by David Gilman
Apparently, chimps can grow to over a metre tall and like being in family groups of five or six. That might work then. Once we get a better understanding between us I could bring him home and he could be like my younger brother. Then, with Mum and Dad and me and Mark, he would have the perfect family. But first I have to make sure that he would be happy with that arrangement. I don’t really know what chimpanzees think of us human beings. Everything you Need to Know in the World did tell me that chimpanzees are quite territorial and they like to have their own patch in the jungle, and that if anyone strays in or out of it, that can cause problems with their neighbours. I’m thinking of Mrs Tomkinson in these circumstances. I can just hear her screaming: “Get that flaming monkey off my washing line!” Suddenly I feel a great sense of responsibility towards him. He’s small, he’s scared and he needs help. He is also an endangered species. And I’m the only one who can save him.
I’d made some progress. I got an extra banana in my lunchbox from Mum and that, with the apple from last night, was a start. Mark didn’t stop asking questions all the way to school. He thought I wasn’t, as he put it, traumatised enough. I should have been a gibbering idiot after seeing the monster and being trapped in the Black Gate.
“I had terrible nightmares all night,” I told him.
“Really?” he said. “Bad ones?” He seemed pleased.
“They were terrifying. I woke up sweating at least twice. The creature was really horrible. I don’t even want to talk about it, it was so scary.”
“That’s called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome,” Rocky said. “You’ll probably have those nightmares for the rest of your life. They never go away. Sometimes you’ll be walking down the street and you suddenly see the monster when he’s not really there.”
“Shut up, you!” Mark said.
“It’s a well-known fact that children can overcome stressful situations and lead a normal happy life,” Pete-the-Feet said.
Skimp picked his nose and studied the results before flicking it away. “We breathe in all kinds of muck these days. Pollution is only one thing to worry about. Beanie might have inhaled alien spores. By the time we get to school they might be germinating inside him. He could become a hive, a carrier of unknown creatures.”
“Don’t talk rot, Skimp. Most of what Jez saw was in his imagination. There are no aliens in the Black Gate,” said Mark.
“There was a monster! You heard it!” I said, thinking I had better keep them scared enough to stay away from the house.
“With entrails,” Mark said sarcastically.
“Absolutely,” I told him. “Horrible. I’m never going anywhere near that place again,” I said. Then I ran into school, grateful that I could escape into Mrs Carpenter’s class about the many wives of Henry the Eighth. It’s only the chopping off of heads bit that’s interesting.
The government, whoever they are, seem to feel a personal responsibility for me. Anyone would think they’re like teachers or Mum and Dad, because they recommend that I eat five essential fruits and vegetables every day. So when it comes to lunchtime, it doesn’t matter what I have in my box from Mum, I have to line up and have a hot meal. The dinner ladies, especially Mrs Hutchins, have special instructions to make sure I get all the greens. I have complained that I could get vegetablitis but it seems to be some sort of golden rule that Jez Matthews has to have everything, so she piles them on. And she’s been told that I have to have extra broccoli. Sometimes that’s difficult, especially when it comes to broccoli. No one in their right mind likes broccoli. No sooner is it on your plate than it goes cold. And this is supposed to be a hot meal. That’s called a contradiction. But I have to eat lots of it, so Mum says, because it’s full of iron. Which makes me wonder that if I could get enough down me that I could end up like Iron Man.
If broccoli’s supposed to be so wonderful I wonder how my chimpanzee had managed for so long without eating this stuff. Then I saw Jenny Moffat scoffing down broccoli like it was her last meal on earth.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, though it was quite obvious.
Jenny Moffat is a well-brought-up girl and never speaks with her mouth full. She also chews a lot. And when she’s finished chewing she cleans her teeth with her tongue and then speaks to you. As I said, she’s a very polite girl.
“Hello Beanie,” she said. “How’s your head?”
“It’s fine. Sometimes it gets a bit hot. So,” I asked her again, “what are you doing? With the broccoli.”
“I can’t stand the stuff,” she said. “But I know I have to eat it because my mum said it will make me beautiful when I grow up. So the best thing to do is to eat it first and get it out the way, then I can eat the rest of food that I really like.”
I thought that was a very sensible thing to do. It’s a bit like when Dad says don’t put off what you’re supposed to do today until tomorrow. “Get it out the way, then you can play!”
“Would you like my broccoli, because then you could be even more beautiful than you’re planning to be? In fact, you might even become a supermodel, because I know they live off vegetables and salads.”
“Is that true?”
“Absolutely. I read it. You could have my broccoli if I could have your banana.”
She considered it for a moment and then nodded. I scraped my broccoli onto her plate and tucked her banana into my backpack. This was an extremely good deal. I was going to make her the most beautiful woman in the world and I hadn’t had to eat the broccoli or exchange my Snickers Bar, which, as a trading currency, holds great value.
By the time lunch break was over I had managed to secure two more apples, another banana, an orange and a fruit bar. I sacrificed my chips for the apple, and my raspberry yoghurt for the orange, but I could only get a fruit and nut bar for my Snickers, which wasn’t a great deal. It looked a bit soggy and sticky, and I thought that the fruit and nuts might get stuck in the chimpanzee’s teeth and as he couldn’t go to the dentist, I ate it. Then I didn’t feel as dizzy, but I was picking bits of stuff out my teeth for ages.
I know I have to eat something or I get a bit faint, I think that’s because of all the medicine I take, but I’m on a mission to get as much food as possible for my new friend. Mark always tells me to eat a banana whenever I can because that’s a good energy food. Just like the tennis players at Wimbledon, and the footballers, and long-distance runners, and rugby players, and soldiers, and round the world yachtsmen, and mountain climbers and… the list goes on. I sometimes wonder if there can possibly be enough bananas in the whole world – maybe that’s why chimpanzees are an endangered species, because we are all sports-mad and eating their bananas. I think I should start a new campaign for all those people to eat a chocolate bar instead.
Save the World – Eat a Chocolate Bar!
I sneaked out, scared that Mark might see me, but then I saw him and the others in the chemistry lab. They were wearing goggles as they stood around something that looked as though it was going to burst into flames at any minute. I sometimes think teachers are either very brave or very stupid – I wouldn’t let Rocky near anything potentially explosive.
I thought that no one would miss me if I didn’t hang about for the Design and Technology class where we were going to design and make a pair of slippers. That would be very useful, I suppose, if you were planning to be a care worker in an old people’s home, but I had to save a frightened and starving chimpanzee, so there was no contest. I’ll apologise now for all the elderly people who will need slippers one day.
I was very careful about going back to the Black Gate, because although everyone thought it was haunted and infested by evil spirits there was always the possibility that other kids would take as big a risk as we had. I crept into the bushes near the main gates and waited, then eased through the side of the gate, and pushed the bits of bush and weeds back into the gap. It was still a bit nerve-racking going up to the house, because you never knew what else could be up there. I mean, if the chimpanzee had b
een dumped by someone who kept exotic pets because they couldn’t afford to feed him any more, then there might be all kinds of creatures lurking. What if there were snakes or crocodiles? I hadn’t been into any of the bathrooms yet, so who knew what might be in there?
I sneaked in the same way. I stopped and listened. The house was still as gloomy as it had been the day before and I couldn’t hear anything – there were no obvious sounds of slithering crocodiles or bone-crushing snakes curled around the banister. I whispered as loudly as I could, “Hello, monkey?”
He didn’t answer, but then I guessed he was probably still scared, but I hoped he might have recognised my voice. I moved further into the house and the floorboards squeaked no matter how carefully I trod. It was still very creepy. I whispered again, but there was no reply. Now I was getting a bit worried that after yesterday I had scared him off and he might have escaped. Then he’d be running around in the countryside, lost and confused with no idea where to go or where I lived. So there was no way he could come and get help from me.
I went into the kitchen again and through the back door to the courtyard and the big greenhouse. “Monkey? Monkey? It’s me, Beanie. Remember me?” I listened but I still couldn’t hear anything. I sat down on the old sacks and emptied the food from my backpack and kept talking to him all the time, hoping that he could hear me and that the sound of my voice would bring him out from wherever he was hiding.
“I’ve got a really nice big banana and a couple of apples and a very juicy orange as I’m sure you must be thirsty as well. I also brought a bottle of water with me from the canteen, but I ate the fruit and nut bar because that was really sticky and chewy.”
I sat and waited with the food laid out in front of me like a car boot sale. The clouds were coming over and I knew it was going to rain and if I got home late and soaking wet Mum would have a fit, so I hoped Monkey was going to come out soon. I didn’t want to just leave the food because if there were other creatures lurking in the tangled plants, which was something I didn’t really want to think about too much, then he might not get anything to eat at all. I suppose I felt quite protective about him now; maybe that’s how Mark feels about me.
Then I heard a rustle. I could just see his little round face peeping between the branches. “Hello, Monkey,” I said very gently “It’s me again, have you had a busy day?” I picked up a banana and held it out at arm’s length. He was looking but I could see he was nervous. “This is a really good energy food, it’ll be a great benefit to you for all the climbing you have to do, but I suppose you know that.”
He came out from the bushes very slowly, looking left and right but kept glancing back at the banana – then he stopped and made little sort of cooing sounds. I held my breath – he was so close to me now I could have leaned forward and stroked his head – but I just stayed as still as I could. I was willing him to reach out and take the banana from my hand. And then he did. Well, he didn’t so much take it as snatch it. And then he scuttled back under the leaves and quickly ate the banana, even with the skin on. Maybe he didn’t know you were supposed to peel them or maybe that’s how chimpanzees eat them anyway. I thought I had his attention now so I reached out and put one of the apples at arm’s length and sat back and waited to see if he would come back and take it.
This time he seemed a bit more relaxed as he edged forward on all fours, his front knuckles scraping the floor. He stopped and sat and looked at me. My heart was beating so fast I couldn’t think of anything to say so I said something really stupid. “Tennis players eat bananas all the time.” As if that was going to make any sense to him at all and he certainly wasn’t going to take up tennis as a sport, was he? He made a couple of signs with his hands but I don’t know what he was doing. But they were very definite movements. I tried to copy them but he just looked at me as if I was daft. We both sat looking at each other so I carefully picked up the apple and took a bite. Then I handed the rest of it to him. He took it and ate it and if Jenny Moffat had seen him she’d have had a fit.
He squatted down, scratched his bum and chewed with his mouth open, which I suppose are perfectly acceptable table manners in the jungle. He rolled his head around looking up at the glass, where the tapping of the rain attracted his attention. He scratched again and then carefully stretched out his arm for the orange.
“They’re full of vitamin C,” I told him, “though if you eat too many you can get the trots. I’m not sure how many but probably a few dozen. Dad squeezes me fresh oranges every Sunday morning because that’s his one day off. He’s a postman.”
I wasn’t sure whether he was listening to me or not. He kept looking at me and nodding his head as he peeled away the orange skin and then carefully pulled away each segment of the orange. That’s called dexterity. He seemed quite interested in what I was saying, though I knew he couldn’t understand, but perhaps the tone of my voice held his attention. I tried to read what it said on his medical band but the writing was smudged and faded.
He picked orange bits out of his teeth. I was convinced he was really smiling at me. In about five minutes I told him everything about myself, Mum and Dad, and Mark, about how he was going to play for Liverpool FC, as Michael Owen used to and Steven Gerrard does, because he’s brilliant. And about the gang and me, and about when I got sick and had to start going to hospital and just how much Mum gets upset, and Dad too, of course, but that what I have can be treated, though it made all my hair fall out, which is why I wear a beanie.
I took it off and lowered my head. “Look, see? Nothing. Not like you, you hairy monkey.” I laughed and Monkey looked at me and then, and this is amazing, and no one will ever believe this, but he reached out a hand and touched my head. He made that chattering noise again and put his hand on his own head. His eyes widened and he gave that big toothy grin and rolled over backwards. “Whoo whoo,” he said. So I made the same noise. And then I rolled over. He rubbed his hands over his face, then chattered. Then he pointed at me and patted his chest. I didn’t know what he meant so I did the same – pointing at him.
I think we might have had a conversation.
“I have to think of a name for you,” I told him as I handed over the last piece of fruit. Names are very important. Dad once told me that they create an image in people’s minds. Like Silver Surfer, Batman, Spider Man – though his real name is Peter Parker – in fact, lots of superheroes have their own names. Clark Kent for Superman, Bruce Wayne for Batman, Norrin Radd for the Silver Surfer and Bruce Banner was the Hulk. Even I’ve got two names. Jez Matthews and Beanie. Dad told me, after all my hair fell out, that by wearing the beanie I was like a superhero, and that all the horrible things some kids said just wouldn’t penetrate the Power of the Beanie. And he was right.
So what about Monkey?
I watched his face: “Ricky, Mickey, Mikey, Mo?”
He screeched and chattered. Rain dribbled from the broken panes. Okay, maybe they didn’t have a certain ring to them. “Charlie, Chatty, Chippy, Chez, Clyde, Claude, Clint?”
He went ape! Head back, teeth bared, lips pouting, hands beating the floor.
“All right,” I said. “Those are the coolest names I can think of right now.”
Monkey nodded and rubbed his head. Then the second most wonderful thing happened. It was getting late and the rain was chucking it down, so I had to get home. I stood up and said to him very quietly: “I have to go home now but I’ll come back tomorrow. Miss Sanderson has a dance class but I’m excused so no one will miss me.” And then – as I started to walk away – he held my hand.
I felt this wave of something inside me. It was as if he wanted me to look after him like a little child who was lost and had found someone he trusted. Then I felt terrible. What could I do? There was no way I could take him home.
“I’ll… make a plan… I will… I’ll find a way to take you home. I promise,” I stammered.
Just then a gust of wind slammed an old window frame. It was so loud and unexpected that we both jumpe
d with fright. He made a screeching noise and ran off on all fours into the bushes. I almost followed him but realised that if he was scared he would stay inside the greenhouse hiding in the plants, and that was the best thing for him. So I said quietly, really to myself, “I promise I won’t leave you here for ever. You’ll see.”
Mark had football practice so it was just Mum, Dad and me for tea. Dad goes to bed early because he has to get up at four in the morning to go and sort his mail. After that he loads the trolley or his bike and starts his round. Sometimes there’s so much mail they have to take more bags of letters and leave them at people’s houses as pick-up points. Then, when Dad has finished doing one route, he picks up the extra stuff and starts again. I don’t know how he manages to do that, but it’s all because of our circumstances. Between Mum and Dad they try to make sure there’s always someone at home for me.
There’s a bit of a routine in our house. Once we’ve eaten, I do my homework while they watch the telly. Then we watch a film or something they’ve recorded. We’re not allowed televisions in our rooms like a lot of kids, especially me, because I am not supposed to get overtired and if I had one in my room they know I’d be watching it half the night, at least that’s what Dad says. And if they gave one to Mark then that wouldn’t be fair. That’s another thing that irritates him.
I don’t really mind because I get to read a lot of different books and, better still, sometimes Dad takes half an hour before he goes to bed early and tells me a story or reads to me. He tells great stories, does my dad. When we used to go on the long-distance journeys he could tell a complete story between each service stop on the motorway. Sometimes I would see the sign telling us it was only six miles to the next service station and he was only halfway through a story, but by the time we roared past all those people getting out their cars to go and have a large cup of cappuccino and a brie baguette with lettuce and tomato, he would get to the end of the story. Amazing. How did he know when the ending was going to come?
