Three Baboons and a Monkey

Ebon was relaxing in the shade of a beautiful palm tree.

   His mate Gantua stood looking at the tree's drupes (which are commonly known as coconuts).

   'Ganeeeeeee,' said Ebon, with eyes narrowed.

   'Umm...Yes?' said Gantua, still gazing dreamily at the coconuts.

   'What,' returned Ebon, 'are coconuts doing, growing on this sort of palm tree?'

   'How do you mean?'

   'A coconut grows on a coconut palm tree, the Cocos nuciferas,' explained Ebon, 'However, this tree is a Phoenix dactylifera ... a date palm!' 

   'Well, whatever palm it is, those coconuts sure look tasty!' squealed Gantua, her eyes beginning to pop out.

   'Tasty shmasty!' exclaimed Ebon. 'It's downright unnatural!' He got up and faced the palm tree's trunk, staring at it.

   'Hello,' he smiled, 'Mr Tree.'

   Shinnng!

   With a sound like a sword being unsheathed, out came Ebon's claws; they began roaring like chainsaws, and he lifted them to strike!

   'No-o-o-o-o-o-o!' Gantua screamed.

   She ran to Ebon in total slow motion. 

   She pushed Ebon's paw away and hugged the palm trunk.

   The strength of his mate's shove, combined with the power of his roaring chainsaw claws, threw Ebon a clean kilometre away.

   Ten minutes later, he tottered back, covered in feathers and mud.

   'Ha! Ha! Hahahaha!' Gantua laughed, dancing in a barbarous way. She cackled with true glee. 'Ebi is muddy! Ebi is muddy!'

   'I landed on an ostrich,' said Ebon, sitting down and lifting his nose haughtily. 'Which was taking a drink at a muddy waterhole.' Then, to regain peace with his dear wife, Ebon plucked off an ostrich feather that had got stuck to his back, and presented it to Gantua.

   'An expensive feather, my love,' he purred, with a graceful bow.

   'Oh,' said Gantua, taking the feather. She felt really awkward. 

   'Oh,' Gantua said again.

   'N-a-www,' grinned Ebon, tipping his head. 'Ganny's almost speechless. That's so cu-u-u-u-te.'

   'Ooooh, Ebon, that is cheeky. Now everyone knows.' Gantua's eyes widened in embarrassment.

   'There's nobody here except me,' Ebon comforted her, 'And this tree of course.' He smiled and tapped the palm with his . . . palm.       

   'Hey! That'll be funny!' Ebon put his face right up close to the tree. 'Watch this, Gantau!'

   'Facepalm!' he screamed, thumping his forehead against the tree trunk. 'Facepalmfacepalmfacepalm! Heeheeheehee!'

   'Heehee! That looks cool!' Gantua said. She too began to hit her head against the palm tree. 'Heeheeheehe-'

   Thwump!

   An oversized coconut, about 60 cm in diametre, fell and hit Gantua in the centre of her scalp. 

   'Ooooooo!' said she, before collapsing.

   'Gabinta! squealed Ebon, 'Gabby, come here! Your mother's just fainted!'

   After what seemed (to Ebon) like hours, Gabinta walked out a nearby cave, a sulky expression on her face. Her big bottom lip was hanging out.

   'Yeah, Dada?' she said. 'Sorry, I was a bit busy. Feeding Wafa his daily bugs.' Gabinta pointed to the sphere-shaped monkey who was rolling out of the cave just behind her.

   'Bugs too big for his belly. He he he,' Gabinta said. 'So-oo, what's the trouble, Daddy'o?' Gabinta gazed lazily at her stunned mother (who, by the way, had a huge lump forming on her head). Actually, Gabinta knew what the trouble was, but she just liked asking; plus it wasted peoples' time.

   'You can see very well what's happened!' whined Ebon, nibbling his claws to stumps. 'Your poor mother has gone and knocked herself out.' He snatched up roly-poly Wafa, and hugged the little monkey to comfort himself. 

   'Gee, that sounds bad,' said Gabinta, eating a rare species of bug. She rubbed Gantua's throbbing lump and sighed; then turning, she walked off.

   'Waaaaaaaaa!!' panicked Ebon, shaking Wafa about like a ragdoll. 'Wafa, do something!' Ebon shoved the monkey into Gantua's face. 'Work! Work!'

   Wafa's brains were jingling and jangling. He quickly whipped out his doctor case, threw on a white coat . . . then placed a Calming Gadget on Ebon's head, which was to soothe the lion's nerves.

   'Eh?! - Aaahhh!' sighed Ebon dozily. He slumped to the ground and fluttered his eyelids. 'Oh, I'm seeing flowers! Flowers and butterflies!'

   Wafa pressed a button on the gadget which made a picture of snowflakes and dreamlands appear infront of Ebon's eyes.

   Gantua woke up, rubbing her now-enormous bump.

   'Oo - err,' she said. Then she saw Wafa messing about with Ebon's brain. 

   'What the jeepers-creepers are you doing, Wafa!' cried Gantua in panic.

   'Snowflax and dweemlandie,' drawled Ebon, and rested his chin upon crossed paws. 'Tum wiff me to de land ovv pwitty fings, Gantua, my sweet.'

   ' 'Scuse me? Ebonny, dear, are you okay?' Gantua asked her husband. 'Is your peanut working alright?' She turned to Wafa. 'Is it?'

   Wafa shrugged.

   'WAAAAH! My Ebonny has gone cra-a-a-z-z-z-y! And a loony monkey professor made him like that,' cried Gantua, dashing in circles, wailing her head off. 

   'Heehee! Yes! Yes! Let's dance!' giggled Ebon. He skipped around Wafa several times, before prancing over to his mate and catching her front paws in his. 'Let's dance, Ganny! Dance, dance, dance!'

   'Ooo, dear, you really did wazz him up, Wafa,' said Gantua.

   Wafa took out his bongo drums and they three danced to the music.

   'Hey, Moonchild,' gushed Ebon, placing a flower wreath around Wafa's neck. 'Hey, Flower Princess,' he murmured, hugging Gantua. 'Let's dance, Children of the Nature Groove!'

   Wafa thought about putting the Calming Gadget back on Ebon, but instead the monkey cried: 'Br-r-r-r-u-m-b-a! 

   Gabinta wandered out of her cave; she took one look at Ebon, Gantua and Wafa, then crawled back into the cave, where she fainted from shock.

   Ebon grabbed Wafa. 'Now let's do the Waltz.'

   Wafa waltzed with Ebon until his little legs felt like dropping off.

   'Ballet!' cried Ebon, throwing the exhausted Wafa up and away, over his shoulder, and he snapped his fingers.

   'Gantua! Get into this tu-tu... ' Ebon produced a dress, made from pink-dyed palm leaves and hemmed with lace, 'And let's ballet!'

   Then Ebon looked thoughtful. 'Um...do I have to wear tights like a Ballerino . . . you know, the men ballet dancers?'

   'Yeah, Ebi,' said Gantua, throwing a pair of stripy tights to Ebon. 'Let's go crazy!' She whipped on the tu-tu and groaned. 'Ooo-er, it's hard being crazy.' But she just shrugged and twirled.

   (TWUMP! Wafa landed.)

   Ebon yanked on the tights. 'Hey! There's no hole for my tail!' he protested, but then added, 'Never mind. Maybe they'll stay up without my tail to hold them.'

   'With luck!" Gantua said. She leapt high into the air. 'We-eeeeee!'

   'Weeeeeheeheehee!' cheered Ebon. He also jumped up in the air. 'Bother!' he groaned suddenly, 'My tights have - ! No, phew! False alarm!' He landed slowly.

   Gantua sailed down after her leap, landing on Ebon's back and flattening him. 'Ooof!' she said.

   Wafa drifted down from the sky, wearing a bright blue tu-tu with a frilly hem and settled, with a dainty flourish, on Gantua's head.

   'Yush, yush, Wafa,' Ebon grunted. 'You may look very pretty but Ganny does not with you sitting on her head, and I most certainly do not!' 

   For as you know Ebon was lying flat on the ground with Gantua and Wafa on top of him. But he gave an almighty heave and threw them both off.

   'Eeehehehehe!' Ebon cackled, as he raced off towards the Palm Tree. 'I'm a moonchoild monkee!' He clawed his way up the palm trunk. 

   'Nooo-oooo!' Gantua said, racing to the tree. She grabbed hold of the trunk and shook it, hoping that Ebon would slide off.

   'Eyiyiyiyiyiyiyi!' mumbled Ebon, as he was shaken. But depsite Gantua's efforts, he reached the top of Palm Tree and did a monkey howl.

   'I am the child of the monkeys!' he sang, in a wailing voice. 'I am the son of the moon, I am the offspring of that cheese in the sky, and whoever hurts me, meets doom!'

   'Oh, come on,' Gantua snorted. She dashed up the tree, and was about to step on Ebon's paw to see if she really would ''meet her doom'', when there was a loud Crack! from somewhere down the trunk area of the Palm Tree.

   Gantua looked at Ebon. 'Uh-oh.'

   'Eeeeeeeee,' whispered Ebon. 'Ganny. Whatever you do. Don't let Wafa up here . . . Especially after all those bugs he's eaten.'

   Wafa's head erupted from out of the foliage.

   'Yaaah!' Gantua cried, clutching Ebon tightly.

   Ebon glared with narrowed eyes at Wafa, as a foreboding Crack! resounded from below.

   'You did a bad, bad thing, Wafa my friend,' growled Ebon; he saluted the sky, pulled up his tights as high as they would go, kissed Wafa's bonce and hugged Gantua.

   'When you've got a huge lump the size of Kilimanjaro on your not-so-very-sensible head, Wafa,' sighed Ebon, 'do tell me how it feels.'

   CRRAAAAAACCKKKK!

   'Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa - !!!'

   Their screams were cut off by the WHUMPP! of the tree, as it hit the ground.

*

Ebon's legs stuck out of the flora of the snapped tree. He squiggled his toes.

   'Lost me tights,' he muttered in a muffled voice. 'Dwat.'

   'What a pity,' came Gantua's voice from under some branches. 'They suited you.'

   Wafa crawled out of the greenery; his eyes were unbelievably huge.

   'How's our little monkey, then?' asked Ebon, who had managed to struggle out from the leaves, apparently with large coconut in each cheek - he spat these out. 'Fthwawfp!'

   'Oh, dear. Look at Wafa,' moaned Gantua, hiding her face with a paw, but then peeking through her claws. Wafa had the biggest bump history had ever known on his head; it was the size of thirty Kilimanjaros!

   'Crashing coconuts!' shrieked Ebon, before he suddenly began scuffling around in the tree foliage.

   'Ah-ha! Got 'em!' He whipped out his stripey tights from somewhere and gave one of its feet to Gantua, who had scuttled out from under the branches.

   'We are gonna stretch these tights,' Ebon explained, 'And then whip them over Wafa's mountain to bandage it. Ready?'

   Gantua squealed, 'Let's do it, Ebi!' and began pulling at the tights with the strength of The Incredible Hulk.

   'Pull, Ebonny!' she cried with laughter.

   Ebon strained until his eyes began to bulge. Then he staggered up to Wafa's bump, clambered heroically over it, and flopped down exhausted on the other side.

   'Phew!' he gasped. 'That was just like climbing thirty Kilimanjaros!'

   Wafa sweated buckets full after carrying Ebon's weight on his bump.

   'Look, Ebon,' Gantua said, gaping at the tights.' We have really stretched them...!'

   Rriiipppp!

   '...Oh, dear.'

   'Aaeaaaaaaaa!' cried Ebon, letting the torn-in-half tights go suddenly (so that they twanged into Gantua's face) and nibbled his paws in anxiety. 'What are we going to do! What can we use instead of my tights?'

   'Let me help!' said a voice, and all of a sudden there was a baboon with a big staff in his hand standing next to Wafa.

   'I am Rafiki!' said the baboon.

   Gantua fixed her little eyes on the new-comer.

   'How?' she murmured, looking Rafiki up and down twenty times.

   'How what?' said Rafiki, frowning.

   'Ho-o-o-o-w can y-o-o-o-u help Wafa?' answered Ebon for his mate, putting a protective paw on Wafa's shoulder and scowling.

   'Yeah!' said Gantua with a nod. She walked up to Rafiki and stuck her face infront of his. 'That's what I said!' Then she smiled sweetly and bounced back to Ebon's side.

   But the baboon ignored the two lions. He was already tearing off a handful of palm leaf and peeling a banana which hung on his staff. Then he began squeezing the torn leaf and banana together in his fist. As he squeezed, he sang:

    'When someone has a bump,

   As big as the moon,

   The best way to heal it,

   Is to heal it up soon.

   A-ya A-ya!

   Co-co-co! 

   'So take a mashed banana,

   And the leaf of a palm,

   Then mix the two together,

   To make uponyaji* balm! 

   A-ya A-ya!

   Co-co-co!'

    Gantua and Ebon watched, gobsmacked. 

   'Where did you learn to sing?' Gantua stammered.

   'Oh, Ganny, Ganny!' said Ebon in patronizing tones. 'What do mean, where did he learn to sing?! It's obvious that he went to singing lessons in the town of Hebo Kuimba on the Island of Atlantis where the Bomba Howler Monkey's live . . . Didn't you, Rafiki?'

   Rafiki gave Ebon a funny look, but then he shrugged and smeared the mixture he had made all over Wafa's forehead.

   Nothing happened . . . Then . . .

   Pop!

   Gone was Wafa's thirty-Kilimanjaro bump! 

   'Golly!' gasped Ebon. He inspected Wafa's head.

   'Uh?!' cried Gantua, looking through Wafa's hair for the lump.

   'Hey, old, wise monkey of great healing wisdom!' yelled Ebon to Rafiki, who was about to leave. 'Don't go yet! How can we repay you for your help?'

   Rafiki smiled and shook his head, but Ebon insisted. 'Oh, but we must give you something,' he said, looking around. 'Hey, Gantua, how about giving him those stripey tights?'

   Gantua looked at Ebon out of eyes the size of tea trays, and she stuck out her bottom lip.

   'But I thought those tights were yours, Ebi!' she protested, sulkily. 'They were my prezzie to you.' Then she pulled off her tu-tu and handed it to Rafiki. 'You can have this instead, baboon.'

   Rafiki looked at the pink, frilly tu-tu, with a dead-pan expression on his face, and he stammered: 'Eh-hem, no thanks. Really, I couldn't.'

   'No, really,' Gantua smiled, as she pulled the dress over the baboon. She stepped back to stand beside Ebon. 'Awww!' she commented.

   Rafiki found the tu-tu rather uncomfortable to wear - it was extremely itchy. 

   'Look,' the baboon said, after a couple of minutes, and wriggled out of Gantua's ballet garment. 'If I'm to have anything, I will have ... hmm ... this!' 

   Rafiki had found Wafa's Calming Machine, and crammed the device on to his head. 

   Gantua nodded. 

   'Take it, take it. I am feeling generous today! But ... are you sure you don't want the dress? It sort of ... suited ... you.'

   ' ...Gantua!' squeaked Ebon suddenly. 'We can't let him have that terrible machine. Remember what happened to me?!'

   But alas, Rafiki had already pressed the ON button.

   'Oops!' gasped Gantua, as she grasped both Wafa and Ebon at the same time. 'Oops! The baboon is gonna get it!'

   And the two lions and the baby monkey waited with bated breath.

   Actually Rafiki seemed quite normal. Looking at the others, confused at their sudden silence, he sat down; which was quite an expected action, rather normal, nothing unusual really. 

   Then he casually picked up a speck of dust and studied it; kinda strange, but again, not exactly unusual.

   'I'm sure he'll start acting up any moment now,' muttered Ebon.

   'Ahh, moments,' sighed Rafiki, lying down. 'I quote: Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments. Rose Kennedy.'

   'I told you!' cried Ebon, stamping a paw in triumph. 'He's lost it!'

*

   A short while passed, spent by Ebon and Gantua playing American football (using Wafa as the ball), and by Rafiki uttering as many quotes as he could remember.

   'To be or not to be, that is the question, William Shakespere. Never, never, never give up, Winston Churchill . . .' babbled the baboon, on and on, until at long last he ran out of quotes and went over to observe Ebon and Gantua's game.

   'Come on, Ganny!' cried Ebon, running in a tight circle with Wafa in his arms, as Gantua just stood, grinning. 'Tackle Wafa from me!'

   'I will, I will,' giggled Gantua..

   'Och, whit rubbish footba' players you are,' remarked Rafiki, putting on a Scottish accent. 'Throw the wee monkey to me an ah'll show you how to play properly!'

   Ebon, with a doubtful shrug, passed Wafa to Rafiki, who picked up a coconut and cracked it open. Then the baboon started drawing pictures on Wafa's head with the coconut milk.

   'Hey, what about your football expertise!' growled Ebon sarcastically.

   'Even as a footballer,' murmured Rafiki, 'I was always being creative. I quote Eric Cantona.' 

   Then suddenly Rafiki snatched up Wafa again and leapt away like a speeding bullet.

   'Whoo-hoo!' he cried. 'Let's play footie!'

   Ebon and Gantua sighed, as they watched Rafiki running far, far away into the distance. 

   'Shall I go get Wafa back?' asked Ebon.

   Gantua didn't answer the question. 'Ya know,' said she, cocking her head. 'I've just realised how much that baboon reminds me of you, in looks.'

   Ebon exhaled a slow, frustrated breath.

   'My dear, sweet, Ganny,' he said, turning to his dear, sweet Ganny. 'Please take my tights, and mend them like a good wife should, while I go fetch Wafa back. '

   'Oh,' Gantua said sadly, picking up her husband's ripped tights. 'Okay.' She found an old claw of hers lying on the ground, and then pulled out one of Ebon's longest mane hairs, and these two were to use as a needle and thread. Then she crawled onto to a lonely ledge and began to sew, all lonely like; her back to everybody, her face to the setting sun. And she sang a sorrowful song.

   'Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, 

   Nobody knows my name. 

   Oh, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe is me!

   Lackaday! Lackaday!

   Woe is me-e-e-e!'

   Gantua turned her head slowly and looked around, hoping that somebody had heard her melody.

   Well, Ebon hadn't. And nor had Rafiki, nor Wafa. 

   Far away, sprinting like a champion runner was Ebon, chasing Rafiki, in whose arms Wafa screamed fit to burst - until Ebon leapt at old Rafiki, and grappled the baboon to the ground. Poor Wafa was almost squashed under the Rafiki and Ebon's combined weight!

    But what's this? It's Gantua, running to the rescue! 

There you can see Ebon getting out of the way. And Rafiki, he looks up, but TOO LATE! Oh, he has been sent flying by Gantua's well aimed shove  - and it's a goal as he lands square between two palm trees. The crowd goes wild! 

   Gantua's carrying little Wafa on her shoulders, clearly happy with her outstanding feat. Ebon also looks very happy; he's got his tights on, and is running around like a mad lion.

THE END

 

Asterisk:

* Uponyaji: ''healing'' in Swahili

Credits:
Artwork, Ebon and parts of fanfic (c) Windhowler
Gantua, Wafa, Gabinta and parts of fanfic (c) Pawface
Rafiki and The Lion King universe (c) Disney