The Monkey Who Wanted to be A Boy - Jennifer Green (historical books to read .txt) 📗

Once upon a time there was a monkey who wanted to be a boy.

The monkey lived in the monkey enclosure at the zoo, and it wasn’t a bad life. There was plenty to eat – bananas, of course, but also other fruits, and vegetables, and sometimes even meat. There were other monkeys, and although he didn’t get along with all of them all of the time, he got along with enough of them, and there were always chasing games to be played, and always someone to groom him and let him groom them back. There were all kinds of interesting things to climb, and hang from, and swing from, and there were things to play with that rolled or spun or made noises. And even though there were tigers and other predators somewhere nearby – he could smell them, sometimes, when the wind changed – they never came near the monkeys, so they never had to be afraid.

And there were people. All day, every day, from can-see to can’t-see, there were people, watching the monkeys, staring into their enclosure, smiling and pointing and waving and laughing. The laughing and smiling scared the monkey at first, but then he realized that when they made those faces and noises, they were more likely to throw him food – peanuts, and popcorn, and one memorable day a small child threw a strawberry ice cream cone. It hit the wires and stuck there, and the monkey and his friends stuck their paws through and pulled back the cold, sweet stuff that oozed out of it. That was a good day. So the monkey began to like the smile-face and the laugh-noises, and he did things to make the people smile and laugh – he made faces, and waved, and showed off his toys and how well he could swing on things. He liked the people.

It was a good life, for a monkey. But he was bored.

He’d climbed everything in the enclosure. He could climb them with his eyes closed. He knew every monkey by sight and smell and voice, and he knew who was stronger than who, who could call on the most friends, who was faster, who was trickier. He’d played with all of the toys and knew what each of them did. He was running out of new tricks to do for the people. Even the food was getting boring – it always showed up at the same time every day, and it was almost always the same.

He was still pretty happy about the tigers being kept away, but the rest of it needed a change.

He started wondering about the people. Where did they come from? Where did they go? Why did they make so many mouth-noises? Why was their fur so brightly-colored, and why didn’t it ever look the same from one person to another? How did they get all the most interesting-smelling food? Why did they wander around outside of the enclosure – weren’t they scared of tigers?

He decided it must be a very fine thing to be a person.

And so he wanted to become one. He thought about it and thought about it, and the more he wished for it, the less he enjoyed being a monkey. He didn’t want to play chase games anymore, and he got distracted while trying to groom his friends. Eventually the other monkeys started to leave him alone, and he just sat in his favorite branch and moped, and dreamed.

Until one day, he looked down at the people outside the enclosure, and saw a young boy-person looking back up with him with an equal look of longing. He realized – this was a boy who wanted to be a monkey! So he reached one paw down from the branch, towards the boy, and the boy reached one hand up towards him, and suddenly…

FLASH!

The monkey looked down at himself, and realized – he was looking down at a person! He plucked at his bright red fur with fingers that suddenly seemed big and fat and clumsy, and was amazed to see how thin it was, and how it pulled so easily away from his skin. He looked up – and he was looking into the monkey enclosure, looking at a monkey who seemed just as amazed as he was!

Then the large female who stood next to him made mouth-noises, and to his astonishment he found that he understood her! “Come on, Cody,” she said, and took his hand to lead him away.

The rest of the day was incredible. He finally saw the tigers, and realized why the people weren’t afraid of them: they were in an enclosure, just like his! He made the laugh-noise himself, then, to see those big, scary tigers unable to go out and hunt monkeys or anyone else. He saw elephants, and marveled at their size; saw a giraffe, and got to climb up on a high wooden platform to feed it, and see its giant face up close. He wondered why the people didn’t just climb a tree instead of making a big clumsy platform, but if this was what people did, he would do it too.

He got to eat more strawberry ice cream, and some kind of meat that had been made hot, and drank something that tasted sweet and almost nutty, with bubbles in it that tickled his nose.

When the day was over, the large female led him away. Excited, he realized he would finally learn where people went when they left! She brought him to a metal thing and put him inside. The monkey was afraid when it started to make noise, but then the fear went away when the metal thing started to move, fast – faster than anything the monkey had ever seen, faster than he’d ever dreamed he could move! All he could do was stare out the window at the world whizzing by, feeling like the luckiest monkey who had ever lived.

The metal thing brought him to a big – well, a big place. It was almost like a cave, because it was hollow, but the outside had angles and corners, things he’d never seen on a cave, and the inside… well, the inside was just filled with interesting things! Things that were brightly colored and things that made noise and things that made lights, and things to swing on and to climb…

The monkey was very tired, so he let the large female bring him to a small enclosed part of the cave, where she took off his fur (he watched this part with interest) and put him on top of a large, soft thing, like he’d never seen or felt before. She covered him with another soft thing, and kissed him on the forehead, and he thought happily that he’d never felt this comfortable before in his life. The female told him to go to sleep, and he did, promising himself that in the morning he would go explore all the interesting things in the cave.

Meanwhile, back at the zoo, the little boy (whose name, we now know, is Cody) was having the time of his life. He’d always wondered what it would be like to climb trees and swing on ropes like monkeys did, and it was every bit as fun as he’d always thought! He could even hang from his tail, which wrapped around branches almost like another hand. He could make faces at people, which he always got yelled at for at home, and even be rude, and people just smiled and laughed and applauded, because he was a monkey. And everything smelled so much more interesting! And there were other monkeys, who would let him get right up close to them, which he’d never been allowed to do before, and even touch them, although some of them seemed to get mad and leave when he did. Even that was interesting, though, and he started playing games with them, seeing who would let him come near and who wouldn’t. All in all, it was a great day.

The next morning, the monkey awoke to the sound of the big female calling him. Groggy and sleepy, he wandered into her part of the cave, where he promptly got yelled at for not putting on his fur. He headed back and put it on, then got yelled at again. He didn’t understand; it was the same fur as he’d had on yesterday, right? But no, apparently the female wanted him to have different fur, and she pulled it out of a hidden compartment and helped him put it on. Then she gave him food. He took a few bites of it, and started to get up, thinking he’d come back to it later, like he always did at the zoo. She was having none of it. She stood over him, telling him to eat all of it. All of it? thought the monkey. But he wasn’t hungry now. And what if he got hungry later, but it was all gone? It didn’t make any sense, but the female was insistent. The monkey wanted to pull her tail and run away, but she didn’t seem to have a tail, and his attempts to find one anyway didn’t go over very well.

Finally, all the food was eaten, and the monkey thought he’d finally get to play with the toys in the cave. But no; the female hustled him out the door and told him to get into another metal thing – this one big and yellow. Curious, the monkey complied, remembering how much fun the metal thing had been the day before. But this one was much slower and stopped more often, and when he decided he was bored and tried to get off it, the grouchy male at the front yelled at him. Still, there were other young people in it with him. Some of them seemed friendly, and were playing some sorts of games – though not the chase game, unfortunately. Some seemed pretty unfriendly, though, and made mouth-noises at him that he didn’t understand but that made him feel bad anyway.

The metal thing finally stopped in front of an even bigger cave, and all the people started to get off. The monkey hesitated, not wanting to get yelled at again, but the big male glowered at him even more, so he got up and followed the rest.

The rest of the day was one long exercise in confusion and frustration. Big people, males and females, yelled at him and told him to go places, but he didn’t know how to find the places they wanted him to go. It seemed like wherever he went, it was the wrong place. He guessed the big people had marked out their territory, but he didn’t know how to read the territory-signs. At one point, he decided he’d had enough, and he wanted to mark out his own territory, where the big people would leave him alone.

That didn’t go very well.

When someone finally marched him to a mini-cave where, he was told, he was supposed