Monkey and Me (10 page)

“Maybe it wasn't a hospital he escaped from,” said Mark. “What if he ran away from a laboratory where they experiment on animals?”

I suddenly felt sick. Even sicker than when I go for treatment.

Tracy used her hands again. But then she shook her head. “He doesn't understand that question, so he's only got a very limited vocabulary and response.”

Then Rocky said something really scary. “There's a military biological research centre about thirty miles from here. You know, just past the cooling towers – all those buildings there, that's why they've got a private road and guards at the gates. My uncle
told me that's where they do experiments on germ warfare and stuff.”

Was Malcolm being experimented on? That sounded like torture. No one said anything for a few seconds, but then Malcolm squealed and started to panic. I grabbed him and held him. Mark jumped to his feet. “Quiet everyone! Listen!”

Tracy looked at me because obviously she hadn't heard him and I just put a finger to my lips and gestured for her to stay where she was.

“Dogs!” Rocky said.

Mark ran from the greenhouse into the kitchen and I could just see him peeping through the crack with the boards covered the windows. Then he came back in a hurry. “It's the police with a dog unit,” he hissed.

“Get your bag, Beanie!” Rocky said, and started throwing the scraps of fruit away into the bushes.

“We'll have to make a run for it,” said Mark. “Those dogs will smell us and Malcolm, and the cops will find the way we came in.”

Tracy was watching Rocky and Mark as they whispered orders.

“I'll make a run for it, and draw them away,”
Pete-the-Feet said, pulling his hair back and tying it with an elastic band. He was ready to run. “Then you get going with Malcolm.”

Tracy waved her hand at them. “No,” she said, “I'll stay. It will take them ages to question me. I can keep them busy for a long time.”

She went closer to Malcolm and made a couple of signs. “I told him he has to stay quiet and go with you,” she said to us all. She stroked Malcolm's head, and made a sign with her hand, and mouthed carefully, “Understand?”

Malcolm climbed onto my back and held on tightly.

“Can you carry him?” asked Mark.

“I'll manage,” I told him as Rocky grabbed my backpack and pulled it on his chest because he was also carrying his own school pack full of books.

“I'll take point,” he said, and headed for the hole in the wall. We could hear the dogs barking now. They were close.

“Come on, Beanie,” Skimp said. “Hurry.”

I looked at Tracy and make sure she could see what I was saying. “Thank you,” I said. Mark pulled me away.

Then we left her. All alone. She was our rear-guard defence, Rocky said as he made a pointed gesture at her. Ace. Good stuff. Respect.

In that moment of self-sacrifice Tracy Lewis, a deaf kid who dressed like a charity shop princess, became my heroine.

We ran down the track towards the gate, and when we got there Mark pulled Malcolm off my back so I could squeeze through. But he made such a noise, because he was so scared, that we had to push him through quickly so he could climb back onto my shoulder. The police car that stood at the gates was empty, the cops had already moved around the back of the house, but we could still hear the dogs barking frantically.

“I hope Tracy will be okay,” Skimp said.

“She'll be fine,” Mark told him. “She'll have them tied up in knots. Come on, run!”

Malcolm might have only been the size of a small three or four year old but he was heavy and I could feel the sweat making my shirt stick. My head was baking so I shoved my beanie into my pocket and let the cold air cool me down.

Rocky was way ahead, making sure the streets
and the back alleys that we used to get home were clear. But after about five minutes I was so tired I could have gone to sleep while I was still running.

“Hang on!” Mark shouted at the others.

I had to sit down. I was shaking and felt sick. Malcolm was holding on so tightly I could barely breathe. He looked at me and I made the sign that he had shown me when he was tired in the house. That seemed to work and he relaxed a bit and cuddled up to me.

I had my back against the wall and while Mark loosened my anorak Pete-the-Feet gave me some water. That made me feel a lot better, but I wished I had a banana for some energy.

“You've got to let one of us carry Malcolm,” Mark said.

“No!” I cried. “You'll frighten him.”

Pete-the-Feet was already stroking Malcolm's head, and Malcolm was holding his hand like he was a frightened child. “I think he'll be okay with me,” said Pete-the-Feet.

I looked at Malcolm. He seemed quite confused, and I was worried he would just run away and get lost in the housing estate. Then the dogs would chase
him and people would be phoning the police and the next thing he knew he'd be back being experimented on.

“I'll be all right in a minute,” I said, catching my breath.

“No you won't,” Mark said, “but we're gonna go a bit slower now, and Pete-the-Feet can take Malcolm, and you can walk next to him and hold his hand. How does that sound?”

Sometimes you just have to do as you're told, so I said yes, that would be okay. Pete-the-Feet carefully lifted Malcolm and let him wrap his arms around his chest. I got up and stood next to him. I was too short for Malcolm's arm to reach down and hold my hand, but his foot came out and gripped it, so that was okay. We could still hang on to each other.

Rocky did a good job of getting us to Pete-the-Feet's house without anyone spotting us. We piled into the kitchen and Skimp and Rocky raided the fridge. There were chocolate biscuits and milk and we all sat around the big old pine table and just scoffed. I felt a bit better then. And Malcolm was sitting next to me and he had a milk moustache which we all thought was really funny. And we laughed like broken
drains, but I think that was just the release of tension, because we had all been scared. Scared and worried that Malcolm was going to be taken away from us. Because I think everybody loved Malcolm by then.

“We've got to find a place to hide him,” Rocky said.

“He can't stay here, because we've only got two bedrooms and my mum's likely to turn him in for the reward money,” Pete-the-Feet said.

“There's a reward for Malcolm?” Skimp asked.

“There's bound to be, isn't there? That's why the cops were out hunting him with the dogs, like an escaped convict,” said Rocky.

“We don't know that,” said Mark, “but Rocky's right. We have to find somewhere safe for Malcolm until we decide what to do with him.”

“We're not going to do anything with him!” I said. “He's going to live with us.”

“Yeah, right,” Mark said sarcastically.

“We've got to take him
somewhere
. Everybody's going to be coming home from work soon, so it's not gonna be easy walking down the street with him. Someone will see him and then it's all over,” Rocky said.

“My dad's got an old touring caravan in a lockup on the industrial estate.” Skimp said. “He'd be safe in there. I just have to find the keys.”

“That's a great idea. But how do we get him out of here without anyone spotting him?” said Mark.

“My sister's got an old pushchair in the shed. It's one of those things with a plastic rain cover. We could strap Malcolm in there. He's already got Beanie's T-shirt on and providing nobody looked too closely we could get away with it, don't you think?” Pete-the-Feet said.

I think Mark knew that I was getting a bit scared for Malcolm. He turned to me and said, “What do you think, Jez?”

Which was really very considerate of him, considering he's my older brother and often says I cause him grief.

Malcolm had biscuit crumbs all over his face and was still guzzling milk. He was a messy child, as Mum would say. “I don't want to leave him,” I said. “I don't want him to be lost and frightened. I want him to come home with me.”

“Listen, Jez, you've got to go for your treatment tomorrow, so he'll have to be on his own anyway.
I think it's better we get him into the caravan. He'll be safe there,” Mark told me as he gave Malcolm another chocolate digestive – which was doing a good job of keeping him quiet.

“I can't get the keys until tomorrow,” Skimp said.

Mark thought for a moment. “OK. This is what we'll do. We'll take Malcolm to our house and hide him in Jez's room for tonight. Then, when Jez goes to the hospital, the rest of us will bunk school and get him into the caravan.”

Everyone was nodding, including me, because at least I had another twelve hours to think of a better way of hiding and looking after Malcolm.

Pete-the-Feet was right. If you didn't look too closely you could almost think that Malcolm was a small child. We strapped him into the pushchair and Rocky pulled Pete-the-Feet's mum's knitted tea cosy over Malcolm's head so his ears stuck out each hole. By the time we had zipped him in beneath the plastic and given him a banana to chew on we were all set.

It was quite nerve-wracking, because we had to pass people carrying their shopping, others getting off buses, some going across traffic lights, and then
it started raining and we were worried that the rain splattering on the plastic cover would scare Malcolm.

But we were almost home. Almost.

“Oh no,” Pete-the-Feet groaned. “It's Mrs Blanchard from number eighty-six. She's the nosiest woman in the street.”

We saw a woman who had a leather jacket on and clumpy boots and who was as old as Gran. Mum would have said it was mutton dressed up as lamb. That's called a metaphor.

She was smoking a soggy-looking cigarette.

Pete-the-Feet muttered: “She's really suspicious. She'll probably think we're child kidnappers or something. She's been down the bingo hall and she usually goes for a drink in the pub afterwards – so that might save us. Don't say anything unless you really have to. Talk about the weather or something if she stops us.”

“Hello, Peter, where are you off to, then, down this end of town?” Mrs Blanchard said as we all reached the same crack in the pavement.

We just looked at her as we stood in the drizzle, hoping that one of us would think of something quick to say. We didn't.

“Blimey, I've never seen lads as quiet as you lot. That usually means you've been up to something, eh?”

We must have looked like a bunch of convicts caught on the run, because then she laughed. “Oh, get you lot! Come on! Give your face a holiday. Smile! I was only kidding.”

And then without taking a breath she bent down and peered into the pram.

“Who's this then?” she said, wiping the rain off the plastic. Thankfully, the old crinkled and yellowed plastic blurred Malcolm. But she kept looking.

“It's my auntie Joan's baby,” I said.

“And who are you when you're at home?” she said, squinting at me.

“My name is Beanie and this is my mum's sister's baby and we're taking him home because she had to go out shopping so she paid us to babysit him.”

“Beanie? What sort of name is that?” She peered back into the plastic. “Well, it's lovely that your auntie Joan trusts you with her baby. How old is he?”

“Three,” I said at exactly the same time as Mark said, “Four,” and Pete-the-Feet said, “Don't know.”

“He's
nearly
four,” I said quickly.

“Oh.” She bent down again. I could only imagine
what Malcolm must be seeing as the moon-faced Mrs Blanchard with her wobbly jowls pushed her nose close to the pushchair. It must have looked like a soggy balloon with a face drawn on it. Please don't do your monkey scream, I begged him in my head.

“It's a bit unusual for a child of that age to have so much hair,” she said.

“He's wearing a fleece,” I told her. “He's a very beautiful three year old.”

“Oh. Well, I'm sure he is. I haven't got my glasses. Hang on a bit.” She started rummaging in her handbag. “I've got them here.”

“Sorry, Mrs Blanchard, we've got to run. There's our bus. We've got to get Malcolm home for his tea,” Pete-the-Feet said, and pushed the pram away, with the rest of us following.

She didn't really have much of a chance to say anything else other than, “Well, Malcolm's a nice name anyway.”

Which I was pleased about because it meant I had chosen the right name for him.

We pushed him past a row of shops and then down Cavendish Road, which meant we had gone in
almost a big circle to keep us off the streets where people might know us. Just as we had one more street to go a police car came around the corner. They were driving so slowly you just knew they were looking for someone.

They stopped.

“All right, lads? What are you lot up to then?”

“Just walking,” Skimp said.

“Walking where?” the cop said.

“Down there,” said Rocky.

“Down where?” said the cop.

“Meeting his mum,” Mark said, pointing to Skimp.

“We're looking for a monkey,” said the cop.

“He's sitting next to you,” Pete-the-Feet said.

The driver leaned across his mate and pointed a finger. “Don't get cheeky with me, son.”

The first cop smiled. “Small monkey. A young chimpanzee. It's gone missing,” he said.

“It sounds like Auntie Joan's toddler,” I said. “He's in the pushchair. Do you want to see him?”

“You kids are something cruel, you are,” the policeman said.

Then they drove off.

This time “almost” became “definitely”. We were at our house.

I could see Dad was in his shed. I think he was trying to make Mum a footstool because she always says how tired she is at night. He's been making it for a while now, but the legs are always a different length and so the stool is always wonky. It's her birthday soon, so I think he'll probably give up any day now and go down to B&Q and buy a flat pack one.

The good thing is that it keeps him busy. While everybody else went into the house and took Malcolm out the pushchair and up to my room I went in and said hello to Dad.

He had just lifted the footstool off the bench onto the floor but you could see right away that it just wasn't going to work. Wonky is the only word you could use for it.

I told him I'd been out with Mark and that now I was going to have some thing to eat and do a bit of homework. He was nodding, listening to me, but with his attention focused on the footstool. Then he looked at me, and for a second I thought he could see all the lies I was storing in my head.

“You're home late.”

“I went round to Skimp's with Rocky and Pete-the-Feet and Mark and…” I almost said Malcolm, and that could have opened up a whole new line of questioning.

“I didn't know it was so late,” he said. “I'd better go and collect Mum.”

That would keep him out the house for a least an hour, because he always goes early to collect her from the supermarket and he ends up on the magazine and DVD shelves. I think Dad does most of his reading in Sainsbury's.

Back in the house everyone was very quiet. “Where's Malcolm?” I asked.

“Shush, Jez, he's sleeping,” Mark said.

I pulled off my coat and ran upstairs.

The good thing about having an older brother is that when you move to a new house, as we did a couple of years ago, they get their own room. Which means I got my own room, which is better than sharing. So I still had the bunk beds in my room.

I usually just put my clothes on the top bunk and sleep on the bottom. It's much easier than having to open and close the wardrobe or the drawers. You just fall out of bed, reach up and grab your shirt
and underpants and that's it. Just like Clark Kent.

Pete-the-Feet, because he's so tall, had been able to reach up and lie Malcolm down on the top bunk without disturbing him. The little chimpanzee was fast asleep; it must have been all the fear and tension and excitement of what had happened at the Black Gate. I knew how he felt.