Monkey Madness

by Anna Wilson

  ‘Did you know that a giraffe’s neck has only seven bones in it?’ Felix said. ‘And that is really weird because humans only have seven too!’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ said Mum.

  ‘It is, Mma,’ said Bibi. ‘Their necks are very muscly. They use them to fight, you know, as well as to reach the leaves at the top of trees!’

  ‘Wow, I would love to see them fight!’ said Felix.

  ‘Fighting’s not cool, man,’ said Zed gravely.

  Bibi laughed. ‘You were the one asking me about nature taking its course!’ he teased. ‘I would like to see you tell a lion not to hunt or a cheetah not to kill. They have to do this to live.’

  Zed nodded. ‘I know. But it’s kinda sad.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Bibi. ‘It is survival. What is sad is when man comes and kills for sport. My father used to hunt the big game: lion, rhino and so on, to sell. That was sad. Man never kills big game to eat. But animals kill other animals because they have to in order to survive. Even in conservation we have to understand about the food chain.’

  Felix drank in every word.

  He was about to ask some more questions when there was a loud cackling and shrieking from the bush and Bibi had to stop as a horde of monkeys came careering out in front of the jeep.

  ‘Oh no!’ Mum cried, covering her head with her hands. ‘Not this again!’

  Zed reached over the back of his seat and put his hand on Mum. ‘Don’t worry, sis. Bibi knows what to do. This isn’t Shortfleet Safari Park.’

  Sure enough, as Bibi revved the engine and began inching towards the group of monkeys, they scattered to the side of the track.

  ‘Remember, they see the jeep as a bigger animal,’ Bibi explained. ‘They do not see us inside. If I rev the engine, they think we are growling at them, threatening them.’

  ‘Cool!’ said Felix. ‘But how come they have not completely run away?’

  The monkeys were simply sitting on the edge of the track now. Some of them were staring at the jeep; others were baring their teeth and making jabbering noises.

  ‘They are curious animals,’ said Bibi. ‘They like to show off a bit too. You see those ones making faces at us? They are trying to prove that they are brave and strong. It is a warning to us not to mess with them. But as soon as I do this –’ he revved the engine again – ‘they will move back.’

  They did! The smaller monkeys shrieked and ran up the nearest tree, and a mother with a baby on her back followed them. The larger males backed off, but did their best to stand their ground at a short distance, puffing out their chests and gnashing their teeth.

  Zed chuckled. ‘They are just like us, really,’ he said.

  Mum peered from over the top of Zed’s seat. ‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘How d’you work that out?’

  ‘Look at the mother up in the tree,’ Zed said. ‘She’s telling her kids off, making sure they are safe and that they don’t run into danger.’

  As he said this, the mother grabbed a particularly bouncy young male and gave him a slap! Then she tweaked his ear and sent him packing with a screech.

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘At least I never do that!’ said Mum.

  ‘Look at that one, sitting on the branch above the mother!’ said Felix.

  The monkey had been surreptitiously picking nuts out of the tree and was now hurling them down on the mother. She immediately swung up to him and gave him a cuff around the ears too!

  Felix captured the entire scene on film.

  If I watch them closely enough, he thought, I might come up with a plan of how to get one to take home for Flo. I wish Mo was here right now. I bet she would help me.

  He looked at the adults. There was no way he was going to be able to get his hands on a monkey with them around.

  They arrived back at camp to find Elvis and Mo had cooked a huge ‘second breakfast’ of scrambled eggs, bacon, beans and sausages, with more tea and more toast.

  ‘Sweet!’ cried Zed, rubbing his stomach. ‘A Full English in the middle of the African bush!’

  Everyone ate far too much, and then the adults ambled off into the shade to snooze as the sun was high in the sky by now and the temperature had risen considerably.

  ‘I do wish I could find my sunglasses and hat,’ Mum mumbled. She was so drowsy, however, following her early morning wake-up call, and with the food and the heat, that she was soon fast asleep on a lounger in the shade.

  Felix didn’t want to sleep. Mum had told him to go into the tent, but his head was buzzing with everything he had seen that morning; his ears were ringing with the sounds of the bush, the birds and creatures calling out to one another in alarm or to attract each other; his skin felt warm from the growing heat as the sun rose to its highest point.

  He waited until he was sure the adults were asleep: Bibi was flat on his back in his hammock, snoring softly, Zed was next to Mum on a lounger under the mess canopy, and Elvis was in another hammock, dozing while listening to his iPod.

  Felix beckoned to Mo to come close so that he could be sure no one would wake up and overhear or interrupt. He took a deep breath and plunged straight in.

  ‘Mo, I need your help,’ he said.

  ‘OK, OK, why are you whispering?’ Mo asked.

  Felix moved closer to Mo. ‘I don’t want anyone else to hear.’

  ‘Oh, a secret! Good!’ said Mo, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him away from the sleeping adults.

  ‘So, what is this secret?’ Mo asked, once they were safely out of earshot.

  ‘It’s about a friend of mine,’ he said.

  ‘A girl friend or a boy friend?’ Mo asked.

  Felix hesitated. Well, she’s a girl . . .’ he began.

  ‘Hold it!’ said Mo, her hand in the air. ‘I thought you told me that you did not want to be anyone’s boyfriend, hmmm?’

  Felix stammered, ‘I – I – no, I don’t.’

  ‘And now you are telling me that you have a Girl Friend?’ Mo persisted.

  Felix shook his head, ‘No, no, no! Listen! That is not the point. I have a friend who is a girl and she is called Flo . . .’

  Mo burst into fits of giggles and pushed Felix lightly away. ‘Aww, that is charming!’ she said. ‘Why did you just not say that you wanted me to be your girlfriend?’

  Felix looked horrified. ‘NO! I said “Flo”, not “Mo”! I mean – I didn’t mean to offend you,’ he said hastily, as he watched Mo’s expression darken into a scowl. ‘Please, Mo, will you just listen to everything first before you say something else?’ he pleaded.

  Mo shrugged and sat back with her arms folded. ‘OK,’ she yawned. ‘But hurry up, because I am getting bored of this secret.’

  Felix stuck out his bottom lip. Why were girls such hard work? Maybe this was why his older brother Merv was always in such a bad mood? Maybe girls just got harder and harder work so that by the time you were Merv’s age they drove you potty.

  ‘So, I have this friend called Flo – Flora,’ he corrected himself quickly, ‘and she is a girl, but she is not my girlfriend. And she loves animals as much as I do.’

  ‘So? I am a girl and I love animals,’ Mo muttered.

  Felix chose to ignore her and went on, ‘And Flo-ra –’ he cleared his throat – ‘Flora has asked me to bring her back something from Africa,’ he said. ‘Only she has asked me for something quite difficult and I don’t know if I can manage it.’

  ‘Oh, so you want me to help you do this so that you can show off to your friend-who-is-a-girl when you get back to England?’ Mo said. Her dark eyes had a steely glint to them, Felix couldn’t help noticing.

  ‘Y-yes.’ He faltered. ‘Cos the thing is –’ he let out a heavy sigh – ‘she is going to make life rather difficult for me back home if I don’t.’

  Felix hated himself for admitting this. Mo was bound to think he was weak and a bit of a weirdo now.

  However, Mo perked up suddenly. ‘If I help you, will you give me an excellent present which you have b
rought me from England?’ she said. She had her hands on her hips and was smiling at him in what he thought looked quite a dangerous and challenging sort of way.

  ‘I – er. Oh . . .’ said Felix. What on earth was he supposed to say to that? ‘I didn’t bring any presents. I – I didn’t actually know that I was going to meet you,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Well, you should have found out from Mr Zed,’ said Mo. Her smile was fading fast. ‘You knew you were meeting my daddy. Why did you not know you were meeting me? All I can say is, if you do not get a present for me, why should I help you to get a present for your English Girl Friend?’

  Felix felt all the air go out of him as though he was a balloon that someone had stuck a pin into. Mo did have a point, he realized.

  ‘You can have my head torch if you like?’ he offered. He did not really want to give his head torch away, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

  ‘Pfff,’ Mo said. ‘I do not need a torch. I can see in the dark.’

  Felix was pretty sure this was not true, but Mo was looking so disdainful he decided it was not worth arguing with her. He felt that the opportunity of getting Mo on his side was slipping away fast, so he said, ‘What sort of a present would you like? If you gave me a clue, I could see what I could find.’

  ‘Ha! I am not going to make things that easy for you, Felix,’ Mo scoffed. ‘But,’ she added slyly, ‘when you have found something nice for me, I will ask my daddy about finding something special for your “friend”. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Felix said. He had no idea how he would manage this, but he was desperate to get the conversation back on track. ‘Only,’ he went on, ‘the thing I need – well, I was kind of hoping that we could keep this a secret between us two, you know – not let the boring grown-ups know?’

  Mo struggled to maintain a bored expression, but Felix could see she was intrigued. Eventually she said, ‘All right.’

  Felix swallowed. Then he said, ‘I need you to help me get a monkey – a baby monkey.’

  Mo stared at him in silence for a moment. Then she leaned in and shouted, ‘A WHAT?’ and let out a volley of hyena-laughs, throwing her head back and showing all her white teeth.

  ‘Shhhh!’ said Felix, looking around wildly. ‘You’ll wake the others!’

  Mo shook her head at him. ‘You want me to trap a baby monkey – this is the present you want to give your Girl Friend in England?’

  Felix nodded miserably. ‘I know. It’s hopeless, isn’t it?’

  Mo shrugged. ‘It is not so hopeless, no,’ she said carelessly. ‘Not for someone like me. But you will have to give me a ve-ry spe-ci-al present in return,’ she drawled.

  ‘OK, OK!’ cried Felix. ‘Anything!’

  ‘Anything?’

  Felix gulped and nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’

  A cunning smile crept slowly from the corners of Mo’s mouth until it lit up her entire face. ‘Fine. In that case . . . I would like your camera.’

  Felix felt his stomach plummet into his sandals. ‘My what?’ he whispered. ‘I can’t do that. It’s not mine: it’s my dad’s.’

  ‘OK.’ Mo shrugged again. ‘No camera, no monkey,’ she said.

  She stuck her nose in the air and turned around, leaving Felix feeling powerless to respond.

  Felix did not enjoy the late afternoon game drive as much as the morning. He was too preoccupied. He sat hunched against his uncle, staring vacantly at the passing landscape as Bibi gave a running commentary on the birdlife around them.

  ‘And that is a hamerkop – it means “hammer-head”. Can you see that its head is shaped like a hammer?

  And that small bird with the blue and lilac colouring – that is the lilac-breasted roller. It is our national bird,’ Bibi said with pride.

  Felix sighed.

  ‘Feels, man . . .’ Zed shook him gently. ‘Are you falling asleep? You are a bit dopey this evening. And you keep, like, sighing – you’re not sick, are you?’

  ‘I told you to have a sleep in the afternoon,’ said Mum.

  ‘No, I’m not tired,’ said Felix. ‘I’m not sick either.’

  Zed frowned. ‘Well, you’re not yourself. Did you have a fight with Mo?’

  Felix chewed the inside of his cheek. He did not want to get Mo into trouble, because he still needed her help. ‘No,’ he said. How was he going to get Mo to help him, though? No way could he give her Dad’s camera. He would be in so much trouble if anything happened to—

  ‘Oh!’ he cried, sitting bold upright. ‘The camera!’

  ‘What have you done with it?’ Mum said with a gasp. ‘You’d better not have lost it—’

  ‘No, I’ve left it behind,’ Felix said, slumping back against Zed.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure that was a safe thing to do,’ said Mum.

  ‘Chill, sis,’ said Zed.

  ‘It will be OK, Mma,’ said Bibi. ‘Mo and Elvis are there. It will be perfectly safe, as long as you closed the tent.’

  ‘You did close the tent, didn’t you?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Sis, it’s cool. I closed it,’ Zed assured her. ‘Hey, Bibi, how about we show Feels the Tree of Life?’

  Bibi turned and grinned. ‘An excellent idea,’ he said. ‘I know just the place.’

  ‘What is the Tree of Life?’ Felix asked.

  ‘The baobab, man,’ said Zed. ‘It’s the coolest tree in the world. A spot of real African magic.’

  Bibi tutted. ‘Zed, it is not magic. It is true there are many myths and legends about the baobab, but . . . why don’t you see for yourself?’

  They pulled up by the strangest tree Felix had ever seen.

  Mum laughed. ‘It looks as though it has been planted upside down!’ she said.

  ‘There is an old story,’ said Bibi. ‘They used to say that an elephant frightened the ancestor of the baobab, which is why it grows upside down – it buried its head in the earth to escape the elephant.’

  The tree had strange, thin wiry branches which looked more like roots, whereas its roots were thick and heavy, crawling along the surface of the ground for quite a way before burrowing down into the dark red, dusty soil.

  Felix got out of the jeep and went over to the tree with Bibi.

  ‘The bark . . . it’s freaky,’ said Felix. He reached out and touched it. ‘It’s like skin!’

  The bark was a pinky-brown.

  ‘I think the trunk actually looks like an elephant’s leg,’ said Mum. ‘Are you sure this is a tree? Maybe the elephant in the story got frightened instead and buried itself in the ground?’

  Bibi laughed. ‘I do not think you like the look of my Tree of Life? Ah, but you will be amazed at what it can do.’

  He took a penknife from the jeep and went over to the tree. Then he crouched down next to one of the big roots and began to gouge a hole in the bark. He made a hole as big as his fist.

  ‘Come,’ he said to Felix, nodding and waving to him.

  Felix looked at Zed, who grinned encouragingly, then he went over to Bibi.

  ‘Put your hand in here,’ he said, pointing to the hole.

  ‘Bibi, it is safe, isn’t it?’ asked Mum. ‘I mean, there won’t be any snakes or anything like that in there?’

  Bibi shook his head. ‘Watch,’ he said. He put his own hand in the hole and brought it out. No snakes or spiders came out with it – only water! A fistful of water, which Bibi tipped into his mouth and drank, making a big show of how delicious it was, smacking his lips and laughing.

  Wow!’ said Felix. He plunged his hand in too. ‘There’s a whole lake of water in there!’ he cried, as he brought his hand out, dripping wet.

  ‘See? African magic,’ said Zed, winking.

  ‘Well, it is true that there are many stories about the powers of the baobab tree,’ said Bibi, stroking the roots. ‘Long ago, people did think that it really was magic that you could get water from the tree. Also it has medicinal properties, so you could say that is magic too. For example, the leaves are rich in vitamin C and calcium. Perhaps this is
why many people have believed that a man who takes a drink made from the bark will become strong. And in some places people still think that a baby boy should be bathed in such a liquid, as this will make him grow into a strong man.’

  Felix listened carefully. ‘So, you mean that the tree is like a vegetable which is good for humans? Like when Mum says I should eat my greens and that will make me strong? I’ve never believed that. I thought she was just saying it to make me eat them.’

  Bibi grinned. ‘Your mother is a wise woman,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mum, smiling. ‘At last my talents are recognized.’

  ‘Sometimes we eat the leaves of the baobab because of the good vitamins,’ Bibi continued. ‘They can be cooked, you see, like cabbage.’

  Felix pulled a face.

  ‘Cabbage is good!’ said Bibi. ‘The root of a very young baobab tree is delicious, too!’

  Felix shook his head, ‘Yeuch!’ he cried. Why did grown-ups describe vegetables as ‘delicious’? Did something happen to your taste buds when you grew up? Or did grown-ups just say those things to try and trick children?

  Bibi went on, ‘The seeds are good to eat too. And when the wood is chewed, it can quench your thirst. There are other things people have said for hundreds and thousands of years about the tree. Some tribes worship the baobab as a symbol of fertility. Again, there is truth in this, I think – the goodness of the bark and the leaves, and the wonderful way it keeps water for us, make it a very fertile plant. Many people plant a new baobab from seeds they have kept when they move village. So we know it is special.’

  Felix wished he could take some African magic home for Flo. It would be easier than secretly catching a baby monkey, that was for sure.

  Felix was feeling unhappier by the minute. He still had not thought of a better present for Mo and he knew he could not give her the camera.