Monkey Business

by Anna Wilson

  Zed caught her at it and said, ‘Yet?’

  Felix’s face twisted itself into a mask of horror, but luckily Mum re-emerged at that very moment. (She was looking rather weary considering the day had only just got going, Felix thought.)

  ‘OK, no more time to stand and natter,’ she said. ‘Dad’s getting the car out and the lunch is packed and we’re all here. So let’s go!’

  15

  MONKEYING

  AROUND

  The driveway to Shortfleet safari park was the longest driveway in the world, according to Flo.

  ‘You’ve been down a lot of driveways in your time then?’ Dad asked, chuckling.

  ‘Oh millions,’ said Flo airily. ‘And this is definitely the most longest of the lot. Which is rather annoying,’ she added grimly, ‘as it means it’s going to take us even more time to actually arrive in the safari park.’

  Felix agreed. ‘It has been such a long journey. Are we nearly there yet?’

  ‘ARRRGHHH!’ chorused Mum and Dad.

  ‘Hey, chill,’ said Zed. ‘Time is all in the mind, y’know—’

  ‘Clive,’ Mum warned.

  Zed bit his lip and made a zipping motion with his hand while giving Flo and Felix a mammoth-sized wink.

  ‘I wonder if, like, the dude himself will be in residence today,’ Zed said, gazing out of the window at the huge house at the bottom of the Longest Drive in the World.

  ‘The who?’ asked Flo.

  ‘Lord Basin,’ said Felix knowledgeably. ‘He is a Very Important Person in the World of Conversationism. Isn’t he, Zed?’

  ‘I think Flora would win the prize for “conVERsationism”,’ giggled Mum.

  ‘It’s “conSERvationism”,’ Zed explained as Felix and Flo looked at him with a puzzled expression. ‘And you’re bang on the button, man. Lord Basin is cool on conservation and he is way far out too.’

  ‘Far out where?’ said Flo.

  Zed laughed. ‘“Far out”, as in he’s a wacky kinda guy! He dresses in these awesome long cloaks and he always wears a funky hat. And I’ve heard stories about his house like you wouldn’t believe, man. They say he has carpets that move and buttons in the wall that you can push to open secret passageways. And there are all the artefacts and sculptures that he’s brought back from his travels in Africa.’ Zed had a dreamy look on his face now. He often got that look on his face when he started thinking of Africa. Felix sometimes worried that his uncle would end up going back there and then he wouldn’t be able to see him so much.

  At last, after far too many verses of ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain’ (which included a distinctly unusual ‘She’ll be wearing big bananas when she comes . . .’ from Felix who could hardly breathe for laughter by the time it was over) the Stowes, Zed and Flo arrived at the entrance.

  ‘Welcome to Shortfleet Safari Park,’ read a placard. ‘Please read the safety notices and stay in your vehicle at all times.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Flo cried. ‘Why do we have to stay in the vee-high-kel?’

  Felix jabbed her firmly in the ribs. ‘It’s pronounced veer-kul, you loony,’ he cried, and then in a low voice ‘and shut up about getting out or anything like that or you’ll Give the Game Away!’

  ‘But—’ Flo protested, rubbing her ribs.

  ‘Remember what I said about the plan,’ Felix hissed. ‘We don’t need to get out.’

  ‘Why?’ Flo persisted.

  Felix started whispering and gesturing wildly at the car windows.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Flo, sitting back and smiling smugly.

  ‘What are you two up to?’ Mum demanded, swivelling round in her seat to eyeball the squirming pair. ‘Can’t you squash them or something, Clive?’

  ‘They’re cool, sis,’ Zed said, putting an arm round each child. ‘They’re just excited, that’s all.’

  ‘No thanks to your crazy stories and all that stupid singing,’ Mum muttered.

  ‘Hey, look – a giraffe!’ Zed shouted.

  Dad had pressed the button to open his window and was paying the entrance fee. Felix strained to look out of the windscreen at the enclosure beyond the car park. His eyes bulged. Giraffes were grazing on nets full of leaves that had been strung up in the trees for them.

  ‘Wow, it’s weird to see giraffes in a field like that!’ he said. And it just proves that wild endangered animals can live in England, he thought.

  ‘Sit back down, Felix,’ said Mum. ‘You’ve got to stay strapped in.’

  Dad thanked the keeper and put the window back up. ‘We’ve got a CD to listen to as we go round,’ he said, handing a square envelope to Mum. ‘It’s read by that Kitty Bumble off the telly – you know the one that does the bird-watching programme with that old man with the beard?’

  ‘The ditzy, giggly, blonde one?’ Mum teased, taking the CD out of its packaging and posting it into the car CD player.

  Felix thought the back of Dad’s ears had gone a bit hot-looking. ‘Kitty Bumble is a very intelligent woman who knows what she is talking about,’ he said, pressing the on button so that Kitty’s voice drowned out what Mum said next.

  ‘Hello and welcome to Shortfleet!’ came the warm and friendly tones. ‘This CD will tell you a bit about the animals as we go round. After you’ve finished in each enclosure there will be a beeping noise. When you hear that noise, turn the CD off and turn it on again when you reach the next enclosure. At the end of your visit, please feel free to take this CD home, or alternatively you can recycle it by handing it back to one of the keepers on your way out. Remember to observe the safety rules, keep your windows closed and stay inside your vehicle at all times. And, above all, enjoy your visit!’

  BEEP!

  ‘So where do we go first?’ asked Felix. ‘Can we see the monkeys?’

  Flo nudged Felix and giggled hysterically.

  ‘Shhh,’ he hissed.

  Flo bit her lip and forced the giggles back down.

  ‘The monkeys are near the park exit,’ said Mum, looking at the map the keeper had given Dad with the CD and tickets.

  ‘So? Can’t you drive there first?’ Flo asked.

  ‘No,’ said Mum firmly, ‘You have to follow all the other cars around in a queue – you’re not allowed to take short-cuts.’

  Flo huffed and slumped back in her seat, but quickly perked up as Dad began following an orange-and-black tiger-striped minibus into the giraffe enclosure.

  Every square centimetre of Felix literally tingled with happiness. This was dreamy – a whole day of looking at giraffes, rhinos, lions, tigers, wolves and, of course, monkeys . . . The best was yet to come, he thought with satisfaction, swiftly checking his rucksack to see if the peanuts were easily to hand.

  ‘You have got the bananas Mum gave you, haven’t you, Zed?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Right here, dude,’ Zed said, patting the bag on his lap. ‘You hungry?’

  ‘Erm, not yet,’ said Felix. ‘Oh, look! Wolves!’

  Dad had driven through some big metal gates that had notices all over them saying how dangerous the wolves were.

  ‘It is very interesting to think that the mothers look after the babies and the fathers go and do the hunting, isn’t it?’ said Felix, listening to the CD. ‘I mean, it’s a bit like humans in Real Life, isn’t it? Mum looks after me and Merv, and Dad goes out all day to the office.’

  ‘Ahem,’ Mum said, turning round and fixing her younger son with a pointed look. ‘I happen to go to work too, you know.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Felix impatiently. ‘But you do look after me too, whereas Dad only goes to work.’

  ‘Hey!’ Dad objected. ‘You make it sound easy!’

  Zed held up his hands. ‘Cool it, guys. Life’s not a competition. Look at those wolves – they know how to chill out.’

  Felix agreed. The wolves were lying around in groups, soaking up the spring sunshine, occasionally lifting their heads to look around.

  After an hour of trailing after the stripy tiger bus and listening to th
e soft, almost sleep-making, tones of Kitty Bumble explaining the individual habits of every animal on the planet, Felix at last spotted a sign that told him they had arrived at the part he had been waiting for.

  ‘MONKEYS!’ he yelled.

  Flo screeched in delight and Dad quickly turned up the volume on the CD player to cover up the noise. Kitty Bumble’s smiley voice warned them that the monkeys were ‘. . . quite playful and liable to climb on to your vehicle. Do not be alarmed – as long as you keep your doors and windows shut at all times you will be perfectly safe. If at any time you are anxious and require the assistance of a keeper, simply sound your horn and someone will be with you immediately. Please remember to stay inside your vehicle, and be advised that Shortfleet accepts no responsibility for damage to your belongings. Have a great visit in the monkey enclosure!’

  Dad let the car slow down a bit. Mum glanced at him questioningly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Felix asked, sensing the tension.

  ‘Erm,’ said Dad quietly, ‘I’m not sure I want to go in there after all. What if the monkeys do damage the car? I’ve heard awful stories about people losing their wing mirrors and windscreen wipers.’

  Flo gasped and Felix felt a shiver run down his spine.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ian, this car is hardly our pride and joy. We’ll have a riot on our hands if we don’t go in,’ Mum added, glancing over her shoulder at the back seat.

  ‘It will be OK, Mr Stowe,’ added Flo with complete certainty. ‘I have seen this part of the park on that utterly brilliant programme called Safari Park Live, and they absolutely definitely never show monkeys destroying cars.’

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they?’ Dad grumbled.

  But Mum shot him one of her looks, and so he had to drive on, gritting his teeth so hard that Felix noticed the veins in his jaw throbbing in a freaky kind of way. He also noticed his dad press the window lock so that only he could open the windows.

  Zed laughed. ‘Maybe the monkeys are trying to tell us something, y’know?’

  ‘No, Clive,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, like, maybe monkeys have already worked out that cars are bad for the environment and they are trying to tell the guys here that by jumping all over them?’

  ‘Clive,’ said Mum, ‘shut up.’

  ‘Only if you stop calling me Clive, sis,’ Zed said, raising one eyebrow and sitting back in his seat.

  Flo took advantage of the boring grown-up-style argument going on to lean in to Felix and loudly whisper, ‘I’ll give the signal.’

  Felix frowned hard at Flo and mouthed, ‘NO! I’m giving the signal!’

  ‘What are you two up to now?’ Mum asked irritably. ‘Just sit still. We’re going into the enclosure now – look, the gates are opening. And listen to the CD, can’t you? That “extremely intelligent” Kitty woman is going to tell us all the fascinating facts she knows about the fascinating monkeys and all their fascinating monkey habits,’ she added in a tone of voice that suggested she didn’t really mean what she was saying.

  ‘Can I have a banana?’ Felix asked his uncle.

  ‘Yes, me too,’ Flo added, staring at Felix in a bit of an Obvious Way. ‘I’m utterly starving.’

  ‘Here you are. Not going to feed them to the monkeys, I hope!’ Zed said, laughing.

  Flo shook her head violently. ‘Absolutely not. What a stupid idea,’ she said. Felix quickly stuffed a piece of banana into his mouth to prove a point.

  Dad drove the car cautiously through the gates which were manned by cheery-looking keepers in T-shirts bearing the red-and-white Shortfleet logo. Flo bounced up and down and waved at the keepers. Felix would normally have joined in, but he was starting to feel distinctly nervous about his plan. Especially now Dad had put the window lock on. Felix stared at the lock and wondered how he was going to be able to unlock it. And how would he be able to tell Flo what to do quickly enough to stop Mum or Dad spoiling things? He fiddled with a bag of peanuts and clutched a banana a bit too hard. SQUELCH! It sort of popped and a glob of it squidged out on to his jeans. He felt quite hot and itchy and suddenly wished Dad would put his foot down after all about not going into the monkey reserve. Maybe he should tell Dad that he was worried about the monkeys destroying the car as well? Maybe he should say he felt sick and needed to get out of the car? Maybe he should scream for help—

  ‘They are funny, aren’t they? Those two look like they’re playing tag!’ said Dad, pointing to a cute, soft monkey who was repeatedly tapping his friend on the shoulder and then running off at top speed before he could be caught.

  ‘Oh man, look at the car in front!’ Zed said. ‘They’re all over the roof! And they’re grooming each other! I just love it when they scratch themselves.’ He chuckled. ‘Look at their long arms. They crack me up. They are so funny!’

  ‘You’ve gone very quiet, Felix. Don’t you like them?’ Mum asked, turning round.

  Felix shrugged and tried to look Cool and Calm.

  ‘Phew, am I glad our car doesn’t have a roof-rack or anything,’ Dad said. ‘See that caravan up in front – the one with the orange canoes on it? The monkeys are having a ball up there.’

  Felix peered through the windscreen to where Dad was pointing. The monkeys certainly were having a ball – dancing in and out of the canoes, ripping bits off them. And nibbling them! What on earth could be tasty about a canoe, Felix wondered idly. Come to that, why would someone want to take canoes into a safari park, anyway? Forget the monkeys, it was people that were odd, Felix decided.

  The monkeys very quickly made up their minds that there actually wasn’t much to be recommended about the flavour of orange plastic, and they hopped out and started ripping bits of rubber from around the windows of the caravan instead.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Mum in horror. ‘Are they actually eating that?’

  But before anyone could agree or disagree: ‘Oh look, Felix. Look!’ Flo cried, grabbing on to his sleeve and pulling him towards her side of the car. ‘There are BABIES! We must get the babies.’

  The minute Flo said the word ‘babies’, lots of things happened at once. Afterwards Felix could not think what had happened first and all the events got jumbled up into his mind in a big panicky tangle. He knew that he had stopped worrying and started to giggle when he saw a crowd of monkeys jabbering and gesturing to each other and running towards his dad’s car. And Zed had definitely laughed too and said, ‘Man, those apes are going, like, APE!’ And he was pretty sure that it was while Dad was jamming on the brakes and the monkeys were cackling and pinging the windscreen wipers at each other and Mum was screaming and flinging her arms around her face, that Flo chose her moment to quietly reach forward to the window controls in the arm rest on Dad’s door and press all the buttons at once.

  What impressed Felix, and what he was sure he would never forget, was the speed at which the monkeys took over. His plan had not needed so much Careful Forethought after all. He had assumed that the monkeys would be shy of humans and that they would need Coaxing and Tempting to convince them to get into the car. But they hadn’t needed anything at all in the way of encouragement. It had not taken the smallest shake of a bag of peanuts or the tiniest wave of a banana skin to entice them – the opening of the car windows had been invitation enough.

  Felix had the impression that up until that point events had happened in slow motion with the sound turned off. He was sure he was actually standing outside it all, and watching it like a person on the street watching a telly screen in a shop window.

  But the instant the monkeys started pouring into the car, the volume went up full blast and the action sped up to full throttle.

  ‘Quick, Felix, grab one!’

  ‘I can’t! They’re too fast and – OW! – scratchy!’

  ‘WHO OPENED THE WINDOWS?’

  ‘Monkeys such as these tend to live in family groups and enjoy grooming—’

  ‘GET THEM OFF ME!’

  ‘Chill, guys. Remember what K
itty Bumble said—’

  ‘But we have STAYED IN THE VEER-KUL!’

  ‘AAAIIIEEE! THEY’RE PULLING MY HAIR!’

  The car was full of monkeys: big ones, small ones, fat ones, baby ones, smelly ones – actually they were all smelly.

  ‘SOUND THE HORN – QUICK!’

  It was Mum that said that, Felix was pretty sure. It was difficult to tell, though, as all he could see were monkeys’ tails and monkeys’ teeth, monkeys’ hands and monkeys’ bottoms. So many monkeys’ bottoms. And the noise. Oh, the noise. It was worse than Felix’s worst ever nightmare about being eaten alive by fire-breathing, roaring piranha fish.

  ‘THE HORN, IAN – THE HORN!’

  Yup, that was definitely Mum, thought Felix, as he screwed his eyes tight shut and tried in vain to get the car seat to swallow him up and take him away from there.

  PAAAARRRRRP!

  The horn sounded, Flo screamed an ear-splittingly horrific scream and the monkeys joined in.

  This was what it must be like being a soldier right in the middle of a horrendous battle zone, Felix thought. If not, facing Mum (if he ever got out of there alive) would most certainly be.

  The next noise Felix heard was a sound like an ambulance or an air-raid siren. He had seen a film once about evacuees in the Second World War, so he knew what an air-raid siren sounded like. Maybe this was a war zone. And who was that screaming?

  It took Felix a couple of seconds to realize that it was his own scream he could hear.

  His door was wrenched open and hands grabbed at the monkeys skittering around inside the car. Seeing as one of them was connected to Felix’s hair, that made him scream quite a lot louder. He found himself wondering if the monkeys had got hold of Flo’s hair and hoped very much that they had not. Thank goodness Dad was mostly bald apart from those tufty bits around his ears. If this was how mean monkeys could be, Felix found himself thinking he had quite firmly made up his mind that he did not actually want a monkey as a pet any more. Why did they look so cute if they were really so horrible? Colin was not this bad, even on a Bad Day. In fact, even Merv was nicer than this lot.