Monkey and Me (9 page)

I am not allowed to call an Extraordinary Meeting of the Executive Council and there was no way that Mark was going to either. He was in the bath when I told him about Tracy, because that's where he is when he comes back from football practice. So I thought that would be the time to explain everything. That way he was less likely to jump out the bath and chase me.

He had soap in his eyes and ears when I first told him what Tracy wanted. He splashed so much water to wash the soap away that it went all over the floor.

Mum has a fit if we make a mess in the bathroom like that, but I thought it wasn't the right moment to remind him.

“No way! What is it with you? I don't care what's going on inside your head, but we're not having a girl in the gang. It's never gonna happen, Jez, get used to the idea and don't mention it again. Now get out!”

I didn't think he would be
that
opposed to the idea. I know there are a couple of girls at school who fancy him, but he plays it very cool and doesn't let on. But I've noticed that when they're around he definitely behaves differently.

“She's twelve and she's very clever. She can talk with her hands. It's called signing. We need it so we can communicate with Malcolm.”

“I don't care! Malcolm's a monkey. Monkeys don't talk. They
don't understand
! Understand? Now get out!”

So I did. I had to find a way around this problem. If I went and spoke to Skimp, Pete-the-Feet or Rocky, then that could cause serious complications for the gang. That would undermine the democratic process. It would be as if I was trying to take over. Which of course I can't, because I'm not yet in double figures and even if I was, I wouldn't because Mark is what they call a natural leader.

Sometimes if I get a nosebleed I get some sympathy from Mark, so I closed my eyes and thought hard, imagining the blood coming out my nose and going all over the hall carpet. But nothing happened. Which is just as well, because Mum and Dad always get upset
when it does. So how could I get Mark to even think about calling a meeting, never mind considering letting her join?

When he came out the bathroom he walked right past me and slammed his bedroom door in my face before I'd even had a chance to say anything. I pressed my face close to the edge of the door and tapped gently on it.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
I can keep this up all night and I knew it would wear him down in the end until he'd be forced to open the door.

I'd only done about sixty taps when he yanked open the door. “Stop it! Clear off! I don't want anything to do with you! The subject-matter is closed!”

He was really giving it some welly. Full-in-my-face yelling.

“What's going on up there?” Dad shouts. “Mark! Jez!”

This is where kids who are sick can bend the rules. I whispered to Mark that if he didn't call an EMEC I would tell Mum and Dad that he took me into the Black Gate which is a condemned building, highly dangerous, and could have caused me any number
of injuries. And given that Mum and Dad are both scared of me even getting a scratch, because of the risk of infection, they would probably put him up for adoption.

I think there are times Mark would really like to clobber me. I know that this was one of them. His face screwed up into a really angry look, and he grabbed me. In that moment I realised I had pushed him beyond his limits. It must have been all that tapping on the door that had worn down his nerves. Then, something happened to his face, it was as if he had realised he was not going to get the very latest PlayStation for Christmas. He let go of me. And deliberately banged his head against the door two or three times.

Dad called up again: “Mark? What's going on?”

“Nothing,” he said.

He went into his room and closed the door without even slamming it.

I knew I had won.

That's called blackmail.

Everyone looked really miserable. Mark kicked his ball again and again against the school wall.
Rocky was twisting fence wire around a piece of wood as if he wanted to strangle it. Skimp seemed to be having a conversation with himself. Every few seconds he'd nod, and then shake his head. He muttered, “I dunno” a couple of times. Pete-the-Feet was nowhere to be seen – he was inside his hair.

“She's more than a girl, she's a deaf girl,” Rocky said.

“And she talks funny. Her words don't sound the same as everyone else's,” said Pete-the-Feet.

“None of that makes any difference, honest. I talked to her. You just have to listen to what she says. And she dresses really weirdly, so she's interesting,” I said encouragingly.

“How can you tell a deaf girl jokes?” Skimp argued.

“It's got nothing to do with her being deaf,” Mark said. “This isn't a girl's gang. This is our gang.
My
gang.”

He gave the ball a kick that whacked against the wall and would definitely have been a match-winning penalty.

“But we swore an oath to protect Malcolm,” I said. This meeting was going nowhere and no one wanted
Tracy Lewis anywhere near them. Except me.

“That's got nothing to do with letting her join us,” Pete-the-Feet said, his hair moving from his breath, which at least proved he was alive in there.

“It has everything to do with protecting Malcolm. She can find out what he's trying to say. He might hold really vital information. And imagine that, we would be the ones who discovered it
because
you let Tracy Lewis join in.” I said “you” rather than “we” because that kept me, the probation gang member, out of it. It made them feel more important.

“She could be an associate member,” Skimp suggested. “Or even a consultant.”

“A what?” Rocky said, giving the helpless stick a final, deadly twist.

“Skimp's right,” I said. “That's exactly what she'd be – a consultant. She's an expert in something and we need her services. She could be an associate member while she's a consultant, and then when she's told us what Malcolm's trying to tell us, we could tell her her services are no longer required,” I urged them. After all, I had to go along with them on this whole “girl” thing. Personally, I figured that once Tracy had spent all of sixty seconds in our company she
would rather move into a zoo with Malcolm.

“But what about the jokes?” Rocky said.

“All you have to do is make sure she can see your lips,” I said, trying to make things easier for Tracy's membership. “She's got a great sense of humour.”

“How would you know?” Mark said all miserable-like, still irritated because everything was my fault.

“Because she wants to join the gang. How funny is that?”

The realisation crept over them like a measles rash. Skimp smiled. Rocky grunted and Pete-the-Feet actually chuckled.

“Beanie's right, she must have a twisted sense of humour, wanting to join an all-boy gang,” Rocky conceded.

Mission accomplished.

I gave my next forged letter to Mrs Carpenter who was teaching Science – and I thought she might have been relieved when I gave it to her because her class was about micro-organisms which can cause illness and viruses that can… well, I didn't really need to sit in
that
class, did I?

The gang had done a really good job of collecting
food for Malcolm and my backpack was full of fruit. When I squeezed through the gate I still went very carefully round the track, just in case anyone else was hanging around. But as usual, the haunted house kept everyone else away. I waited till I got to the foot of the stairs, but then, before I could even call out his name, I heard him running along the upstairs corridor and bounding down the stairs.

He must have been watching from his window and had recognised me, which made me feel really nice inside. He was only about the size of a little three or four year old, but when he jumped up on me he was very heavy and I fell over. He was all over me like a bouncy toy and I was laughing so much I couldn't get up.

I made the “I am hungry” sign and he opened his mouth and stuck his fingers inside. It was time for a picnic.

I got onto the sacks in the greenhouse and opened up all the food. We sat together, peeled bananas and got through the recommended five pieces of fruit. Over the last couple of visits Malcolm and I had developed a little routine. We would greet each other and then eat something and then he would
take my hand and lead me on a tour of the house. We'd go into every room and I would imagine who must have lived there, because in its day it must have been a very beautiful house. But you could see the big cracks up the wall and the bits of ceiling that had fallen down and the holes in the roof where the birds came in and made their nests in the rafters, and in a way it made me feel quite sad that it was falling down. But on the other hand the birds and Malcolm had found a home. And, as Mark always says, we all aspire to better things in life. So I suppose Malcolm and the birds have gone up in the world.

After our tour we would go back to the greenhouse and snuggle down into the sacks and have a nap. But today we stayed up in the bedroom and looked out the window because I knew Mark and the gang had gone to get Tracy. I saw someone creeping through the bushes and almost banged on the window to tell them where I was. But then I saw it was two men – it was Potato Face and Comb Head! And they were going around the house, checking to see if they could get inside.

When we had decided to protect Malcolm, Rocky and Skimp had pulled the old kitchen door back into
place and put all sorts of rubbish in front of it as a deterrent to anyone else getting in. Then we had found a small hole in the wall at the back courtyard, and that's where we all squeezed through now.

Malcolm's teeth chattered. I held him as we watched the men give up trying to get in the house. I realised that sooner or later someone who wouldn't care that the Black Gate was haunted was going to break in. And when they did that they might not realise that the reason Malcolm made all those threatening noises was because he was scared. Then they might get the wrong idea and try and hurt him. I had done my research on Mark's computer and when we first thought that Malcolm was grinning and being happy it really meant he was distressed and frightened. Things aren't always what they seem.

It wasn't long before Mark and the others arrived.

“Potato Face and Comb Head were here,” I told them.

“Did they get in?” Mark asked.

“No. But they might come back.”

“I'll set some booby traps before we go,” Rocky said.

“Yeah, well don't forget to tell us where!” Skimp told him.

“Remember, we've got a girl to worry about now,” Mark said.

I looked at Tracy – had she heard?

“They don't want me in the gang, do they?” she said to me.

I shook my head. “Did they say anything insulting when they went to get you?” I asked.

“If they did I didn't hear them,” she said and then smiled. Told you. Great sense of humour.

She didn't seem to care much about Mark and the others, she just looked at the size of the old house and said, “Wow.” Everyone else just stood there. I don't think that we were used to the idea yet of a girl being with us. “Where is he?” she asked.

“You have to sit down and be quiet,” Mark told her as I called Malcolm, who hid in the bushes until he felt safe to come out. I could tell everyone was waiting to see just what Tracy was going to do with him.

Tracy's eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. She said, “Wow” again. And then she smiled. That's what Malcolm does to you. He makes you feel good.

Malcolm wasn't too sure about the new member
of the gang. And he clung to my legs until I eased his hand free and sat down with him. Then Tracy started talking with her hands. Malcolm looked at me, rubbed his face with his hands and looked again – as if in disbelief that someone else was talking like that.

“He doesn't know much,” Tracy said. “Only some very basic stuff.” She used her hands again and this time Malcolm responded. He touched his chest and then his lips and then me.

“He says he loves you, Beanie.”

No one said anything, but I could tell that the others were quietly fascinated by Tracy, even though she spoke slowly and with some difficulty. Me? I just felt very special after what Malcolm had said. Tracy kept making gestures.

“He knows a few things, like when he's scared or tired and enough to ask for food and to say when something hurts him or when he feels sick,” she said.

I stroked his head and he wrapped his arms around me and Skimp gave him some chewing gum. Then we all sat around and chewed and blew bubbles. Malcolm was getting quite good at it and had less in his fur this time.

“Why would they teach him those things?” Skimp asked.

Mark said, “It must have something to do with that hospital tag on his wrist.”

I looked at my own plastic bracelet on my wrist that the hospital gave me. It had my name and my date of birth, but Malcolm's was all worn. Then I thought that as I go into hospital and have treatment, maybe it was the same for him. “What if he was in an animal hospital and escaped?” I said. “What if he's really sick and needs treatment?”