Monkey Business by John R. Erickson Read Free Book Online Page A

dunce, began pulling my ears.
    When I felt the first tug at my left ear, I growled, pretty muchly on instinct, and told him, “Drover, you’re dlvkskdi bchslek vksl.”
    â€œThat wasn’t me, Hank. You’d better wake up and see . . .”
    â€œAnd you’d better zvlsckelf b’aldke mfkd ake zzzzzz.”
    â€œHank, get up. Somebody’s here.”
    â€œOf course somebody’zzzzzz snort wheeze here, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking to each other.”
    â€œNo, I mean somebody else.”
    â€œTell ’em I’m busy. Tell ’em I died three weeks ago. Tell ’em . . .” He pulled my ear again. “Tell ’em that if you pull my ear again, you nincompoop, I’m going to build a mudhole in the middle of your face!”
    He pulled it again. That did it. My eyelids sprang open, and once my eyeballs quit rolling around and locked in on the target, I saw . . .
    HUH?
    . . . this face, see: Two big eyes, short nose, a broad grinning mouth, jug ears, red jacket, and a red fez on top of its head. Drover didn’t wear a red fez. Or have jug ears. Or a short nose.
    â€œDrover, I don’t want to alarm you, but something has happened to your face. All at once it has begun to resemble a . . .”
    â€œA monkey, Hank?”
    â€œExactly. All these years you’ve acted like a monkey, and now the chickens have come home . . . Drover, is there something we need to discuss?”
    â€œYeah. I think your monkey’s got some business on his mind.”
    â€œWhich could be called monkey business, is that what you’re saying?”
    â€œYeah. He’s sitting on your chest. I told him to get off but he only made teeth at me and stuck out his tongue.”
    â€œI see. Yes, it’s all coming clear now. I gave him strict orders to stand with his nose in the corner. He has disobeyed, and now we have the Case of the Disobedient Monkey.”
    â€œI guess so. What are you going to do?”
    â€œVery simple, Drover. Obviously the little whelp has forgotten his place in the overall scheme of things and must be taught a lesson. I’ll simply order him to get off my chest.”
    â€œThat sounds like a good idea—if he’ll do it.”
    â€œHe’ll do it. I’ll speak to him in his own dialect. Watch this and study your lessons.” I beamed a steely gaze into the eyes of the monkey. “Monkey get off dog at once, hurry-scurry, boola-boola, chop-chop!”
    He didn’t seem to understand. Instead of following my order, he flicked the end of my nose with his finger. And grinned down at me. That flicking business hurt.
    I tried another tack. “Monkey not understand. Monkey get off and . . .” He flicked my nose again. “Monkey BAD monkey to flick master’s nose with finger. Monkey be good monkey, get off and . . .” He did it again.
    â€œI don’t think he speaks that language, Hank. He keeps flicking your nose.”
    â€œSo it seems, Drover, and now I have no choice but to translate my message into the universal language—brute force.”
    â€œOh gosh, don’t hurt him.”
    â€œI’ll try to be gentle, but I can’t make any pro­mises.”
    I took a deep breath and concentrated all the muscles in my highly conditioned body into an up­ward surge. Within a period of only a few seconds, I struck him in the chest with my front paws, kicked him in the back with my hind paws, and arched my back like a bucking horse.
    Pretty impressive, huh? But you know, these monkeys are used to living in trees and it’s a little hard to shake one loose. I struggled and thrashed until I could struggle and thrash no more. The fool monkey was still sitting on my chest.

    And you might say that he had, well, pinned my front legs to the ground, so to speak.
    â€œOops,” said Drover. “That didn’t work too well.”
    â€œIt’s just a simple language problem,