by PV Lundqvist
#$%#?
“Yes, yes.”
The monkey hugged the soda and walked it over. He stopped, just out of Tony’s reach.
(Haggling time.)
Tony opened up a plastic container full of grapes. Held one up for Bony to see. “Give me the can, and you get a grape.”
The monkey looked at Tony sideways.
“It was just that one time,” Tony complained. “What a grudge holder.” He popped a grape in his mouth. “Extra joo-cy.”
Bony took a step closer. Put the can down and waited.
Tony inched forward in his chair.
The monkey jumped up and down, chattering.
“Okay, okay. Half now, half on delivery.” Tony thumbed a grape up in the air, and Bonaparte caught it on a bounce. The fruit was too big to stuff in his mouth all at once, but he tried anyway.
“Now, the soda.”
Bony was looking all around like he’d never been in this room before. Or perhaps he was ignoring Tony.
Anyone’s guess.
“Yoohoo,” Tony said, waving a clump of grapes. “For a soooda.”
That got the monkey’s attention. Hugging the soda can again, Bony wobble-walked it over to Tony.
The Capuchin lifted the can up,
Tony bent over with a grape,
and Bonaparte grabbed it, letting the can roll away.
“Son of a simian!”
Making his getaway, the monkey jumped on to the computer desk and proceeded to climb up the drapes to the curtain rod. A short hop landed him on a shelf where he put his butt on a pile of books: What Stupid People Believe, 101 Urban Legends for the Incredibly Gullible, and More! What Stupid People Believe: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up edition.
The Capuchin swished his tail close enough to a wall poster of a grinning Neil DeGrasse Tyson that he could have been tickling his mustache. Or, on the tail’s return swing, poking the eye of the hurricane on Saturn that Tyson was pointing at.
“You can be replaced,” Tony told the monkey.
“No, he can’t!” squawked his mother’s voice through the wall intercom. “The Wish-upon-a-Star people have cut us off. Three monkeys was our limit.”
“Mooooom, you promised not to eavesdrop!”
“I wouldn’t listen if there wasn’t so much to hear.”
(Hey, waitaminute.)
Tony had hacked the surveillance system that controlled the intercoms and cameras throughout the estate, effectively locking her out. A pretty good plan considering Mom didn’t know how to use redial on her phone, much less reprogram anything.
Someone fixed the intercom. But who?
The groundskeeper Tu Ngu came into the room dressed in his usual ironed, spotless khakis and collared shirt with big straw hat.
He didn’t knock first.
(Like he’s entering a men’s room.)
“Where’s my little monkey?” Tu asked.
(And he doesn’t mean me.)
