Monkey and Me (13 page)

I just managed to see Mark being put into the back of the police car as I clattered away across the cobbled alleyway. I wondered how long he could hold up under questioning. Rocky always said you should be able to last at least two days under interrogation. That's what the soldiers in the Special Forces do in their training. But I don't think twelve-year-old Mark Matthews of 16 Wentworth Drive fell into that category. And if Dad was part of the interrogation team I probably had less than ten minutes before Mark cracked.

When you're scared it's good sometimes just to make a noise. Otherwise the noise gets trapped inside and can jangle your nerves and turn into a monster's claws that start climbing up inside, trying to scratch its way out of your belly button. So what you do is open your mouth wide and just shout: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Except of course when you're bumping over cobbles it comes out as: “Ag-ug-ug-ug-ug-ug-ug,” as if you were gargling.

An important thing to remember is to watch out for flies.

There's a video sequence on the CCTV camera near the main road, next to the Flying Fish & Chip Shop, of a nine years, eleven months and thirteen day old boy on a bike wearing a beanie, with his mouth wide open and tears streaming from his eyes because it was so cold. On the crossbar is a monkey wearing a Steven Gerrard Number 8 red shirt and a tea cosy on his head and he's clutching the handlebars. The monkey looks terrified but in fact, as I told everyone later, he's having a wonderful time, it's me who couldn't see where I was going. I'm the one who's scared stiff. No question. Another camera just past the betting shop shows the same two wide-eyed primates whizzing past an old lady, who gets such a fright she drops her shopping.

Then, when the boy on the bike – me – swallows a fly and starts coughing and spitting, they narrowly miss a Dairy Crest delivery van, thanks to the extraordinary skill of the monkey who tries to duck out of the way of the impending crash and forces the rider – me – to swerve just in time.

The milk van shuddered to a halt on the cobbles and a dozen bottles of full-cream milk spilled onto the road. The monkey and me then swerved
out of sight into Millbrook Lane, which, as everyone round here knows, is a dead end into the industrial estate.

I didn't know about the cameras until later, but when they hauled Mark away I thought that any minute there was going to be a helicopter chase. You know, like you see on those television shows where the police are in hot pursuit of joyriders travelling at high speed. Though, I wasn't sure whether a Royal Mail bicycle qualified for high speed, but the joy bit turned out to be true.

Once I realised we weren't being chased and had wiped the tears from my eyes, spat out the remains of the fly and got the bike onto a smooth surface, we scorched along. It was downhill with no traffic and I did a
Titanic
number and raised my hands off the handlebars. Malcolm did the same. I was laughing and Malcolm did his screechy thing, which told me he was having fun as well.

Down through the bottom bend, past the tile shop, around the corner from the Big Discount Carpet Warehouse and then finally, as the road narrows, a quick surge up onto the pavement past the side entrance to Scanlon's Wrought
Iron Works: Established 1987.

It's down there, under the old tin-roofed sheds, where Skimp's dad has his caravan locked up. This was where Malcolm was going to live until we could think of a way of getting down to the docks, stowing away on a container ship, and getting him back to Africa. Though we hadn't worked that part out yet and might have to settle for smuggling him into Whipsnade Animal Safari Park.

That's
when I got hurt.

Just as I pedalled hard around the corner I saw Skimp and Pete-the-Feet in the distance standing next to the shed. Skimp's dad's car was there and he was waving his finger and shouting. I couldn't hear what he was saying because of the noise from the extractor fans of the iron works.

Rocky was standing next to Tracy, who was talking nineteen to the dozen with her hands. Skimp's dad made a really ugly face and yelled at her – right in her face – and she stepped back. Skimp grabbed his dad's arm, trying to protect her, but his dad gave him a clout around the head. It was obvious he had sussed out that Skimp had stolen the keys. The whole gang had been caught.

It wasn't right at that moment I got hurt, it was half a minute later. I slammed on the brakes, lay the bike at an angle, stuck my foot out, slid across the gravel, and shouted at Malcolm to hold on while I did my totally unexpected and brilliantly executed slide.

It was just after that I got hurt.

I turned the bike and pedalled like mad. Malcolm's feet gripped the crossbar, he was hanging on for dear life, bobbing up and down, chattering away. For a moment I thought he was just making a fuss about my daring escape, but it wasn't that. Two men had appeared around the corner, right in front of us – it was Potato Face and Comb Head!

They yelled at us and ran with their arms outstretched, trying to stop us getting past them.

I jigged the bike left and right, standing on the pedals, pumping my legs as fast as I could. I was sweating so much my beanie felt as though it was soaked.

And then, around the corner came the police car with Mark in the back. Potato Face and Comb Head were between us. If one lot didn't get us the others would.

There was a gap in the wire mesh fence – I went for it.

Potato Face lunged and missed, and yelped in pain because he landed in the gravel. I was too scared to laugh or call him names because I was trying to navigate through the back yard of the iron works where there's all kind of things stacked. There are gates and doors and fencing, oil drums and pallets and a sharp piece of aluminium stripping that's come away from the edge of a crate.

That's when I got hurt.

It caught my leg as I flew past. It really hurt. My jeans ripped and there was a scorching tear across my skin. I had to ignore it because Malcolm was throwing me off balance and I had to concentrate, had to keep going. Comb Head was right behind me. For someone that old with such a bad hairstyle he could run really fast.

That's called deceptive.

I could hear him grunting with effort. Malcolm was screaming. He'd looked behind us and seen Comb Head just about close enough to grab me. A forklift came out the works' shed with rolls of piping on the front. The driver saw a kid on a big red
bike, and a monkey wearing a Liverpool FC shirt with his ears sticking out a tea cosy, and he slammed on his brakes.

The pipes rolled. They just missed us. But they didn't miss Comb Head.

I didn't even look back at the forklift truck driver shouting and swearing. Or at the policeman running down the yard towards them. I hunched my shoulders and ran on the pedals, making them go like crazy.

We had escaped.

But my leg hurt a lot, warm blood trickled down inside my trousers. Either that or I'd wet myself.

No. It was blood.

I was shivering with nerves and the cold wasn't helping. It was getting dark and we had only just managed to get out of the industrial estate. There were some abandoned warehouses right on the edge of a disused railway line, and it was so overgrown it gave us a good place to hide.

I wrapped Malcolm in my fleece and he huddled next to me while I tore the bottom of my T-shirt to wrap around my leg. It would have been easier ripping Steven Gerrard's shirt, and I'm sure he would have understood, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Dad had spent a lot of money on it and he promised me that one day, when I got better, he would take me into the dressing room to meet the greatest footballer in the world. It was the getting better bit that seemed to be taking a long time.

By then the blood was crusty on my leg and when I pinched the cut together it hurt more than
I'd imagined. I screwed up my face in pain. Malcolm watched me and then hid behind his open fingers. No one ever gives up in films when they get shot or injured. They just grit their teeth and carry on. Gritting teeth doesn't really do much to help the pain go away, and makes your jaw ache, but it did make me feel better. I felt like I was a soldier on the run, deep in enemy territory. Now we needed a warm place to sleep.

I checked my backpack. All I had left was a packet of crisps, a Snickers bar and an apple. Malcolm stuck his head in the bag. He came out with the packet of crisps, which he quickly tore apart. The crisps went everywhere. He was covered in them. You had to laugh – so I did. We both ate the crisps, not minding that they had been covered in dirt by Malcolm when he trampled all over them, while I sat and thought out a strategy.

It's at this point where superheroes could change into something else and escape from a situation like this, but I'm not a superhero so I had to work it out for myself. Malcolm chewed the crisps, not very elegantly I have to say, and if Mum saw him she would say: “Keep your mouth closed when
you chew, Malcolm. You weren't born in a zoo.” But of course in this case she'd probably be wrong.

Mum and Dad would be really worried by now, I was sure of that, but if I went home with Malcolm the police would be waiting and the RSPCA inspectors, and Malcolm would be back in the laboratory with someone hurting him.

It would have been nice to phone them so they could know I was safe. Though I wouldn't mention the cut on my leg because that kind of thing gives Mum a whole new set of worries.

I would even send them a postcard if I could, probably one of those that showed the Albert Docks, which would probably be a great idea because then they would think that I was hiding down there at the smart waterside development. But I couldn't do that either.

That's what's called being incommunicado.

So I spoke to them both in my head. “Dear Mum and Dad, I'm sorry you are worried about me, and I am sure Mum is even a bit frantic, and by now Mark will have spilled the beans and told you everything about Malcolm. As soon as I can find a way of him being safe, I'll come home. Lots of love, Beanie.
PS: It's only a scratch on my leg and nothing serious.”

I thought I'd better mention the scratch.

Dad always says you never know where your thoughts can take you; well, perhaps we never know where our thoughts go. Maybe Dad would be dozing in front of the telly and my message would pop into his head.

I brushed some of the crumbs from Malcolm's fur.

“The way I see it, Malcolm, they're going to be looking out for us riding around on Dad's bike. After all, it is a bit obvious and no one would believe we're delivering letters at this time of night. So I think we should hide it here and move on to find a warm place to sleep. And, as I am a member of a democratically elected gang, I think we should have a vote on it. All those in favour?” I raised my hand and, after scraping soggy bits of crisps from under his gums with his finger and sucking it, Malcolm raised his hand.

I felt it important that he shared in the decision-making process. I wouldn't like him to think I was a tyrant. Now the crisps were finished I took his hand and we climbed under the wire fence and up
across the railway embankment. There wouldn't be any trains because all the factories on this estate had closed.

Malcolm seemed very tired to me, perhaps it was because he'd had an exciting day. My leg was hurting something awful but I picked him up and carried him. I'd just realised where I was and an idea had popped into my head.

I had a plan. In my mind's eye was a picture of long motorways and yellow lights. There was a small television at the foot of my bunk and I'd lie tucked up in Dad's duvet. By morning Dad would wake me and say, “We're here.”

Where was
here
going to be tomorrow?

I didn't care as long as it was far away from the people who wanted to capture Malcolm.

Suddenly the pain in my leg didn't hurt as much, even though I was carrying Malcolm. Twenty minutes later we were at the haulage yard where a dozen lorries were parked up for the night.

McKinley's Transport Company Limited.

There was a huge fence around the yard and floodlights coloured the trucks in a sickly yellow glare. They looked like prisoner-of-war-camp huts
and the deep shadows between them made me think of soldiers escaping as they ran from hut to hut. On the other side of the fence from the haulage yard was a warehouse which had a refrigeration unit and down the side of the building was a big grid where the hot air came out. We stumbled, and my leg ached as if there was a hot piece of metal in it. Malcolm was also struggling. I didn't know whether it was the glare from the lights, but his eyes looked a different colour and his skin felt very hot. I knew he had a lot of fur to keep him warm – but he was shivering. I gave him the Snickers – he needed it more than me.

We crept down by the side of the warehouse and I propped him against the wall. There was plenty of rubbish that had been blown by the wind onto the mesh fence so I pulled bits of dried paper and cardboard to make us a bed over the hot air grill. It was the best I could do and it was getting really cold. I snuggled down into the paper and held him close to me, pulling my fleece over both of us like a small blanket.

I wasn't sure what to do because if he was sick like me, he might need treatment. Maybe he was infected with something? I knew being scared would
make him feel worse, I always felt worse when I was scared. Maybe he'd feel better when we got a long way away from our pursuers and he stopped being frightened. He lay on my arm and made it ache, but I didn't mind because he was quiet and asleep. His face was close to mine and I smelt his bad breath, which was a bit fruity, but that's all right because he's a chimpanzee and doesn't know about dental hygiene. We'd both finally stopped shivering and lay like two monkeys clinging to each other, frightened that we might lose one another. I breathed in the pungent smell of his fur. It was wonderful.

He's semi-skimmed and I'm full cream – otherwise there's not much difference.

I'm running my socks off up and down the pitch. The floodlights cast criss-cross shadows from all the players. I see the ball spinning through the air – I take it on my chest, trap it with my foot and turn away from the tackle. I can see Steven Gerrard with his arm in the air. He's in the perfect position if I can get the ball to him. Almost in slow motion I balance myself and bring back my foot to strike the ball in a long curving loop. But I've waited too long.
There's an enormous crunch and I go down onto the grass. There's a terrible pain in my leg.

Suddenly it's all gone quiet and I turn in on myself with the pain. I can't believe it but the player who tackled me – Gobby Rogers again! – is kicking me while I'm down. That's got to be a red card. Ref! REF!

“Get up! You! Get up!” Rogers is shouting.

I jerked awake from the dream. There was a huge shadow standing over me, outlined by the yellow lamps of the haulage yard. It was a hunchback monster with wild straggly hair and a beard. I pushed back against the wall, and Malcolm screamed. Then it was the monster's turn to get a fright. It staggered back a couple of paces and fell flat on its back. It gave out a big groan and the plumes of breath coming from its jaws looked like smoke.

I'm fairly sure that anyone with superhero status would have leapt forward and throttled the monster, then thrown it over the barbed-wire-topped fence into the haulage yard.

Me, I just hugged Malcolm and let out this sort of wailing scream. Between the two of us we probably could have woken every vampire in the
neighbourhood. Though of course that was a stupid thought, because everyone knows vampires are awake at night anyway.

The hunchback monster rolled on to its knees and looked at us. The light caught its face. It wasn't a monster, it was a man with a big rucksack on his back. He wore layers of clothes and a baggy raincoat. His beard was matted and stained with cigarette smoke and it looked as though he hadn't combed his hair or washed for years.

“All right, all right, shut up, will you, shut up! You'll have every security guard on the industrial estate coming to see what the racket is.”

The hairy man dropped his huge rucksack, and put a finger to his lips, “Shhhh, shhhh,” he said.

Malcolm copied him and put a finger to his lips. Then I stopped screaming. Malcolm and I didn't move. When we did
Oliver Twist
at school, Mr Penfold played Fagin. He was very good. He even got a standing ovation because he was so scary. So I wondered for a moment if this wasn't Mr Penfold who had tracked me down and come to scare me to death. But then the man put a finger to each nostril and blew hard, clearing his nose of snot. Mr Penfold
certainly wouldn't do that, not even when he was dressed up as Fagin.

The hairy monster sat down on his rucksack and gawped at Malcom. “What in the name of all that's holy is that thing?”

I actually know lots of things that are holy. I can sometimes surprise people by telling them all that's holy. I've been to Westminster Abbey on a school tour, I did a project at school about the Vatican, I also did a photomontage of the Taj Mahal, though strictly speaking that's not really holy. And when Shazad, who's a great midfield player, by the way, did his school project on the Niujie Mosque in Beijing, we were all blown away. None of us knew there was even a mosque in China. If it was anywhere near the relocated Sweet Dreams Sweet Factory, that could be heaven.

I held Malcolm closer and thought that if he couldn't see that he was a chimpanzee wearing a tea cosy then I wasn't going to tell him.

The hairy monster sighed. “You was in my place, see? I didn't know you was a kid and I certainly didn't know you had a monkey with you. I'm sorry if I hurt you.”

He was keeping his distance so I knew he wasn't going to make a grab at us. I was still ready to run if I had to, even though my leg was throbbing.

The hairy monster nodded. “I won't hurt you, lad. It looks to me as though you're a runner.”

“You're wrong,” I said, “I play football.”

“Running away is what I mean,” he said, undoing his rucksack.

I realised this could be a really tricky moment. This man who slept rough could tell the police where we were. I immediately thought of a story. We were actually part of the circus and our van had broken down when it left town and the monkey had run away and I had gone after him and now we were lost. I have to admit it didn't sound that convincing. But before I could say anything he looked at me and shook his head.

“Never mind,” he said, “it's none of my business.” He pulled out some cellophane-wrapped food which looked like cheese and tomato sandwiches and tossed me one. “Here, try one of these, they're only a few days past their sell-by date. I get them at the bins at the back of Sainsbury's.”

I almost blurted out that that was where Mum
worked, but I managed to swallow the words. By then he had his mouth full of food, chewing away with what looked like ravioli and tomato sauce. The juices sneaked out the corner of his mouth and got soaked up by his thick beard.

I tore open the sandwich wrapper and gave half to Malcolm, who picked the sandwich apart and ate the bits separately. I just ate.

“So, here you are, looking for a warm place to sleep. Tired and hungry, cold and away from home. I bet your mum and dad are worried about you.”

I bet they were too, but I had to get Malcolm away first. I almost told him that I was on a mission, but I stopped myself. Rocky once told us that when you get interrogated they always try and appear friendly to start with so that you tell them things about yourself. The best thing to do is to say as little as possible. So I kept chewing.

“How old are you, boy?”

“Nine years, eleven months and thirteen days,” I said. I doubted if that was valuable information.

“That's a bit young for going on the road. I didn't run away from home until I was eighteen.”

“‘I'm not running away from home,” I told him.