feeling didn’t last. After a short time, one of the monkeys left the circle and began to approach me. He was one of the biggest, with a coat that was greyer than the others, and there was something about the way he loped towards me so boldly that made me think he was the one who ran the family. Afraid again now, because I didn’t know what he might decide to do to me, I shrank back into a ball, trying to make myself as tiny as possible, tucking my head tight to my chest and hugging my arms around my knees.
I was just about to squeeze my eyes shut when I saw him reach out a wrinkly brown hand and, to my surprise, with one firm push, knock me over onto my side. I quivered on the soil, tensed for the second blow that was surely coming. But it didn’t, and after some seconds I dared open one eye again, only to find that the monkey had lost interest. He’d now returned to the circle, squatted back on his hind legs and resumed watching me, along with all the others.
It wasn’t long, however, before a second monkey – another of the bigger ones – began walking towards me. It approached slowly on all fours but without a trace of uncertainty. This time I instinctively scrabbled to my feet, but as soon as the monkey got to me it reached out, grabbed one of my legs and yanked it from under me, causing me to fall back on the soil again with a thump. I curled into a ball again but felt the animal begin to dig around in my hair and move its leathery fingers over my face. Now I was frightened and wriggling, trying to free myself from its questing fingers, but, like the other monkey, it seemed to have decided I was a plaything; once again, I was firmly pushed over.
This action seemed to give the other, smaller monkeys confidence. Having decided I posed no danger to them, they all seemed to want to inspect me. They had been chattering to one another – using sounds that almost seemed like they were goading each other and laughing – and in no time at all some had come to check me over. Once upon me they began to prod and push me, grabbing at my filthy dress and digging around in my hair.
‘Stop it!’ I pleaded, sobbing. ‘Get off me! Go away!!’ But they took no notice and I had to wait, cowering and whimpering, until they’d finished their inspection. I could feel myself relax just a little, however, because if they’d wanted to hurt me then surely they would have done so by now. They hadn’t and now they seemed to lose interest altogether, returning to whatever it was that they had been doing in the dense undergrowth from which I presumed they’d come.
Having nowhere to go, and still fearful of running, in case they chased me, I sat in the clearing and watched them. They climbed the surrounding trees, they played and dug around in one another’s coats, they picked up things and popped them in their mouths. Nuts and berries? Grubs and insects? Small lizards? It was difficult to see at a distance. And, I quickly noticed, they copied one another. A big one would do something and a smaller one would copy it. As I watched this, something my mother often said popped into my head: monkey see, monkey do.
I sat and watched them for a long time. I was mesmerised and felt somehow reluctant to leave them. There was something about the way they seemed to enjoy one another’s company that made them feel like a family. While close to them, I felt like I wasn’t alone any more.
They were so pretty too, with their milk-chocolate fur and camel-coloured bellies, their tufty grey ears and their dark, bushy tails. I was especially enthralled by their hands, which intrigued and bewildered me because, though they weren’t human, they looked just like mine. They were the same colour and size as my own, with four fingers, a thumb and hard fingernails.
And they were constantly active, leaping high and low, chattering and chasing one another round the trees and shrubs. They seemed to love playing and, in the case of what looked like the young ones, play-fighting and squabbling as well. They were watched over by the bigger monkeys, who would shriek and pull faces as if they were telling them off when things got too rough. This was just what the grown-ups in my world would do, and somehow this sense of order and family made me feel better.
4
After a while, I was distracted again by the gnawing pain in my stomach. It was my third day in the jungle and I badly needed food. As I continued to watch the monkeys, I became fixated on how much they were eating. Whatever else they were doing, they seemed to be constantly feeding. I needed to do that too, I knew, or I would die of the pain.
Startled by a siren shriek from above me, I looked up to see a small monkey swinging above me, swooping from one tree to another smaller one close by. The leaves of the tree were dark and shaped like slender teardrops, deep green and glossy, and about the size of a man’s shoe. The tree also bore flowers – pretty purple flowers that seemed to transform themselves into banana-like bunches, except that the fruits pointed up rather than down. The fruits looked unripe, as they were still tiny – about the size of my finger – and were also an unappetising shade of green. Bananas at home were yellow, but these little ones definitely looked similar, and as the monkey dropped a bunch in his haste to grab a handful, I quickly darted over and snatched them up from the forest floor.
I had already watched the monkeys eat them, which they did differently from the way my mother had taught me: peeling the skin off in strips from the top end. The monkeys would either just break them in half or, starting at the bottom, peel the skin up from there, sometimes using their teeth to help, too. I watched a nearby monkey who was feasting on the contents and, with my mouth watering, copied him.
The flesh was delicious. Soft and sticky and so incredibly sweet: better than any banana I had ever eaten. It was my first taste of jungle food, and I wolfed it down greedily. But no sooner had I done so and picked up a second, than another monkey, who had clearly been waiting for its moment, swung over on a vine and, in a deft, practised fashion, stole the rest of the precious bunch from right under my nose.
Ah, I remember thinking, so this is how the game works. But it didn’t matter. I looked around to find a stick and had soon snagged another small bunch of the delicious fruits for myself. I had found company – a family of sorts, even – and something that I knew I could eat till my mummy came to find me and take me home. As I dived into my second bunch of tiny bananas, I felt my spirits lifting just a little.
*
Though I had worried all day that my new companions might scamper away and desert me, they didn’t. This patch of forest seemed to be their home. And for the moment, I decided, it would be mine as well, so I spent my third night in the jungle with the monkeys. Though they seemed to prefer to sleep high up in the canopy, I had to be content with curling up on the bare earth far beneath them, in a tight space between two shrubs. Part of me was desperate to return to the safety of the hollowed-out tree, and I later would. But that night, I was so frightened of losing the monkeys that I chose to stay and take my chances. Just knowing they were there made me feel a little safer. And as the night came rushing down to cloak everything in inky blackness, the sound of them calling to one another gave me comfort.
But I still lay there quivering with fear. The jungle was once again full of murderous shrieks and howls, and the bushes around me kept shaking and rustling. I was filled with a cold, intense terror. What was out there?
Then I held my breath as I felt movement: a steady pressure from behind me. A gentle, slow shove that pressed into my back. I had no idea what it might be, only that it was smooth and warm and felt frighteningly big. It also seemed to slither.
Was I imagining it or had a snake come and found me? Was it slithering alongside me, intent on making me its dinner? My imagination ran wild. Unable to see what was behind me – even if I’d dared to open my eyes – the picture in my mind grew steadily more terrifying. I could hardly dare to breathe, let alone roll over to try to see it, so I just lay there, my heart pounding, my ears straining as the sound it made – a kind of truffling, groaning, creaking – seemed to begin to move above me and the pressure lessened. It was a giant snake, I was sure. One that was
