Monkey Business

by Anna Wilson

  I’ve planned my plan and I’ve got my Secret Stuff, so what else can I do while I wait? he thought to himself. His stomach rumbled noisily. It gave him an idea. ‘Aha!’ he said aloud. ‘I’ll make a big surprise breakfast for everyone. That will cheer them up and stop them moaning at me.’

  He raced downstairs so fast he skidded over the last four stairs as if he was tobogganing and flew over Dyson who had been snoozing on the bottom step.

  Dyson trotted into the kitchen after Felix, who fed him, let him out, put some food out for Colin (who was still hiding under Felix’s bed) and went to put some hamster food in Hammer’s cage. Then he set to work laying the table for everyone, and when he had finished he sat down and waited.

  ‘You’ve laid the table for breakfast!’ Mum exclaimed when she emerged later, looking bleary-eyed and a bit smudged. Her face was never quite her own face until she’d had a cup of coffee. Or two. She blinked and shook her head in a way that suggested that she did not believe what she was seeing. ‘Wonders will never cease.’

  Felix was particularly proud of the way he had laid the table. He had put fruit in the fruit bowl and put that in the middle of everything as a kind of decoration. Then he had made sure that all the plates and bowls and mugs were matching for once, even though this had meant he had had to unstack the dishwasher and put all the other bits and bobs of washing-up on the work surfaces as he was not sure which cupboards to put them away in. (It made the kitchen look a little like the china department in one of those big posh shops in town, but at least he hadn’t broken anything.)

  And then he had put four bowls out, and just for a change and because it looked pretty, he had put the plates on top of the bowls. It had the rather pleasing effect of making the place settings look like mushrooms. To finish it all off, he had balanced a mug on each plate and put a knife and a spoon in each mug.

  ‘I should get a job in a restaurant to earn some money,’ he had said aloud when he stepped back to admire his handiwork. ‘Then I could buy all the animals in the world that I have ever wanted.’

  Mum sat down and gingerly removed her mug from her plate, and took the plate carefully off the bowl and filled it with her favourite cereal, known by Dad as ‘Sawdust Muck’, but labelled on the packet as ‘Healthy Hearty Muesli’.

  ‘Would you like some coffee, Mum?’ Felix asked in his politest voice.

  ‘Am I still asleep?’ Mum asked, blinking again. ‘I didn’t know you knew how to make coffee. I hope you were careful with the kettle.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t use the kettle,’ said Felix cheerily.

  ‘Er, what did you use?’ Mum asked. She was suddenly looking distinctly less eager at the prospect of a reviving hot drink.

  ‘The hot tap!’ said Felix, feeling very pleased with himself. This really had been a fantastic idea of his, making breakfast. Mum would be so happy about it that it would put her in a good mood for the rest of the day, and she would not mind a bit when it came to his plan . . .

  ‘Ah,’ said Mum. ‘Erm, it’s OK. I’ll just have orange juice, thanks.’

  Felix shrugged. ‘All right. I’ll leave this for Dad then.’ He put the coffee pot on the kitchen table and sat down to tuck into his own breakfast.

  Mum breathed out heavily, then shooting Felix an anxious glance she said cautiously, ‘It was lovely of you to get everything ready.’ She made a stab at her Sawdust Muck and peered at it as if she was worried something might be living in it. Like a hamster, for example. It did look like the shavings in Hammer’s cage.

  ‘You’re not, er, trying to tell us something, are you?’ Mum continued, grimacing slightly.

  ‘Noooo!’ Felix protested, munching on a slice of toast. ‘I only wanted ev’ryone to have a nice bre’kf’st.’

  Mum smiled, but it looked painful. ‘That’s lovely.’

  ‘Is Merv coming to Shortfleet?’ Felix asked anxiously, glancing over his shoulder at the kitchen door. It would be just like Merv to do something stupid and ruin Felix’s plan.

  Dad had come in and poured himself a huge mug of coffee. ‘Merv? Get up on a Saturday morning? Merv come on a family outing?’ He took a large gulp of coffee and immediately his face went tight as if he’d just sucked a lemon, and he spluttered the coffee down his chin. ‘Who made this? It’s revol—’

  ‘What your dad’s trying to say is, “No, Merv’s not coming,”’ said Mum hastily, frowning at Dad and shaking her head.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ Felix said with feeling. ‘And what time are Flo and Zed getting here?’

  ‘Not till eight,’ said Dad, wiping his mouth on the back of his pyjama sleeve and glancing at his watch in a woebegone way. ‘D’you know, sometimes I think Merv’s got the right idea. It’s still only half past seven . . .’

  Only half past seven! Felix sighed. They weren’t due to leave for the safari park until half past eight. How could any normal human being be expected to wait another Whole Hour before setting off on the birthday treat of the century? Not to mention the agony of waiting until he could put his amazing plan into action.

  Felix felt a howl work its way up from his belly, and just about stopped himself from letting it out. Instead a tiny groan emerged from his lips.

  Mum smiled. ‘Why don’t you open a few presents while you’re waiting, and then you can help me pack some snacks for the day?’ she asked. ‘I’ve bought crisps and chocolate and things, and we can make sandwiches.’

  Felix perked up immediately. He had been so overexcited about the day itself and the plan that he had almost forgotten about presents and party food.

  Then he remembered something else. ‘You did buy those peanuts I asked you to get, didn’t you?’ he quizzed his mum. ‘And we must take loads of bananas – Flo loves bananas almost as much as I do,’ he added quickly, noticing the suspicious looks Mum was giving him.

  ‘Felix,’ said Dad, ‘you’ve been eating nothing but bananas these days as far as I can see. You’ll turn into one if you’re not careful. Ho! Ho!’

  Felix curled his lip. Dad’s jokes were rarely funny, but that had to be the worst one in a while.

  Mum rolled her eyes and said, ‘I did get the peanuts, yes, but I’m still not entirely sure why we had to have so many packets. There’s only five of us going on this outing, and Dad doesn’t even like peanuts. Come to think of it, isn’t Clive allergic to them?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Felix firmly. ‘Uncle Zed loves them. He actually asked me to make extra-specially sure that we would definitely have bags and bags of them, cos he’s got a Bit of a Craving going on for peanuts just now.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mum, not looking altogether convinced with this explanation. ‘As for the bananas, I didn’t think Madam ate any fruit.’

  ‘Madam’ was Mum’s name for Flo – not when Flo was around, of course; that would have been rude.

  ‘Flo does like bananas,’ Felix assured her. ‘She actually positively ADORES them. She would eat them all the time if her mum was as kind as you are and actually let her.’

  Mum narrowed her eyes at the totally unexpected and quite unusual compliment her younger son had just paid her. Then she sighed and started clearing away the breakfast things. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well, when you’ve opened the presents in the sitting room, you can go and look for some Tupperware boxes and I’ll get the snacks out, bananas, peanuts and everything. You can help me pack the picnic.’

  Felix went into the sitting room where there were three presents waiting for him. He sat down slowly and made himself focus on the shiny wrapping paper and the bows and ribbons. He was nine now and it was really important to be Mature about this. He knew that he should not do what he normally did. But his fingers were wriggling, a big bubble was working its way up inside him . . .

  ‘Aieee!’ he cried, throwing himself at the presents like a dog leaping on to a big fat juicy bone. He ripped the paper off all three presents in the space of five seconds, scooped up the contents and went tearing down the hall shouting, ‘I’ve got a bat box a
nd a wormery and a real live woodlouse house! Cool!’ He had been wanting a wormery since forever so that he could make his own compost, and the bat box would be wicked for hanging in the trees and watching bats zoom in and out on a summer’s evening and as for the woodlouse house – who wouldn’t want one of those?

  ‘You like the presents then?’ Dad said, ruffling his son’s hair as he whizzed past.

  ‘I LOVE THEM!’ Felix yelled. This was surely going to be the best birthday ever.

  He threw himself into the sandwich-making with gusto, smearing mayonnaise on top of slices of ham, slapping the ham between slices of bread and poking gherkins and bits of that plasticky cheese with the holes into everything in sight. Mum complained the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, but Felix thought this was a slight exaggeration, as bombs would make craters in everything and would most likely reduce the walls of the house to rubble too. But he was very determined to be good and helpful, so he grabbed a cloth and scrubbed at the table to show willing. Then he scrambled upstairs to do a last-minute check on his own bit of organization for the day.

  He shut his bedroom door and tiptoed over to where he had stashed his rucksack. Mum had given him the peanuts as he had insisted that he wanted to be helpful and carry them, but she had Drawn the Line at giving him the bananas. ‘They will go all squishy,’ she had told him. ‘Especially if you’ve stuffed your bag full of all the normal nonsense you insist on taking with you on car journeys.’ She was probably right, Felix thought. He would just have to make sure that Zed was allowed to look after the bananas so that he had Easy Access to them in the back of the car.

  Felix carefully shut the bag and slung it over one shoulder. Then taking a last look around his room he smiled to himself. His plan was going to work like clockwork.

  14

  WE’RE GOING TO

  THE ZOO, ZOO, ZOO!

  DRIIIING!

  ‘At last!’ Felix yelled, zooming downstairs on his bottom to get to the door as fast as possible.

  ‘Hey!’ Zed cried, flinging his arms in the air. He was holding an interesting-looking parcel in one hand, Felix noticed. ‘Happy birthday, man!’ Zed started singing, ‘We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, and you can come too, too, too . . . Ooo, ooo, ooo!’ He finished with a pretty cheesy impression of a monkey, jumping about, his long arms dangling by his sides.

  Felix flinched at the sight. Why had Zed chosen to impersonate a monkey? Surely he didn’t suspect anything . . . ? But when Zed stopped abruptly and looked a bit sheepish, Felix realized it was just his uncle up to his usual silly jokes.

  ‘We are not going to the zoo! Shortfleet is a safari park,’ Felix said importantly, before hurling himself at Zed in an affectionate rugby tackle.

  Zed chuckled. ‘I know, sorry. Hey! I’ve got something for you. Cool it a minute, man. You might break the present,’ he gasped, as Felix’s rough-and-tumble tickling attack got a bit over-boisterous. He gently pushed Felix back and handed him the interesting-looking parcel, which was wrapped in brown paper and held together with a sliver of gold ribbon.

  ‘But you’ve already given me a present,’ Felix reminded him. ‘The orang-utan, Reggie – remember?’

  Zed blushed. ‘Yeah, but me and Silvs, we just felt bad about that, dude. Y’know – all that stuff about you thinking he really was coming to live with you. We thought we should give you something for real. Sorry Silvs couldn’t come too, by the way. No room in your dad’s car for the both of us. She wanted to give you this, as well,’ Zed added, picking up a plastic bag he’d placed by the door. ‘But you’d better open the other present first.’

  ‘Thanks!’ said Felix as he walked towards the kitchen. ‘Flo’s not here yet. Do you want a drink?’ he called over his shoulder.

  Mum came out to say hello. ‘I wouldn’t recommend the coffee,’ she said, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘Why not?’ Felix protested, but he didn’t really care. He was in too much of a hurry to open the present.

  Zed grinned. ‘It’s OK. I’m not into coffee any more, sis,’ he said. ‘Gives me the shakes, y’know?’

  Mum smiled wryly. ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘OK, well have some mint tea if you like. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘OH WOW!’ Felix yelled, holding up the object he’d just freed from the brown paper. ‘Look at this, Mum! It’s soooooo wicked!’

  Mum frowned. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a butterfly and moth kit! I’ve ALWAYS wanted one!’ he cried, dancing round and round in a circle and whooping madly. ‘You put the caterpillars in the caterpillar home with loads of sugary stuff and then you watch them change into butterflies or moths. Woooo!’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Mum, mentally clocking up how many mini-beast houses and other animal homes she was going to have to dust around from now on.

  Dyson rushed in from the garden and was soon adding to the commotion by barking and leaping all over the place.

  ‘DYSON, OUT!’ Mum yelled, pointing to the back door. ‘OOOOH, there’s mud everywhere, and just when we were ready to go.’

  ‘Can I see what’s in the bag now?’ Felix asked.

  Zed nodded and handed it over, carefully taking the caterpillar kit back so that Felix had a free pair of hands.

  The contents of the bag resulted in even more jumping and leaping and shouting: ‘A BIRD’S NEST!’ Felix shrieked. ‘FOR MY COLLECTION!’

  ‘Yeah, it’s an abandoned blackbird’s nest, man. Make sure you label it.’

  ‘WHOOOPPPEEEE!’ Felix yelled, punching the air in delight with the hand that wasn’t holding the nest.

  ‘Can’t you lot shut up?’ Merv emerged, low-slung pyjamas revealing more than anyone would ever want to see, his hair sticking up in so many different positions that he looked more like a porcupine than any real live one.

  ‘Merv!’ Mum admonished. ‘You could at least say happy birthday to your brother.’

  ‘“Happy birthday to your brother”,’ Merv sneered, and then for good measure he added: ‘Squirt!’ and disappeared back up to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  Felix put the nest down on the kitchen table before throwing his arms round Zed and squeezing him. ‘You are the best uncle in the whole wide world.’

  Zed laughed.

  DRIIIING!

  ‘Yay!’ Felix shouted, hurling himself at the front door. ‘That’ll be Flo – time to GO!’

  Felix ran to the front door and flung it open so hard he almost caught Zed in the face.

  ‘Wow, chill a bit, man,’ said Zed. ‘Have you been at your mum’s coffee or something?’

  ‘Hi, Flo!’ Felix almost screamed he was so toppled-over with excitement.

  Flo did actually scream. ‘Aaaaiiiiieeee!’ She jumped up and down and up and down, sending her mad hair into an even madder frenzy of frizziness.

  Mrs Small stood at the end of the drive and waved cautiously. ‘See you later, darling. Have a lovely birthday, Felix!’ she called. ‘Good luck . . .’ she added, raising her eyebrows rather pointedly at Zed.

  Flo waved vaguely in the direction of her mother and then continued shrieking and bouncing up and down.

  ‘OK, OK. That’s enough,’ said Mum, coming out of the kitchen wearing a pair of rubber gloves and carrying a bottle of cleaning liquid in her hands. ‘This has been a very long morning as it is, what with Felix ‘Dawn Chorus’ Stowe here giving the house a make-over with mayonnaise and ham and then Dyson charging in and redecorating it all over again with mud.’

  ‘What?’ said Flo, stopping in mid-scream to stand and gawp at Mum.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Mum. ‘Are you ready to go?’

  Flo’s excitement withered under the force of Mum’s glower and she stopped jumping. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said breathlessly, ‘but this is just about the best day of my whole life and that’s pretty amazing as it’s not even my birthday, it’s Felix’s, but it’s still the best day ever because we are finally going to get our hands on some real mon—’

  ‘BLE
URGHOOOOW!’ Felix let out an almighty spluttering cough while crunching his eyebrows together very fiercely indeed in Flo’s direction.

  ‘Felix! Put your hand up, please,’ Mum admonished. ‘Flora does not want to be covered in germs and breakfast and goodness knows what else.’

  ‘Yes, Felix,’ said Flo. ‘You are being utterly gross. And why are you growling and frowning like that?’

  Felix rolled his eyes and mouthed, ‘Shut up about the you-know-what!’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ she said carelessly. ‘Anyway, happy birthday!’ Her voice rose to a squeak at the end of the sentence and she started jumping again while she thrust a parcel into Felix’s hands. ‘I couldn’t wait to give you this.’

  Felix grinned. ‘Thanks, Flo.’ He started ripping the paper off and revealed a slim plastic box with cartoon images of animals all over the front. Felix stared at it, completely speechless, his jaw hanging open.

  ‘Don’t you – you do like it, d-don’t you?’ Flo stammered, waiting like an anxious puppy for Felix’s reaction.

  ‘Like it? Are you kidding?’ he finally whispered. And then: ‘I LOVE IT!’ he shouted, flinging himself at Flo as if he was about to hug her and then changing his mind in mid-fling and messing up her crazy fluffy hair instead.

  Flo was grinning so hard that every tooth, and every gap between every tooth, was on show. She was in danger of starting another performance of the high-pitched variety, when Zed gently prised Felix’s hands from her hair and said, ‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’

  Felix looked at him as if he had just said something in Japanese. ‘How can you not know what this is?’ he asked in total disbelief, waving the box in front of his uncle’s face. ‘It’s Zoo Mania!’

  Zed smiled and shook his head. ‘Whatever you say, dude.’

  Flo shook her head and sighed impatiently. ‘Honestly, don’t you even know what Zoo Mania is? What kind of an Olden-Fashioned-Day person are you? It’s a computer game, of course. You get to build up your own zoo with animals and feed them and look after them and be a real zookeeper, except not really in real true life, obviously. Not yet anyway,’ she added cryptically, shooting Felix a knowing look.