say. And I'm just the person to do it.
"I surrender!" the panda I'm kicking says weakly.
My other leg is starting to hurt. Time to move on.
"Right," I say as I stop kicking the panda at my feet, "Who's next?"
The other pandas look at each other. Although their obscenely cute and wide faces don't show any particular emotion, panic is written all over them when they scatter into the grass jungle without looking back.
"You really shouldn't have done that," says my guide.
I don't point out that none of it matters because it's a dream as even dream bullies need to get their comeuppance. Instead, I lean over the battered panda and grab a fluffy red half-moon ear. I twist it.
"Right. You," I say.
It whimpers and hides its eye patches behind ghostly white paws.
"Get up," I command.
It struggles to stand on unsteady back paws.
"Can you run?" I ask it.
It whimpers again and rocks away from the hand that twists its ear.
"I think not," I say. "But you'd better try. Because if you're not gone by the time I count to ten, I will chase you. And I'm not a vegetarian."
It looks at me with big, round eyes, hiding them behind white paws with unbearable cute pink toe-beans forgotten. "You wouldn't!"
I smile.
It gasps and collapses as it tries to back away from me, its ear still in my hand. I let go.
"One!"
"Nononononono!"
"Two!"
"You shouldn't do this!" says my guide.
"Three!"
The panda whimpers and falls and crawls out of what passes for a clearing.
"Four!" I call as its furry butt - with ridiculously small tail - struggles to move out of sight.
"Really," says my guide. "It's not a good idea."
"Five!"
The panda is gone. There's rustling as it, and presumably its companions, hurry off.
"Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!" I yell for good measure.
"Really," says my guide.
"Why? What it going to do? Tell its mum?"