Bonzer Words!: Monkey Business
...We loved going to the zoo. Joy, my sister liked the monkeys best. I liked the cockatoos because they talked to us. There was one sulphur crested cockatoo, who always said, 'Hello darling, hello darling, give us a kiss. Cocky want a cup of tea? Dance cocky, dance.' If we bobbed up and down he would dance with us. Or if we made kissing noises he would too. He was always there when we visited. I thought he knew us...
But there came a day when Shirley Henwood decided that she did not like monkeys.
Shirley writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
One day when my mother took us to the zoo in Melbourne, my sister and I wore our new blue berets our grandmother had knitted for us. We loved our berets, made with a shell-like pattern with ridges running up to the pom-pom on the top.
Granma had shown us how to make pom-poms with two pieces of cardboard. The wool had to be wound round and round the hole cut in the middle of two circles of cardboard, until there was hardly any gap, then the wool cut with scissors along the edge, then tied tightly in the middle. When the cardboard was pulled away, and the wool fluffed up a bit, there was a beautiful pom-pom, ready to sew onto a beret, or a pixie hat.
We loved going to the zoo. Joy, my sister liked the monkeys best. I liked the cockatoos because they talked to us. There was one sulphur crested cockatoo, who always said, 'Hello darling, hello darling, give us a kiss. Cocky want a cup of tea? Dance cocky, dance.' If we bobbed up and down he would dance with us. Or if we made kissing noises he would too. He was always there when we visited. I thought he knew us.
When we came to the monkey cage, we each had a bag of peanuts to feed to them. We had bought them at the entrance. This was before it was forbidden to feed the animals, which happened when we became older.
These monkeys were cute. They had big long arms and legs, and a long curling tail. They could swing around the cage, and hang with just one hand. They were showing off for us. There faces were cute—pink, like little old men, and they had cheeky little brown eyes. Their little hands looked like our hands, with fingernails and no hair on the palms. We held out our peanuts, and they put their hands through the bars and took them very gently out of our hands, then very carefully bit open the shell of the peanut and delicately ate the nut.
'Be careful,' said our mother, as I lent over the barrier and handed over another peanut. 'Mind you don't fall over.'
Just then, a small monkey swung quickly down, put his long skinny arm through the bars and grabbed my beret and pulled it off my head. I screamed. He had pulled out some hair as well. I kept screaming. 'The monkey's got my beret, he's stolen it. Get it off him,' I screamed. I cried and performed and everybody was laughing as that naughty monkey put my hat on his head. He disappeared under the folds. He looked like he was sitting in a little blue cave. ‘Oh, he looks so cute,' said somebody.
A keeper came running to see what all the screaming was about. He got a long pole, and tried to hook the beret off the monkey. But by now the monkey had started pulling at it and chewing on it; threads were hanging down, and it was half unravelled. At last the keeper pulled it out of the cage. He looked at me. 'Do you want your hat back?' he asked.
'No, I don't,' I cried. 'That monkey's ruined my hat. He pulled my hair out too. I hate him.'
I couldn't understand why people laughed. I've never liked monkeys since then.
© Shirley Henwood
