Thulu sat at the base of the fig tree, nibbling on one of the tiny fruits as his mother plucked bugs from his hair.
“I can’t chew it, Mama!” he said, smacking the hard fruit between his wide monkey lips.
“That’s because it’s not ripe, dear,” said. “You have to wait for the sun to draw out the juice. That’s why we leave them at the base of the tree.”
Thulu crinkled his brow and tossed the fruit aside. He was hungry, and he’d eaten all the ripened fruits inside their fenced-in jungle.
His mother’s hands froze on his head, gripping his fur.
“Ow!” he squealed.
“Sh!” Kurani reached her long skinny fingers around her son’s head and covered his mouth. “He has returned,” she whispered.
Several yards away, a young man in a long brown robe stepped between two trees. His yellow-brown eyes gleamed, and he grinned at the sight of the fruit laying on the ground. “Ah, you have done well, my little monkeys!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I didn’t even have to search for them this time, you little rascals.”
The brown-robed man was not one of the monkey’s keepers, who pet their fur and taught them tricks. This man was a monk. Monks did not usually visit the monkey cages.
Meartar, Thulu’s father, rushed at the brown-robed man, baring his teeth and screeching. Meartar’s shoulders were bonier than they had been a few weeks ago, and his eyes were dull with hunger.
The monk grabbed a stick and swatted Meartar’s face, sending the monkey rolling against a tree. Thulu cried out in fear—he had seen this man steal their fruit, but until now, the man hadn’t hurt his family. Heat rushed through Thulu’s tiny hands, and he scowled, bracing himself. His mother tightened her grip on his shoulders and held him back.
“No, Thulu.”
The monk scooped his arm across the ground, gathering the precious purple fruit the monkeys lived by—muju fruits, found in the highest branches, where only Thulu’s family could reach them. Meartar growled and ran at the monk again, but the man slipped through the gate before Meartar could scratch his smug face.
Thulu turned to his mother. “What does he want with our food, Mama?”
Kurani’s golden fur slackened across her face as she sighed. “I don’t know, baby. We might never know, from here inside the gates.”
“I wish Lady Sunshine and her father knew about the brown-robed man.” Thulu crossed his arms across his bony chest. “They would not let him steal our food.”
“I know, Sweetie.” Kurani stroked her son’s head, then reached out her other arm as Meartar lumbered closer. She held them close, and they fell asleep.
*
That night, when the moon was high and the trees had quieted their leaf lullaby, Thulu opened his eyes. He watched the gate the man had come through, wondering. Slowly, he wiggled out of his mother’s arms and loped across the yard. The gate was wooden, with gaps in between the planks about six inches wide.
“I could fit through the cracks,” Thulu thought. He’d never needed to before, because all he needed were Mama and Papa, but now he wondered…
He pushed his little shoulder against the gate, the wood scratching his downy fur. He stuck his head through, sucked in a breath and pushed against the planks. Splinters grabbed at his spindly thighs and pointy heels, but he fell with a soft thump on the other side.
Thulu sat up and picked a splinter from his calf, hardly noticing the tiny prick of pain.
To his left, narrow footprints accompanied a larger, pair of prints that trailed toward the village. To his right, fat footsteps disappeared into the brush. Thulu looked back at his mother and father, sleeping heavily on the barren ground. He took a deep breath and ran to the right.
*
Thulu found the brown-robed man next to a fire in the woods, piling their fruit as he sang to himself,
“Make the king fall to his knees,
He can’t resist with gifts like these,
Jewels inside the precious Muju,
Now he’ll do as I tell him to.”
Next to the basket of fruit was a basket of jewels. In it, Thulu recognized a necklace with a golden sun charm—it was Lady Sunshine’s. Thulu growled as he peered through the bushes. This man was no monk at all—he was a traitor—and a thief!
He couldn’t let this man fool their good king. So the baby monkey ran back through the woods, into the city, and up to the palace gates, where he waited for morning.
As the sun smiled on the baby monkey, the fake monk marched purposefully toward the gates, laughing to himself. Thulu scuttled backwards and hid behind a large pot. As the traitor swung open the golden-plaited door, Thulu waited. Then, just as the door was swinging shut, he darted through the crack. He raced behind a white column and watched as the monk entered the throne room.
“Good king!” the man proclaimed, bowing low so that the monkeys’ basket of fruit nearly dragged the ground as it hung from his arm. “I bring gifts to your majesty!” He plucked a fruit from the basket and presented it to the king, who smiled politely.
Without thinking, Thulu ran forward, his tiny hands and feet pattering on the cold marble floor. As he neared the monk, the man turned around, and seeing the baby monkey, frowned. Thulu leapt from the ground, landing in the basket of fruit with a warning screech.
“He is a liar!” the little monkey screamed. “He is tricking you with stolen jewels and fruit so that you will do his bidding!” And with that, Thulu grabbed a muju fruit and ripped it open, revealing a shimmering red ruby.
But the king did not understand monkey speech. He saw the jewel and gasped. “Good monk!” he exclaimed, “What a noble gift you bring! How generous! And you have brought me many a day! What can I do for you in return?”
Thulu screeched louder. “No! He is a liar! A thief!”
But the king just chuckled at the spirited little monkey sitting atop the muju fruits. “You’re a clever little thing, escaping your gates!” he said with a smile.
With that, a maidservant rushed over and scooped Thulu up in her arms. She carried him outside, back toward his cage. The little monkey cried because he had failed to save his noble king. But as they passed the entrance to the forest, a thought struck him.
“I will visit the witch of the willows!” he thought. “She can make me a goblin, so I can warn the king of this traitor’s evil plan!” And he settled into the maidservant’s arms, satisfied, because he had discovered the motive of the fruit thief, and he was still small enough to slip through his monkey gate.
Author's Note: I based this story mostly on the introduction of
Twenty-Two Goblins, where a baby monkey who has escaped his cage steals a fruit that was a gift to the king. The monkey cracks open the fruit and reveals that there is a jewel inside. In the original story, the monkey does this after the monk has left the king's court. This prompts the king to fetch the monk and praise him for the marvelous gifts he's been bringing, and ask what he can do for him. So the monk asks him to meet him in the forest at night, where he then asks the king to fetch a corpse from a tree for him. The king does, but the corpse is possessed by a goblin who tells the king riddles as he carries him, then escapes back to the tree. After twenty-two stories, the goblin decides he is a good king, and reveals that the monk's plan is to trick the king into lying down in "reverence," so the monk can kill him, and become king of the fairies.
I was captivated by the baby monkey from the beginning, even though he was a small part of the story. It was his escape that triggered the chain of events! Telling a story from a baby monkey's perspective also seemed fun and quirky. Then, as I read the end of the
Twenty-Two Goblins story, and realized the monk was a villain, I thought it would be interesting to make not only the goblin the savior of the king, but the little monkey as well. I thought about having them collaborate, but then decided it would be interesting if the monkey and the goblin were the same person in different forms. So my story ended up being a "prequal" to the goblin story, where one has to know rest of
Twenty-One Goblins to fully make the connection.
Bibliography:
Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder, with illustrations by Perham W. Nahl (1917)
