Monkey Business (10 page)

He looked at the poster of the kingfisher, which was one of his favourites, as it was a close-up of the bird with a silvery fish in its beak. He had always wanted to get that close to a
kingfisher in real life.

Then he found himself looking at his ultimate, best and most favouritest poster of all: the one of the orang-utan hanging from a branch with one hairy arm, its feet clamped together like two
human hands clapping. And then he remembered what he had to feel so excited and fizzy and bubbly and poppy about.

‘Yippeeeeeeeeee!’ he yelled, leaping from his duvet and sending Colin shooting under the bed. ‘It’s my BIRTHDAY!’ And he did a Victorious Dance of Glory around the
room, hopping from one foot to the other and making monkey noises in between singing various versions of ‘Happy Birthday’ including the one about going to the zoo and seeing a fat
monkey. As he danced and sang, he pulled off his pyjama bottoms and threw them around the room, adding to the scene of general Mayhem and Devastation that already surrounded him.

Mum poked her head round the door at one point and mumbled something about it being five o’clock and could he please ‘put a sock in it’. But Felix would not have known where to
find a sock in the war zone that was his room, even if he had wanted to, so he just ignored Mum and carried on dancing and whooping and oo-oo-ooing until eventually Dad came in and shouted:
‘Felix, it is FIVE THIRTY and if you think I’m going to drive you to Shortfleet for the day on limited sleep, you’ve got another think coming, young man, birthday or no birthday.
So GO BACK TO BED!’

Felix did stop the rumpus then. The last thing he wanted was for his trip to Shortfleet to be cancelled, especially when his Marvellous Plan depended on going there.

I should get ready, he thought, looking at his alarm clock. I’ve only got three hours.

He pushed all his wildlife magazines into a sort of tidy-ish pile under his bed, then he found some clothes that kind of matched from various places around the room and got dressed standing on
the free patch of floor. Then he fished around under his bed again and pulled out a secret box of stuff that he had been saving. Colin was still under there, sulking.

Then Felix sat down on the edge of the bed and ran through the plan in his head.

He looked at the alarm clock again.

‘Only a quarter to six!’ he groaned. ‘No one will be up for AGES yet.’ He sighed. It was always like this on his birthday. He was not allowed to wake up Mum and Dad until
seven o’clock to open his presents, but
he
woke up at least two hours before this.

I’ve planned my plan and I’ve got my Secret Stuff, so what else can I do while I wait? he thought to himself. His stomach rumbled noisily. It gave him an idea. ‘Aha!’ he
said aloud. ‘I’ll make a big surprise breakfast for everyone. That will cheer them up and stop them moaning at me.’

He raced downstairs so fast he skidded over the last four stairs as if he was tobogganing and flew over Dyson who had been snoozing on the bottom step.

Dyson trotted into the kitchen after Felix, who fed him, let him out, put some food out for Colin (who was
still
hiding under Felix’s bed) and went to put some hamster food in
Hammer’s cage. Then he set to work laying the table for everyone, and when he had finished he sat down and waited.

‘You’ve laid the table for breakfast!’ Mum exclaimed when she emerged later, looking bleary-eyed and a bit smudged. Her face was never quite her own face
until she’d had a cup of coffee. Or two. She blinked and shook her head in a way that suggested that she did not believe what she was seeing. ‘Wonders will never cease.’

Felix was particularly proud of the way he had laid the table. He had put fruit in the fruit bowl and put that in the middle of everything as a kind of decoration. Then he had made sure that all
the plates and bowls and mugs were matching for once, even though this had meant he had had to unstack the dishwasher and put all the other bits and bobs of washing-up on the work surfaces as he
was not sure which cupboards to put them away in. (It made the kitchen look a little like the china department in one of those big posh shops in town, but at least he hadn’t broken
anything.)

And then he had put four bowls out, and just for a change and because it looked pretty, he had put the plates on top of the bowls. It had the rather pleasing effect of making the place settings
look like mushrooms. To finish it all off, he had balanced a mug on each plate and put a knife and a spoon in each mug.

‘I should get a job in a restaurant to earn some money,’ he had said aloud when he stepped back to admire his handiwork. ‘Then I could buy all the animals in the world that I
have ever wanted.’

Mum sat down and gingerly removed her mug from her plate, and took the plate carefully off the bowl and filled it with her favourite cereal, known by Dad as ‘Sawdust Muck’, but
labelled on the packet as ‘Healthy Hearty Muesli’.

‘Would you like some coffee, Mum?’ Felix asked in his politest voice.

‘Am I still asleep?’ Mum asked, blinking again. ‘I didn’t know you knew how to make coffee. I hope you were careful with the kettle.’

‘Oh, I didn’t use the kettle,’ said Felix cheerily.

‘Er, what
did
you use?’ Mum asked. She was suddenly looking distinctly less eager at the prospect of a reviving hot drink.

‘The hot tap!’ said Felix, feeling very pleased with himself. This really had been a fantastic idea of his, making breakfast. Mum would be so happy about it that it would put her in
a good mood for the rest of the day, and she would not mind a bit when it came to his plan . . .

‘Ah,’ said Mum. ‘Erm, it’s OK. I’ll just have orange juice, thanks.’

Felix shrugged. ‘All right. I’ll leave this for Dad then.’ He put the coffee pot on the kitchen table and sat down to tuck into his own breakfast.

Mum breathed out heavily, then shooting Felix an anxious glance she said cautiously, ‘It was lovely of you to get everything ready.’ She made a stab at her Sawdust Muck and peered at
it as if she was worried something might be living in it. Like a hamster, for example. It did look like the shavings in Hammer’s cage.

‘You’re not, er, trying to tell us something, are you?’ Mum continued, grimacing slightly.

‘Noooo!’ Felix protested, munching on a slice of toast. ‘I only wanted ev’ryone to have a nice bre’kf’st.’

Mum smiled, but it looked painful. ‘That’s lovely.’

‘Is Merv coming to Shortfleet?’ Felix asked anxiously, glancing over his shoulder at the kitchen door. It would be just like Merv to do something stupid and ruin Felix’s
plan.

Dad had come in and poured himself a huge mug of coffee. ‘Merv? Get up on a Saturday morning? Merv come on a family outing?’ He took a large gulp of coffee and immediately his face
went tight as if he’d just sucked a lemon, and he spluttered the coffee down his chin. ‘Who made this? It’s revol—’

‘What your dad’s trying to say is, “No, Merv’s not coming,”’ said Mum hastily, frowning at Dad and shaking her head.

‘Thank goodness for that,’ Felix said with feeling. ‘And what time are Flo and Zed getting here?’

‘Not till eight,’ said Dad, wiping his mouth on the back of his pyjama sleeve and glancing at his watch in a woebegone way. ‘D’you know, sometimes I think Merv’s
got the right idea. It’s still only half past seven . . .’

Only half past seven! Felix sighed. They weren’t due to leave for the safari park until half past eight. How could any normal human being be expected to wait another Whole Hour before
setting off on the birthday treat of the century? Not to mention the agony of waiting until he could put his amazing plan into action.

Felix felt a howl work its way up from his belly, and just about stopped himself from letting it out. Instead a tiny groan emerged from his lips.

Mum smiled. ‘Why don’t you open a few presents while you’re waiting, and then you can help me pack some snacks for the day?’ she asked. ‘I’ve bought crisps
and chocolate and things, and we can make sandwiches.’

Felix perked up immediately. He had been so overexcited about the day itself and the plan that he had almost forgotten about presents and party food.

Then he remembered something else. ‘You did buy those peanuts I asked you to get, didn’t you?’ he quizzed his mum. ‘And we must take loads of bananas – Flo
loves
bananas almost as much as I do,’ he added quickly, noticing the suspicious looks Mum was giving him.

‘Felix,’ said Dad, ‘you’ve been eating nothing but bananas these days as far as I can see. You’ll turn into one if you’re not careful. Ho! Ho!’

Felix curled his lip. Dad’s jokes were rarely funny, but that had to be the worst one in a while.

Mum rolled her eyes and said, ‘I did get the peanuts, yes, but I’m still not entirely sure why we had to have so many packets. There’s only five of us going on this outing, and
Dad doesn’t even like peanuts. Come to think of it, isn’t Clive allergic to them?’

‘No, no,’ said Felix firmly. ‘Uncle Zed loves them. He actually asked me to make extra-specially sure that we would definitely have bags and bags of them, cos he’s got a
Bit of a Craving going on for peanuts just now.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mum, not looking altogether convinced with this explanation. ‘As for the bananas, I didn’t think Madam ate any fruit.’

‘Madam’ was Mum’s name for Flo – not when Flo was around, of course; that would have been rude.

‘Flo
does
like bananas,’ Felix assured her. ‘She actually positively ADORES them. She would eat them all the time if her mum was as kind as you are and actually let
her.’

Mum narrowed her eyes at the totally unexpected and quite unusual compliment her younger son had just paid her. Then she sighed and started clearing away the breakfast things. ‘OK,’
she said. ‘Well, when you’ve opened the presents in the sitting room, you can go and look for some Tupperware boxes and I’ll get the snacks out, bananas, peanuts and everything.
You can help me pack the picnic.’

Felix went into the sitting room where there were three presents waiting for him. He sat down slowly and made himself focus on the shiny wrapping paper and the bows and ribbons. He was nine now
and it was really important to be Mature about this. He knew that he should not do what he normally did. But his fingers were wriggling, a big bubble was working its way up inside him . . .

‘Aieee!’ he cried, throwing himself at the presents like a dog leaping on to a big fat juicy bone. He ripped the paper off all three presents in the space of five seconds, scooped up
the contents and went tearing down the hall shouting, ‘I’ve got a bat box and a wormery and a real live woodlouse house! Cool!’ He had been wanting a wormery since forever so that
he could make his own compost, and the bat box would be wicked for hanging in the trees and watching bats zoom in and out on a summer’s evening and as for the woodlouse house – who
wouldn’t want one of those?

‘You like the presents then?’ Dad said, ruffling his son’s hair as he whizzed past.

‘I LOVE THEM!’ Felix yelled. This was surely going to be the best birthday ever.

He threw himself into the sandwich-making with gusto, smearing mayonnaise on top of slices of ham, slapping the ham between slices of bread and poking gherkins and bits of that plasticky cheese
with the holes into everything in sight. Mum complained the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, but Felix thought this was a slight exaggeration, as bombs would make craters in everything and
would most likely reduce the walls of the house to rubble too. But he was very determined to be good and helpful, so he grabbed a cloth and scrubbed at the table to show willing. Then he scrambled
upstairs to do a last-minute check on his own bit of organization for the day.

He shut his bedroom door and tiptoed over to where he had stashed his rucksack. Mum had given him the peanuts as he had insisted that he wanted to be helpful and carry them, but she had Drawn
the Line at giving him the bananas. ‘They will go all squishy,’ she had told him. ‘Especially if you’ve stuffed your bag full of all the normal nonsense you insist on taking
with you on car journeys.’ She was probably right, Felix thought. He would just have to make sure that Zed was allowed to look after the bananas so that he had Easy Access to them in the back
of the car.

Felix carefully shut the bag and slung it over one shoulder. Then taking a last look around his room he smiled to himself. His plan was going to work like clockwork.

DRIIIING!

‘At last!’ Felix yelled, zooming downstairs on his bottom to get to the door as fast as possible.

‘Hey!’ Zed cried, flinging his arms in the air. He was holding an interesting-looking parcel in one hand, Felix noticed. ‘Happy birthday, man!’ Zed started singing,
‘We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, and you can come too, too, too . . . Ooo, ooo, ooo!’ He finished with a pretty cheesy impression of a monkey, jumping about, his long arms
dangling by his sides.

Felix flinched at the sight. Why had Zed chosen to impersonate a monkey? Surely he didn’t suspect anything . . . ? But when Zed stopped abruptly and looked a bit sheepish, Felix realized
it was just his uncle up to his usual silly jokes.

‘We are
not
going to the zoo! Shortfleet is a safari park,’ Felix said importantly, before hurling himself at Zed in an affectionate rugby tackle.

Zed chuckled. ‘I know, sorry. Hey! I’ve got something for you. Cool it a minute, man. You might break the present,’ he gasped, as Felix’s rough-and-tumble tickling attack
got a bit over-boisterous. He gently pushed Felix back and handed him the interesting-looking parcel, which was wrapped in brown paper and held together with a sliver of gold ribbon.

‘But you’ve already given me a present,’ Felix reminded him. ‘The orang-utan, Reggie – remember?’

Zed blushed. ‘Yeah, but me and Silvs, we just felt bad about that, dude. Y’know – all that stuff about you thinking he really was coming to live with you. We thought we should
give you something for real. Sorry Silvs couldn’t come too, by the way. No room in your dad’s car for the both of us. She wanted to give you this, as well,’ Zed added, picking up
a plastic bag he’d placed by the door. ‘But you’d better open the other present first.’