Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Purple Monkey

Mungo was a brown monkey. Really very ordinary and brown. Just like any other monkey.
Mungo was tired of being a brown monkey, really very ordinary and brown, just like any other monkey. He wanted to be special. He had a really large family because monkeys have lots of uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters and cousins. They were all the same. They looked the same and spoke the same way and thought the same thoughts. The big monkeys taught the little monkeys how to do things and the little monkeys kept doing those things till they were all grown up and then they taught other little monkeys to do the same. Which was all very good and natural. That was how things had been for a long long time. Nothing had changed for years in monkey history.

But Mungo wasn't happy. He wanted more excitement, he wanted things to be different, he wanted to look different and special. His father told him not be silly. Life for the monkeys was already becoming too exciting, he said. Now that the humans were cutting up all the forests for building more houses and growing more food and burning more fuel, life was too exciting for the monkeys. Finding a safe place to live was exciting; finding enough food, good food, for everyone was exciting; finding cover to hide from other wild animals was exciting. Just the other day old cousin Jaroo had to run for miles to escape from the big cat that was chasing him. Luckily for him the hyenas kept getting in the way of the big cat, so it couldn't run fast enough. There had been no trees for Jaroo to leap on to for at least two miles. and just last year there had been trees spreading out for at least five miles in that area. Too much was changing already. Mungo's father was impatient with Mungo.

But Mungo wasn't happy. He would tell his friend Javi, a rabbit, all his thoughts and dreams. Sometimes Javi couldn't understand what Mungo was talking about but she was a loyal friend so she would listen. Sometimes she would fall asleep because Mungo went on and on and on.... But Mungo wouldn't even notice.
It was a very hot summer and all the animals were resting and conserving their energy, because the heat was making everyone extremely tired. Mungo and Javi were also lying in the shade of a large tree and it was sooo hot even Mungo was quiet. Suddenly they heard the sound of a car. Cars were now quite common in the jungle. Mungo loved them because they looked so colourful and were so noisy and he loved the smell of the petrol fumes. The car passed by and there was a little girl staring out of the window. She saw Mungo and Javi. She got very excited! But she was too small to speak clearly and no one else in the car could understand what she was saying. So she threw a tantrum and flung the picture book she had out of the window. After the car had moved away to a safe distance Mungo went and picked up the book. He began to jump up and down with excitement. Javi went up to him and stared at the book. On the cover was the picture of purple monkey!
Mungo was almost wild with happiness. He had always known there were monkeys that looked different, he said. Not all were brown like him and his tribe. An idea jumped into his head. That was the way to look different! Become purple like the monkey in the book. That would make him special. He would no longer be like all the others. How wonderful!
Javi was a practical rabbit. That's all very well, she said, but how was he going to do it. Mungo was irritated. No one likes it when they dream big dreams and then somebody comes along and says yes, but...... He was sure he would find a way.
They both began to think. All the thinking made Javi tired and she fell asleep but she woke up with a jump as Mungo gave a yell of triumph! He had remembered the purple berries that the tribals in the forest used to colour their cloth. They were big, juicy berries and the colour lasted for a long time. Javi was not so sure. Do think about it carefully, she said. But who wants to think when they've got such a brilliant brain wave! Certainly not Mungo. He was already on his way to the clump of purple berries. Javi sighed and hopped along behind him. They found the berries and since it was the middle of the berry season there were loads of them. Mungo pulled off bunches of them and started squeezing the juice out and covering himself with it. Javi watched, aghast. She wasn't sure if she should go and bring Mungo's mother to stop him. But she knew he would stop speaking to her if she did. So she watched as Mungo became more and more purple.
She thought he looked really beautiful and asked him to paint her with the berries as well. So at the end of it ,there they were, a purple monkey and an even more purple rabbit.
Once they were completely purple Mungo swaggered off to show the tribe how different he was from them. Javi followed him rather slowly because now she wasn't so sure it had been such a good idea! Mungo's mother saw him first and fell off the branch on which she had been sitting. Her horrified screech alerted the rest of the monkeys and soon they were all around Mungo, looking at him, speechless. They laughed at him and made jokes about him and laughed at him some more but that purple monkey was so happy and proud of himself, he didn't care.
Finally they got tired of laughing at him. Then all the younger monkeys started looking at him with interest. They rather admired his new look. They went up him and asked him how he had done it. Then slowly one by one they went away. After a few hours there was some more shrieking from the monkey mothers. Every one of the young monkeys had gone to the clump of berries and turned themselves purple!
Well, that isn't the end of the story. Mungo was unhappy again. He didn't look so different anymore. Half the monkeys in the tribe looked like him. Now he was going to find some red berries and he certainly was not going to tell everyone where to find them.
As for Javi, the colour did not stay on her fur for long and she was very relieved! She liked being an ordinary rabbit!