بچه میمون

CHAPTER THREE

The Baby Monkey

We woke up very early the next day.

‘First,’ I said, ‘we must see if any of the sailors from the ship have reached land.’

‘We don’t all need to go,’ said my wife. ‘You take Fritz. I’ll stay here with the other boys.’

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I’ll take Turk with us, and Flora can stay with you.’ Those were the names of our dogs.

My wife gave us bags of food to take with us. We walked along the beach, looking in the sand for signs of other people. But we didn’t find any.

Fritz had a gun with him. ‘Shall I use the gun?’ he asked. ‘If they’re near, they’ll hear it.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘If there are wild men on the island, they will hear it too. We don’t want them to know we’re here.’

We turned away from the beach and walked for about a mile. We came to a little wood. At every step, we saw a new and beautiful plant.

‘What’s this strange plant,’ asked Fritz, ‘with these big things growing on it?’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘those are gourds. They’re very useful.’

We took some of the gourds and cut them open.

‘Now we must take out the soft part, inside. We’ll leave the shells to dry in the sun. Then we can make spoons and plates and cooking pots from them. That’s why these plants are so useful.’

‘I don’t understand how you can make a cooking pot from this. If you put it on the fire, it’ll burn.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘but you don’t put it on the fire. You fill it with water. Then you put hot stones into the water, and the water will boil.’

We cut plates and spoons and pots from the gourds, and put them in the sun. We left signs to ourselves around the place, so we could find it again later.

We walked to a field of very tall grass. It was growing high above our heads.

‘Now where,’ I thought, ‘have I seen grass like this?’

We had to cut our way through the grass. As I touched it, my hands became very wet. I put a hand to my mouth - then I remembered!

‘Come here, Fritz. Cut one of these open and put the soft part in your mouth.’

He did that. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘It’s sweet. Like sugar!’

‘It is sugar,’ I answered. ‘Let’s take some back with us. The others will be very pleased and surprised.’

Next, we came to some coconut trees. As we moved nearer, we saw a lot of monkeys on the ground near the trees. But when they saw us, they ran up into the trees. They made angry noises at us. Fritz lifted his gun.

‘Stop!’ I cried. ‘Why do you want to kill those monkeys?’

‘Because they’re screaming at us. They’re terrible, useless things.’

‘Or perhaps they’re laughing at you. Why are you getting so angry because they’re laughing at you? They’re right to laugh at an angry boy. And they aren’t useless.’

‘How can you make a monkey useful?’ Fritz asked.

I threw some stones at the monkeys in the trees, and the monkeys threw coconuts down at us.

‘There!’ I said. ‘An angry monkey can be quite useful.’

‘More useful than an angry boy?’ said Fritz. ‘But I’m not angry now. I’ll carry the coconuts.’

We came to more coconut trees, and the dog, Turk, ran in front of us. We heard cries of pain, and angry cries from the monkeys up in the trees. We saw that Turk had one of the monkeys in his mouth.

Fritz ran to save it. But it was too late - the monkey was dead. Its baby wasn’t far away. It was in the grass, crying out in fear. Then a very strange thing happened. The baby monkey jumped on to Fritz’s back and held on to his hair.

‘Take it off! Take it off!’ cried Fritz.

I laughed. ‘It’s lost its mother, and so you’ve become its father. Yes, it’s very similar to its new father!’

I carefully took the monkey off Fritz’s back and held it in my arms.

‘What shall we do with it?’ I asked.

‘Can I take it home?’ cried Fritz. ‘I’ll get milk for it from the goats on the ship, and soon it will learn to find food for itself.’

We returned to the beach, and my wife and the three other boys ran to meet us. They were very pleased to see the little monkey.

‘What are those sticks?’ they asked.

‘They’re for you to eat,’ said Fritz, and he gave the sugar to his brothers.

A very good meal was waiting for us at the tent. Different sorts of fish and a bird were cooking over the fire. Franz caught the fish while we were away.

Ernest caught the bird. The fish was very nice, but we didn’t like the taste of Ernest’s bird.

The sun was going down when we finished our meal. We all went to bed - Fritz took the little monkey with him.