Monkey Business (6 page)

But it was no good – she simply raised her voice higher and talked right over him.

‘I KNOW! I can’t STOP thinking about it! It’s sooooo exciting!’

‘Yeah, erm – maybe it would be more exciting if we just
visited
one—’

‘You’re right. We should visit one
first
, so we know what to expect.’

The conversation had gone from Downright Difficult to Completely Impossible. Felix miserably decided that he did not know how to get out of the hole he was now in. Flo was dead set on the
elephant, and nothing short of an earthquake or some other totally major event was going to distract her or change her mind.

Zed and Silver were waiting for Flo and Felix outside school. They had each brought a bike with its own trailer so that Felix could pedal behind Zed, and Flo could pedal behind
Silver. The cats had come along for the ride too. Yin was in Silver’s basket and Yang was in Zed’s.

‘Oooh, they are just so cuuuuuute!’ cooed Flo, in what Felix thought was quite a girly way.

People stared at them and waved as they went past and commented on the cats, who occasionally woke and stretched and peeked over the edge of the baskets. Felix felt altogether rather Special and
Important, which cheered him up a bit after the Very Uncomfortable Day he had just had.

Flo quickly tired of the whole bike ride thing, though.

‘I wish people would stop waving and calling out,’ she shouted grumpily after about the hundredth passer-by had said, ‘Hellooooo!’

‘Why?’ Silver asked.

‘It’s embarrassing when I can’t wave back, cos I’m concentrating so extra-hard on not falling off,’ Flo moaned. ‘And my hair is flicking into my mouth when I
speak, so I can’t shout “hello” back at them,’ she added, through a mouthful of blonde fluff.

Flo’s hair was, even on a normal, unwashed day, the bounciest, curliest, ringlet-iest hair Felix had ever seen on a human being. It reminded him of a poodle’s fur, except that it was
shinier and didn’t smell doggy.

Felix loved it. He often found himself thinking that he would like to take one of the curls of her hair and wind it round and round his finger the opposite way from the curl to see if it would
straighten out, like you can with those curly ribbons you get on presents at Christmas. He was sure that if he had hair as fascinating as Flo’s he would play with it all the time and possibly
hide useful things in it like spare pencils and rubbers and spiders and stuff. Maybe even hamsters as well. You could take Hammer around with you everywhere for a Total Eternity if you had hair
like that. No one would ever know.

But even Felix could see the downside to having Flo’s hair when you were on a windy bike ride. Poor Flo looked like a yeti by the time they reached Felix’s house. (Not that Felix had
ever seen a yeti in real life, but he was sure it would look like Flo did at that moment in time.) Her hair had gone into a wild manic frizz-ball so that it was not just sticking out in its usual
triangly way, but was now sticking bolt upright as well as out. She actually looked a bit like a dandelion clock too, except her hair was yellow and not white, thought Felix, as he got off the
trailer bike and helped Zed lock it up down the side of the house.

‘Hello, everyone!’ trilled Mum, opening the door to greet them. ‘Is that you hiding under there, Flora?’ she asked.

This was a bit mean, Felix thought, as it was quite obvious Flo was Suffering a Great Deal already.

Flo scowled from under her yellow birds’ nest and puffed at her fluffy fringe.

Felix was annoyed that Mum was home early. He had rather been hoping that he and Zed and Flo could have had a Moment’s Peace together before she arrived on the scene.

‘So you’re doing a project on elephants at school, Felix tells me?’ Mum said.

‘No— I mean,
yes
absolutely that is correct!’ said Flo.

Felix’s heart was fluttering so hard it hurt. It was bad enough being worried about hiding an elephant in the house without Flo giving the game away.

‘Riiiight,’ said Mum. ‘Well, you’d better lock your bike up, Silver, and I’ll help with those bags of food.’

‘Thanks, Marge,’ said Silver. She flicked her tentacles of hair over one shoulder and heaved her bike down the side of the house while Zed got the food out of the bike panniers.

‘Oh, Clive. You haven’t brought the cats with you?’ Mum moaned, catching sight of Yin’s little face peering over the side of Silver’s basket.

Zed winced. He didn’t like Mum calling him Clive, even though that was his real name.

‘Listen, sis – less stress, OK? It’s cool with the cats. They won’t be any bother,’ Zed said.

‘But if Colin sees them—’ Mum started.

‘Colin won’t see them if they stay in the baskets,’ Silver said, laying a calming hand on Mum’s arm. ‘Now, you were going to help me carry this lot in,’ she
said, pointing to the food.

Mum sighed and picked up some bags.

Once inside the house, Flo made a beeline for Hammer’s cage, as ever, and started fussing over him and calling him ‘the cleverest little cutie-pie in the world’ because he
could sit up on his hind legs and she thought he was begging for food when he did this. Felix thought it was because it was the only way he could see what was going on outside his cage.

Dyson jumped up and licked Zed and tried to get inside the food bags.

Colin meanwhile sat on the bottom stair in the hall and glared at all of them as if they had invaded his private sanctuary and ruined his peace and quiet. Which, in a way, they had.

‘What’s on the menu, Clive?’ Mum asked, kicking her shoes off.

‘We’re having beany-cheese crunch,’ said Zed. ‘Cool with that?’

Mum shrugged. ‘It could be cheesy-bean crunch, or crunchy-bean cheese,’ she said. ‘I don’t really mind, as long as someone else is cooking it.’

‘There’s not any actual real
beans
in it, is there?’ asked Flo, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Hammer was running up and down her arm wildly as she spoke. ‘Only
I am not Keen On Beans of any kind. In fact, even thinking about beans can actually make me sick. Like this,’ she added, clutching her throat with a free hand and rasping and choking.

Hammer went berserk at the noise and tried to run up Flo’s sleeve.

‘Yeek!’ screamed Flo, grabbing the poor hamster and holding on to him a bit too tightly.

‘Flo!’ cried Felix. ‘Put Hammer back in his cage.’

‘I think I might, yes,’ said Flo, hastily dropping Hammer in and shutting the door firmly.

Mum was rolling her eyes and pursing her lips which was something she often did, and seemed to do more and more when Flo was around. ‘Flora, I don’t think it’s very polite of
you to comment on someone else’s cooking like that. Particularly when you are a guest and Clive has been very kind—’

Zed cut in quickly to avoid a stand-off between Mum and Flo: ‘Oh, these beans won’t make you sick,’ he said confidently. ‘They’re
magic
beans.’

Flo turned her award-winning scowl on Zed and said sneerily, ‘Yeah, right.’ Her eyes were narrowed so much that they were just slits.

But they popped wide open again when Silver lifted up a wodge of Flo’s blonde curls and whispered in her ear, ‘Chocolate brownies and strawberries for afters. Awesome or
what?’

Flo beamed. Even she did not have an answer to that.

‘OK,’ said Flo. ‘I’ll help with the tea. Felix, you and Zed can start the research and then I’ll come and see what you have done.’

Felix thought this was a bit Typical of Flo, leaving the actual work part of things to him. But he very quietly breathed a huge sigh of relief as Flo disappeared with Silver and Mum. He was glad
of the chance to be alone with Zed: he had to talk to him about this elephant business in private. It was Doing His Head In, as Merv would say.

‘So, you ready, dude?’ Zed asked him, making his way into the study where Mum’s computer was. He pulled out the swivelly chair and leaned down to switch on the computer.
‘We’ll do the Google thing first, yeah?’ he said, grinning at Felix.

Felix gave his uncle a sideways glance and shuffled from foot to foot.

Zed put his head on one side. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

Felix stared at the floor and concentrated hard on not panicking. The thumping in his chest had reached a level of such painfulness that he wondered if it might explode in a minute.

‘Come on, dude, I know something’s up – tell me!’ Zed insisted, putting a large warm hand on Felix’s shoulder.

Felix chewed his lip. He could not meet Zed’s eye.

How am I going to say this? he thought.

Then: ‘I – Idon’twantyoutoadoptmeanelephant!’ It all came out in a rush before he could think of a better way of putting it.

‘You
don’t
want me to?’ Zed repeated. ‘Well, that’s cool. We can look at other animals instead if you like.’

Felix felt a warm rush of affection for his uncle. Why had he been so worried about talking to Zed? Nothing was ever complicated with Zed. He didn’t get suspicious and say, ‘What are
you up to?’ He just asked a question and, when you gave him an answer, he accepted it and that was that. Felix suddenly knew everything was going to be OK. He took a deep breath and went on:
‘There’s another thing I’m rather worried about too, now I come to think of it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t think we should tell Mum about any kind of Actual Adoption as she’s not likely to be keen what with Dyson and Colin and Hammer and all the cleaning out she says she
has to do,’ Felix said.

‘OK,’ said Zed slowly, swinging round on the chair to face the computer screen. ‘But tell me,’ he went on, ‘why the change of plan about the elephant,
man?’

Felix hoisted himself up on to the desk and swung his legs awkwardly. ‘I just think they’re too big,’ he said.

‘But that’s no problem, is it?’ Zed said, looking puzzled.

‘Well, I think it
is
a problem really,’ Felix said. ‘I did try last night to see how big a Real Live Elephant would be – I started to build one using those
cardboard boxes Dad has been keeping in the shed – but once I had built one leg there was no more room. I didn’t even get to do the body. And then there’s those ears and the
trunk. Those beasts are utterly ginormous!’

‘Wow, that’s a cool idea – building a cardboard elephant!’ Zed grinned. ‘I still don’t get what the problem is, though.’

Felix sighed. Why didn’t Zed understand? He had been to Africa – he
knew
how big elephants were. He must see that there was no room for one in Felix’s house, and it
certainly was not possible to
hide
one anywhere. Felix’s heart had started up again. He blinked and swallowed hard.

Zed was frowning at him. ‘You OK, man? You’ve gone kind of green.’

Felix nodded and gulped in some air. ‘Fine,’ he croaked.

Zed shook his head and turned to face the screen. He clicked on the Internet icon. ‘Hey, no worries. If you’ve changed your mind, it’s no sweat to me. Let’s have a look
at the WWF site. There are, like, heaps of other animals that need help.’

Felix turned his head so he could see the screen better.

It’s OK, he told himself. Maybe I can get Zed to adopt me a monkey after all. Cos a monkey is bound not to be so much work as an elephant, he reasoned, and definitely not as big. And I
already know loads about monkeys and what they like to eat and stuff. And then when I tell Flo I don’t want an elephant any more I can at least say I’ve chosen something else instead.
In fact, he thought, brightening slightly, I might be able to say, ‘We are getting monkeys this time as they are the best animals to start a zoo with. We can get the elephant later.’
She might forget all about the elephant and the zoo once we have the monkeys, he thought hopefully.

But then he suddenly remembered the look of determination on Flo’s face when she had first thought of the whole idea. He shivered. He did not want to make Flo angry: she was his best
friend ever, and if she got cross with him he would have to go back to digging holes to Australia on his own at break-time.

‘Look at this!’ Zed cried, interrupting his miserable thoughts. His uncle was pointing at the screen excitedly. ‘There’s tigers and polar bears and
rhinos—’

‘Anything smaller?’ Felix asked, anxiously scanning the list.

‘Listen, if it’s the cost you’re worried about . . .’ Zed began, looking at Felix’s concerned expression.

‘No – not that,’ Felix said. ‘I just think, well, adopting a smaller animal would be easier.’

Zed laughed and shook his head. ‘You kill me, man! Anyone would think you were going to invite it to live with you right here!’

Felix frowned. Was this one of Zed’s jokes maybe? Felix had always had trouble working out when Zed was joking and when he wasn’t. Like the time Zed told Felix that bananas grew in
the ground like potatoes. Felix loved bananas, so he’d taken one from the fruit bowl and dug a hole in the garden and planted the banana in the hope that he’d soon have his very own
banana plant right outside the back door. When he’d told his uncle what he’d done, Zed had laughed so much that he had keeled over on to the floor. Felix went red at the memory. Yes, he
decided, his uncle was teasing him again. Of course he was going to invite the animal to ‘live right here’ – where else would it go?

‘So, what other animals are there, then?’ Felix asked.

‘What about gorillas?’ Zed asked.

Felix twisted his mouth to one side thoughtfully. ‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘gorillas are cool. In fact, it says in my book on apes that gorillas are very intelligent—’

‘Whoa – this is one heavy guy!’ said Zed, who had been clicking his way through a load of pictures on the screen and had stopped at a picture of a very moody-looking
silver-backed gorilla called Kabirizi. ‘It says here that this guy is the “main male in a family of endangered mountain gorillas”,’ said Zed, reading the information.
‘And, oh man! Listen to this! “An adult male gorilla can weigh as much as two hundred kilos!” Sheesh! I would
not
like to meet one of them on a dark night. Two
hundred
!’

‘Is that a lot?’ said Felix. He knew Dyson weighed about twenty-five kilos because the vet had weighed him the last time he’d been in for his vaccinations. ‘How much do
you
weigh?’ he asked his uncle.