Monkey and Me (15 page)

The cab smelled warm and stale, like my bed at home when I read under the duvet with my torch. I pulled Malcolm up into the bunk behind the curtain that was already closed. There were a couple of fluffy toys on the dashboard and pictures of a pretty girl with big eyes and an even bigger smile. One of them was stuck on a piece of card, and in different coloured crayon it said
Daddy's girl.

It was quiet in there, like a secret place where no one can find you. The door opened and the driver thumped into the seat, slammed the door and made
a shivery noise because it was cold outside. The engine started, the lights stared into the fog.

We were on our way again.

Once we got onto the motorway it seemed that the fog was lifting, but we were going slowly, the big engine droned on and on as the driver kept it in low gear. It was going to be ages before we got anywhere.

The driver leaned forward in his seat, gazing into nothingness, searching for tail lights. I remembered Dad doing that – watching for anyone in trouble who'd stopped in the fog.

Malcolm was quiet, his eyes only half open. He held the palm of one hand flat and then tapped it with the other. I nodded and made the same movement with mine.
I'm happy too,
I told him in my head.

He put his hand in mine and closed his eyes. I was burning hot now. Maybe it was the warm cab. My head banged onto my chest, I struggled to keep my eyes open. I couldn't stay awake. Maybe I didn't have to. The fog was our invisible shield. No one would ever find us now.

The clock on the dashboard said 03.58.

We were safe.

I closed my eyes.

It felt like I was asleep for hours. Maybe even days. You can't imagine how complicated all my dreams were. I was exhausted when I woke up.

There was a sudden hiss.

Then silence.

I peeped through the curtain. The clock said 04.03. I'd only been asleep for five minutes! Malcolm was still asleep, wheezing like the wind through the eaves of the Black Gate.

The hissing was the air brakes. The lorry had stopped and the driver had gone, swallowed up by a blue swirling cloud outside. I was still groggy and I couldn't believe there was an ice-cream van parked in front, and that the driver had got out for something like a double whippy chocolate flake. Which, in this freezing fog at four o'clock in the morning, was a serious ice-cream addiction.

It wasn't an ice-cream van.

The police car and ambulance had blocked us in. Policemen wearing yellow striped jackets came towards us – and there was another man with a big net, big enough to catch a whale in. I must have still been dreaming. Mum and Dad got out of the police car, but one of the policemen extended his
arms and held them back. Anyone would think this was a dangerous situation.

I think it was, for Malcolm.

I shook him gently – we could still make a run for it. “Malcolm, we've got to go. Wake up.” He barely moved when he looked at me, and then he pulled the little fingers on each hand down across his chest. I tried to remember stuff that Tracy had told me. “I don't know what you're saying,” I whispered. I could feel tears sting my eyes. “I don't…” I told him again.

How can you love someone so much and not understand what they are trying to tell you? Then I remembered. He was telling me he was sick. My friend was really sick and I couldn't help him any more.

I was trying to get my brain to work, but my head was on fire and the cut on my leg was thumping faster than my heart. This was it – no Piccadilly, no Scott's Bar, no Great Escape.

The door opened a crack and a policeman put his head into the cab. He was dripping wet and the freezing air suddenly filled the cab. He smiled. “You're Jez, aren't you? It's all right, son, we're not
going to hurt your mate, but he's sick and we have to get him to hospital.”

Drizzle distorted the windscreen. There was a weird-shaped man holding the net.

“No! You're going to do experiments on him!” I shouted.

He hadn't moved, or made a grab for Malcolm.

On the end of the policeman's nose there was a drip of rain, which he wiped away. “I promise we won't do anything like that. He'll be all right… hang on a second.”

He closed the door and I saw him walk towards Mum and Dad, who were huddling from the drizzling fog, and he also called out to someone else, waving his arm to another policeman – there must have been dozens of them surrounding us but I could only see three or four.

They brought out two men from another police car. The policeman said something to Dad, who nodded, and then came towards the cab.

I was shivering. Shaking from head to toe. There was no way I could escape with Malcolm now. The cab door opened and Dad stuck his head inside. He didn't try to grab me or anything. I pulled
Malcolm closer to me. If I held on to him they would have to drag us out together.

Dad rolled his eyes. Just like when he saved me from the top of Sweet Dreams Sweet Factory. “All right, Jez?”

I nodded, but I think I was doing that anyway because of the shakes.

Dad turned the ignition key and flipped on the headlights and the wipers. The blades swished away the rain.

“See those two ugly blokes?” he said.

I stared through the windscreen and saw the policemen standing with men in handcuffs. It was Potato Face and Comb Head!

“They stole Malcolm and thanks to you the police have caught them. But Malcolm is sick, son. He really is. You have to let them help him.”

It was very quiet. Just Malcolm's breathing and my teeth chattering. It was so hot in there.

Dad reached in and lifted me from the bunk. He didn't even pull a face or anything with the effort, he's so strong he could probably have done it with one hand. Then it was freezing cold and the drizzle tickled my face. Dad held me close to him,
just like I carried Malcolm. It was all a bit swirly. The motorway traffic was going past, the police had flickering warning torches, the ambulance had a bar of blue and white light dish-dashing backwards and forwards. Mum said something that I couldn't hear. Maybe all the fog had got into my ears. Then a man in a green jacket with a yellow stripe across it put a survival blanket around me. It was like being a chicken wrapped in silver foil ready for the oven. But I wasn't free-range any more.

The policeman smiled, tugging the blanket a bit more over my head.

“Those men won't be stealing any more animals, Jez. We've been after them for a long time. Once we knew you'd been hiding where your dad used to work we put two and two together and checked all the CCTV cameras on the motorway service stations. We saw you climb into the cab. Now, you just relax with your mum and dad. Everything will be all right.”

Dad turned so I could see the lorry. A policeman and another man – I bet it was the RSPCA inspector – lifted Malcolm down from the cab and wrapped him up as well. Dad was about to step up into the
back of the ambulance, Mum was already inside. Malcolm was being put in the white van right next to me – RSPCA Animal Rescue. I wanted to tell them he's not an animal. He's nearly one of us.

Malcolm looked at me. His long bony fingers made a sign.

“I love you too,” I told him.

Everything went fuzzier. The fog must have been getting thicker. Car doors slammed, the white van disappeared, a police car started up. I heard crackling voices over a radio. The ambulance driver said something into his handset. The police car led us out onto the motorway, its flashing light like a propeller churning it along.

Dad still held me so I could see through into the ambulance's cab. In front of us red tail lights shifted to one side as a siren made everyone get out of the way.

Someone must have needed help.

Sometimes I'm amazed at how easy it is to wake up. One minute you're in dreamland, the next you wake up into another sort of dream. It's like there's someone tugging you back. I lay still and let the bedclothes snuggle around me. Mum and Dad were there. Mum had puffy red eyes from crying and it looked as though Dad hadn't shaved for a couple of days. And he shaves every day, so something must have kept him busy.

I had to tell Dad something. I knew I would hurt his feelings, because I'd heard him say things to Mum when he thought I couldn't hear him. He was always talking about the way things were before.

Before.

I thought he might be living in the past. And you know there are some things you just can't change. Things happen, you don't want them to, but they do. And they're not always nice things either.

“Dad,” I said.

He held my hand. “Yes, Jez?”

My voice sounded like a whisper. “I've been thinking about something really important.”

He looked at me. I didn't know if I had the heart to tell him.

“What's that, son?”

I curled my finger and he put his face close to mine so only he would hear. “Now that Michael Owen has retired I don't think he's ever going to come back and play for us again,” I said.

His face crumpled a bit. I think he was being very brave. There were tears in his eyes, but then he smiled. And kissed me.

“I think you're right,” he said.

A doctor and nurse were muttering near the door. Mum came over and brushed her hand across my face. “You gave us all a bit of a fright,” she said quietly.

Me? I don't think Mum knows what fright is. Try being chased by ugly men with bad haircuts, try talking to hairy monsters in the night, try saving…

“Where's Malcolm?”

“He's safe,” Mum said.

The door opened and the nurse brought in the gang. Mark and Pete-the-Feet, Skimp and Rocky and Tracy. That was nice. I was pleased they'd let her stay in the gang. I bet it took an Emergency Meeting of the Executive Council. And someone must have voted on my behalf.

That's called voting by proxy.

The nice thing was, they were all wearing beanies. Then they took them off. Incredible! They'd all had their heads shaved. They were bald just like me.

“We had a meeting…” Mark said.

I knew I was right.

“And we've decided to call ourselves the Beanie Gang.”

“That's brilliant. Even Tracy,” I said.

She still spoke funny but we could all understand her. “Deaf and bald,” she said, “tha' should give the bullies something to laugh about!”

Mark sat on the edge of the bed. “I have to do all the chores, so hurry up and get better, yeah?”

“I'm doing my best,” I told him.

“Well, don't hang about. Mum and Dad have got a present for you. Just don't tell them you already know. Act surprised.”

“What? A new bike?”

“Don't be stupid, that's your Christmas present. Oh, I wasn't supposed to tell you that.”

“All right, you lot, that's enough. We don't want to tire the patient, do we?” the nurse said.

Mark and the others all signed. I laughed. They'd just said something really rude.

“Tracy's teaching us. It's our new secret code,” Rocky said.

How cool is that?

Everyone was smiling. They must have been happy.

As the nurse pushed the gang out the door, Dad brought in a lady who looked quite old, like Mum, and who had the same sort of kind face. She was carrying Malcolm. And he still wore the football shirt. I think it'd been washed and ironed though.

“Malcolm!”

She put him down on the bed.

“Jez, this is Mrs Carter. She's Malcolm's owner,” Mum said.

I barely heard what she was saying. Malcolm was sitting on my chest. I could barely breathe I was so happy. He was making those
whoo whoo
sounds, and touching my face.

“I run an animal sanctuary. This little chimp fell sick and those two awful men stole him from the infirmary. Malcolm, as we now call him, escaped from their van and must have hid in the Black Gate,” said Mrs Carter.

“Which is where I found him.”

“Thank heavens you did. Malcolm was taught to sign because he's part of a research programme in animal communication. He's actually a very clever chimpanzee.”

“No one will ever hurt him for experiments?”

“Never ever. I promise. He's one of the lucky ones. And you can visit him whenever you want.”

Malcolm was pinching my grapes. He pushed one into my mouth.

His hands moved.
Does it hurt?
he asked me.

No. Not any more.

The End

Author's note

This story was always going to be about a young boy's view of his world, with a glance in the direction of his parents who patiently bore their distress for their sick son. Beanie saw their concern as something that went beyond his own illness as he carried on with his day-to-day life. It was his character's quirky look at the world that always held such an appeal for me and it was never going to be a story that became maudlin or morbid. It's often a stroke of luck when a writer finds such an endearing character as Beanie – doubly so when he gets to explore his own feelings with someone like Malcolm.

I had help during my research for this book – thanks go to Matthew Jones, for explaining the workings of the lorries used in the story. Thanks also to both the senior paediatrician at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Devon, as well as the
Derriford Children's Cancer Trust
, who advised on the symptoms and treatment for young people who fall ill with leukaemia.

The survival rate for so many young people with leukaemia has increased and cancer research has become the main weapon in the on-going battle against this illness.

Cancer charities, such as
Cancer Research UK
and, in particular, the
CLIC Sargent for Children with Cancer
always need support. Many years ago when my family were struggling financially and my sister fell ill,
Sargent
made sure she had a couple of pounds a week to spend on a few personal items. It made such a difference to her. When Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood merged with
Sargent
in 2005, their ability to help children and teenagers became even stronger.

Like Malcolm, we all need rescuing at times and, as Beanie reached out for his new-found friend, I don't think it's beyond any of us to do something similar.

David Gilman