Monkey June Stories

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Story Eight - Part One

I know you’ve heard at least one story about the girl known as Monkey June, so I won’t waste time describing her here. If you’re not familiar with her at all, I have to wonder why you are reading this story instead of starting at the beginning. Were you just confused about where to start? Are you the kind of person who buys a book and starts reading at Chapter Eight? This story isn’t about you, though, so I’m going to get back to my story about Monkey June…

She was a girl who really loved monkeys—which was good, because monkeys seemed to find their way into her life no matter where she was and no matter what she was doing. Can you imagine what her life would be like if she was obsessed with zebras or elephants or unicorns, and all kinds of monkey-related things kept happening to her?

Oh! I should pause here for a moment to say that this is another story from when June was younger, before she had ‘Monkey’ added to her name, so you’ll be hearing a lot of ‘June did this’ and ‘June said that’, and you’ll hardly hear the name ‘Monkey June’ at all.

June was a very clever three-year-old girl. She lived in a normal house in a normal town with a normal mother and a normal father.

About a year before this story—the summer before this story, to be exact—she had visited a tropical island with her parents. She had been two-years-old then—it was a few months before her third birthday. She had met a ‘dangerous’ monkey named Mango Monkey, and she had—well, she had been on various adventures that you can read about in Story Six. (It’s a two-parter. I highly recommend it.)

That was a year ago, though. Now June was three. It was the summer before she turned four. You may remember that June’s parents had promised to take her back to that island every year for their family’s summer vacation. Little June reminded them of this promise constantly because she couldn’t wait to go back to the island, find her friend Mango Monkey, and see how he was doing.

The last time June and her parents had been to the island, they had arranged a feast of mangoes on a beach there. (If that sounds strange to you then you haven’t heard or read Story Six. If you still haven’t checked it out, that’s on you. I recommended it two paragraphs ago.)

I won’t tell you the real name of the island they visited, because I don’t want you going there and trying to find Mango Monkey, or buried treasure, or dangerous secrets, or anything like that. I will say that little June and her parents usually referred to the place as ‘Mango Beach Island’, for obvious reasons.

June’s parents spent the first part of their summer planning their trip to Mango Beach with little June, and as the trip got closer and closer, June was hardly able to talk about anything else.

“Do you think Mango Monkey is still there?” she asked her father one night at dinner.

“I’m sure he is,” her dad said. “Where else would he be?”

“Right,” June agreed. “He’d never leave Mango Beach! You think he remembers me?”

“I’m sure he does, dear,” June’s mother said. “The two of you were best friends by the time we left there last summer. He saved your life. He’s not going to forget you.”

The day finally arrived. A very excited June made sure she had her favorite stuffed monkey named Monkey with her (her parents had taken care of the rest of her packing), and they went to the airport, got on a plane, and flew to the island.

As they checked in at the hotel, June recognized a familiar face in the hotel lobby.

“Mr. James!” she shouted as she ran over to say hello. James was their friend who worked at the hotel and knew everything about all the local monkeys.

“June!” he said, scooping her up into his arms before she could run into his knees and knock him down. “Welcome back! How you’ve grown!”

“I’m almost four,” she said proudly.

“That’s wonderful,” James said. “And I see you still have Monkey.”

“Always do. Had him since I was born.”

“I didn’t know that,” James said.

“Mango Monkey likes him, too,” June said.

At the mention of Mango Monkey, James got a troubled look on his face. He put June down on the floor and sat on one of the hotel lobby chairs.

“What’s the matter?” June asked. “Are you sad? Is Mango Monkey still here? Is he okay?”

“I don’t like talking about that monkey,” James said. “And neither should you. He’s dangerous.”

“He saved me!” June said. “He’s my friend!”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” James said. “He is dangerous. Don’t forget: he is the one who led you into that forest in the first place. He put you in danger. You must stay away from—”

“James!” June’s father said as he and June’s mother joined them. “How are you?”

“Fine, sir! Very glad you and your wonderful family are back to see us again!”

“We’re glad to be here,” June’s mother said. “We’re all checked in, June. Let’s head to our room and get settled in.”

“Bye, Mr. James!” June said.

“Bye, bye,” James said. “You remember what I said, now.”

Over the next few days, June and her parents didn’t see James much. They weren’t sure exactly what he did at the hotel, but whatever it was it must have kept him very busy.

June wanted to visit Mango Beach right away, of course. She even brought a few mangoes—not a whole feast, but as many as a small girl could carry—hoping that a certain friend of hers would smell them and come see who had brought mangoes to the beach.

Much to June’s disappointment, Mango Monkey did not appear that first day. He didn’t appear the next day, either. He didn’t appear the third day, either.

“Where is he?” she asked her parents.

“There’s no way to know, June,” her father said. “He’s a monkey. He’s probably exploring some other part of the island. He had no way of knowing when we were coming back.”

“But I miss him,” June said. Her eyes started to get teary and her chin started to get wiggly.

“I suggest we just enjoy our time here and if we end up seeing him, that will be wonderful. But if he’s off doing…monkey things and doesn’t come and see us…well…that’s just how it might be.”

“Mango monkey,” June said sadly as she went to walk by the water for a while by herself. Her father started to follow her.

“Let her be, dear,” June’s mother told him. “She needs some time alone, I think."

June walked along the water’s edge, kicking up clumps of wet sand. She looked angry, but she was really more disappointed—and worried that maybe their entire trip would go by without a chance for her to see Mango Monkey.

She didn’t pay much attention to where she was walking—or how far she had gone. Soon she was farther away from her parents than she was normally allowed to be. Looking back, she could barely see them from where she was. She turned and started walking back.

After about three steps, though, June stopped with a ‘YIPE!’

“Ouch!” she said after the yipe. “That hurt!” She looked at the wet clump of sand she had just stepped on. She must have kicked it up earlier. Stepping on a wet clump of sand usually crushed it into…well, wet sand. This clump did not crush; it hurt. There was something hard in it. Something solid, a little shiny, and…was that metal?

“That is very strange,” June said. She picked up the heavy clump of sand and dipped it in ocean water to rinse it off. Once the sand was gone, June couldn’t believe what she saw in her hand…

It was a monkey! A small, heavy monkey made of metal!

“I think it’s brass,” June’s father said as he looked over the strange little object.

“A brass monkey?” June’s mother asked. “Who would leave such a thing on the beach?”

“Maybe it came from the water!” June shouted. “Maybe it’s from Mango Monkey!”

“I don’t think so, sweetie,” June’s father said. “I think we should show this to an expert—someone who knows everything about this island.”

“Mr. James!” June said.

“Good idea!” June’s mother agreed.

“Where did you found this?” James asked, holding the strange brass monkey that June had found.

“Mango Beach,” June said.

“We don’t have a beach with that name on the island,” James said.

“June calls it that,” her father explained, “ever since last summer when we put a lot of mangoes on the beach, to try to catch—“

“Ah, yes,” said James, “I remember that place.” He turned to June. “I need you to show me exactly where you found this. It is very important.”

“Easy,” June said. 

“When would you like to go there?” June’s father asked James.

“Right now,” James said. “There is no time to waste.”

A short time later, June and her parents stood near the shore on what June called Mango Beach, not far from the crashing waves.

“Right there,” June said, pointing to the sand at their feet. June’s footprints had been washed away by the waves, but she was sure it was the place.

“Such a strange thing to find on a beach,” June’s mother said. “Do you know what it is, James? It looks really old.”

“Hundreds of years ago,” James said in a strange, faraway voice as he stared out over the ocean, “many ships would pass this island. Some stopped here to gather fresh water and supplies. The greatest of them were the mighty treasure ships of Spain—and the greatest of all the treasure ships of Spain was called ‘The Brass Monkey’.”

“Cool name!” June said.

“The Brass Monkey sailed only once,” James continued. “Some say she was built too big to sail safely. Some say she was a well-built ship, but that they filled her with too much treasure. When the Great Storm came, she disappeared with a full cargo.”

“Great Storm?” June asked.

“The worst storm the island ever saw,” James said. “It destroyed every building on the island—but in those days most of the buildings were huts made of logs. Still, the storm was legendary for the devastation it caused—and for the destruction of the greatest treasure ship that ever sailed.”

“Brass Monkey,” June said, her eyes wide and her voice serious.

“June found a brass monkey figure,” June’s father said, “but what does that have to do with the ship called The Brass Monkey?”

“People have searched for that ship for nearly three hundred years,” James said. “No one has ever found any sign of it—not a single piece of its unimaginable treasure—until today…”

“You mean…?” June’s mother said.

“Yes,” James said. “June’s brass monkey is from the Brass Monkey. It can only have come from there. That may mean that the sea is finally ready to give up its greatest treasure.”

To be continued in Monkey June and the Brass Monkey - Part Two

An Introduction

The world has long wondered about the mysterious origins of the mysterious girl with the mysterious name of ‘Monkey June’.

The world has long asked questions like:

“Why would someone have ‘Monkey’ in their name?”

or

“Are we talking about a monkey here, or a girl? Or a month?”

Teams of archeologists, sociologists, zoologists, and even herpetologists have devoted dozens of hours of research in their fruitless quest to uncover the mysterious truths behind this mysterious figure—and none of them have found anything. Why not? Probably because they were looking in the wrong places and asking the wrong questions to the wrong people.

If they had simply come to me and asked me about her fascinating life and her strange experiences, I would have been happy to tell them the stories that you can find here, and their searches would not have been fruitless at all. Their searches would have been fruitful. Literally quite full of fruit. One particular fruit, especially.

I think you know which one…

Now that these stories have been made known to the world, dear readers, the question I am asked most is this:

“Are these stories true, or are they made up?”

The only answer I can give is that you must read these stories for yourself (or you might find a grown-up who likes to read and make them do the actual reading—but tell them that they must read aloud, and make sure you are somewhere nearby when they do it)…and then you must decide for yourself.

Meanwhile, I’m sure Monkey June is somewhere reading a story about you and wondering, Is this person real, or are they made up?

Don’t worry about that, though; when I see her next I will assure her that you are real.

Be good, friends!
(And be good friends!)
Mr. Gil

Story One

Once upon a time there was a girl named Monkey June. Her real name wasn’t ‘Monkey’ of course; that was a nickname that she had been given. Her real name was June. Well, not really. Her actual first name was Juniper. But almost no one called her that. Except her mom when she was in trouble, I guess.

I can tell you’re already wondering how she got the nickname ‘Monkey June’. Was she mischievous? Extremely active? A good climber? Was she furry? Did she love bananas? Could she pick up random objects with her feet? Did she have large brown eyes?

Some of those things might have been true, and some of them definitely were not, but one reason she had the name Monkey June should not be at all surprising: Monkey June liked monkeys.

Now, when I used the word ‘like’ just then, I probably didn’t paint an accurate picture of how much Monkey June liked monkeys. She LOVED monkeys. Not just monkeys, though. She was a fan of all primates. Lemurs, bush babies, baboons, macaques, mandrills, proboscis monkeys, gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, capuchins, squirrel monkeys, and I could go on and on with this, but I think you’re starting to get the picture already.

She knew that the world’s smallest monkey is the pygmy marmoset, and she knew that the world’s largest monkey is the Eastern Gorilla. You might say that she was more of a monkey expert than most monkey experts—and if you said that, I would say that you were probably right.

Her room was decorated with monkeys of all kinds. She had monkey sheets on her bed, monkey curtains on her windows, monkey pillows all over the place, and a monkey vine hanging from her bedroom ceiling. (If you don’t know what a monkey vine is, I’m not going to tell you, because then you’ll want one, and you’ll pester some poor grown-up until you get one, and then you’ll climb on it, and then you’ll fall from it and hurt yourself, and I don’t want to be even partially responsible for any of that.)

Even with all of these monkey things in her life, though, no one called her Monkey June—not yet. Right now is when you’ll hear the story of how that happened…

June went to school one day. (You’ll notice that I called her ‘June’ just then.) Before you ask what kind of school she went to, I’ll let you know that she was a girl about your age and she went to a school quite similar to yours—unless you’re homeschooled, in which case you’ll have to imagine her school as a typical public school, not at all like your school, because your school is probably in your kitchen or your living room. Enough about you, though. Let’s get back to June.

June was having an ordinary school day until some new kid at school came right up to her at recess and got right in her face and asked her (quite rudely), “What’s with all the monkey stuff?”

June didn’t know this boy, but she figured he was probably just new at school and had never met her before, so she decided to respond nicely to him.

“I like monkeys,” she said with a smile. “Everyone has something they like. What’s your something?”

“I don’t like anything,” the boy said, quite rudely. “And I think it’s silly to like monkeys. You have monkey stickers on everything. Your backpack is a monkey backpack. Your lunch bag looks like a monkey. It’s weird. What’s your name, anyway?”

“I’m June,” June said. “Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

“I’m Phil,” he said with a bit of a sneer, “but I’m not the one with a monkey obsession. I think we should call you ‘Monkey June’. That should be your new name! You like monkeys so much; you should probably have one in your name. What do you think of that?”

The boy was clearly trying to upset her, but June knew that being mean to mean people only made them meaner. In fact, she had learned that there are some kids in this world who just like to go around being mean to other kids so they can see how upset they can make them—and she also knew that if you don’t let them get you upset, they usually lose interest and leave you alone.

June suddenly remembered one of her favorite Bible verses: Romans 12:18 - ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.’ ‘All’ means everybody—even the mean ones. June decided to use her wits to turn this ugly situation around. As far as it depended on her, she was going to live peaceably with Phil, whether he liked it or not. 

She smiled at Phil and said as nicely as possible, “What do I think of that? I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard! In fact, I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself a long time ago! I do love monkeys, and they are basically in every part of my life. I have monkey curtains in my room, a monkey blanket, monkey pillows, monkey slippers… But I never thought about building my love of monkeys right into my name! I love it!"

Phil looked at her with the most confused look that she had ever seen. He seemed to be speechless. June went on, raising her voice so everyone around them on the playground could hear her.

“So from this day forward I shall be known as ‘Monkey June’! And I thank Phil here for helping me think of it. Is there anything I can do for you, Phil? Do you need a cool nickname? You seem like a pretty chill guy; maybe I could call you ‘Chill Phil’? If that’s not good, I can think about it and come up with something better."

“I don’t know,” Phil said. “No one’s ever come up with a nickname for me before.”

“Well, I’ll call you Chill Phil until you tell me otherwise. There’s the bell. Time for us to go back in. Welcome to the school, by the way.”

With that, Monkey June (for that was her name now) ran to catch up with her friends as they lined up to go back into the school. As they walked back to class, her friends asked her about the new kid and what they had been talking about. Monkey June told them all about it.

“So you thought of a Bible verse and it reminded you to be nice to people,” her friend Carolyn asked, “—even people who are being mean to you? And it worked?”

“Yup,” Monkey June said. “I need to remember to do that more often.”

“And what was the verse again?” Marilyn asked.

“Romans 12:18 - ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.’ And ‘all’ means everybody—even the mean ones. That last part’s not in the Bible. That’s just me telling you what ‘all’ means.”

Believe it or not, from that day on, Chill Phil was a friend of Monkey June’s. She learned later that he had been having a very grumpy day—he was new at their school and didn’t know anyone—and he thought that maybe the best way to start out strong at a new school was to pick on some smaller kids. Of course, he learned something that day that we already know: that’s not a good way to start out at a new school at all.

Luckily, everything worked out well for everyone. Monkey June had a new name that she loved, and Phil had a new friend.

And now you know how Monkey June got her name!

I’m sure you aren’t at all curious about any of Monkey June’s other adventures, so you can probably stop reading (or listening) now. But if you are curious to learn more about her, I suppose you could continue reading (or listening). There are plenty of other stories here about her.

Or maybe you should get a good night’s sleep and read (or listen) some more tomorrow.

Story Two

Monkey June was a girl who liked monkeys. Actually, I think ‘liked’ is not the right word. I don’t even know if ‘loved’ is the right word. Monkey June loved, loved, loved, loved, LOVED monkeys.

Every part of her room was decorated with some kind of monkey. Everything she used had some kind of monkey on it. Everything she wore had some kind of monkey on it. She had monkey hair clips, monkey pins for her sweater, monkey tattoos (the temporary kind, of course) for her skin…I think you get the picture. 

Some people get obsessed with things, but Monkey June was way beyond obsessed with monkeys—I mean, it was even part of her name (and I’m sure you remember how that happened).

Monkey June’s friends were not obsessed with monkeys—or with anything, really. Her best friend Carolyn really liked horses, and she even had one—a real live horse—and she knew how to ride horses, but she wasn’t obsessed with them. 

Monkey June’s other best friend Marilyn really loved traveling and visiting new places, but she wasn’t obsessed with travel. She was actually at home most of the time.

Monkey June’s newest friend Phil wasn’t obsessed with anything, either. Monkey June thought that maybe he needed something to be obsessed with—or at least something to be interested in. He was new in town and it didn’t seem like he had any hobbies or interests. She was still trying to figure out how to help him find something, though. 

One day, Monkey June was having a normal day at school. It was probably a lot like one of your normal days at school. There were classes, teachers, lessons, a surprise quiz (ick!), and a strange incident in the lunchroom that involved an angry custodian and a missing mop and bucket—but those things have nothing to do with this story, so I’m not going to waste time telling you about them.

(I will take a moment here to say that if you’re not familiar with the word ‘custodian’, it’s just a fancy way to say ‘janitor’. Or maybe ‘janitor’ is a less fancy way to say ‘custodian’. I can never remember.)

So Monkey June was having a perfectly ordinary, somewhat boring, typically unremarkable day at school, when…in her last class of the day, suddenly…this happened…

Monkey June reached into her pencil case to grab a pencil (to take her second surprise quiz of the day—eww!) and found that there were no pencils there to grab.

That’s weird, she thought. I know I had at least four pencils this morning. Two red ones and two blue ones. My luckiest pencils! With monkey pencil-toppers on all of them, of course.

She looked into her pencil case. No pencils. No pencil-toppers. No nothing. Just air that smelled like pencils.

Monkey June looked at the outside of the case to be sure she had the right one. A smiling monkey face looked at her from the outside of the case. It was definitely hers.

But where were her lucky pencils?

She looked around the room and saw that all of the other students were already working on the surprise quiz (yuck!). At any moment now Monkey June knew that her teacher would notice that she wasn’t working on the surprise quiz (boo!) and say something like, “June, are we having some kind of problem today?” (Some teachers liked to pretend that it was ‘we’ having a problem when they knew it was really just ‘you’ having the problem. No one has ever figured out why they do that.)

Suddenly, Monkey June saw something that nearly shocked the eyeballs right out of her head: the girl at the desk next to her was working on the surprise quiz (ugh!)—and she was using a red pencil with a monkey pencil-topper on it!

That girl had stolen her pencil!

Or…maybe not. Monkey June knew it was never a good idea to ‘jump to conclusions’. He mother used that strange phrase all the time. When Monkey June first heard it, she imagined jumping onto a big, wet log that was floating by on a river or something—but it turned out to mean that it’s not a good idea to immediately think you know what’s going on when you don’t really know yet what’s going on. (No logs or rivers were involved at all.)

Monkey June put her thinking cap on. (It wasn’t a real cap, of course, but an imaginary one that she liked to imagine putting on when she needed her thoughts to slow down a bit and stop jumping to conclusions.) She wondered—as slowly as possible—how that girl could have ended up with her pencil.

She didn’t know the girl. She didn’t think she had ever seen her before. Maybe she was new at their school. Or maybe she had been in Monkey June’s class all year but she had been sitting somewhere else, and Monkey June had just never noticed her before that day. 

Maybe Monkey June had dropped a pencil earlier that day without noticing it, and the girl had simply found it and picked it up. Who wouldn’t want to pick up a cool pencil like that?

That seemed unlikely, though. And her imaginary thinking cap nearly flew off of her head when Monkey June noticed that there were three more pencils sticking out of the girl’s backpack—two blue ones and one red one—and all of them had monkey pencil-toppers on them!

Monkey June was just about to jump out of her seat, point at the girl, and shout ‘THIEF!'—but her thinking cap must have still been on her head because she she was able to slow down, calm down, and think before doing anything crazy.

Just then, the teacher noticed that Monkey June was the only kid in class not working on the surprise quiz (ergh!)—and he got up from his desk and started walking in her direction. She needed to think fast! She imagined her imaginary thinking cap shrinking to the size of a bottle-cap and flying back into her bag. Then she turned to the girl sitting next to her and whispered, “Excuse me. Do you have a pencil I can borrow? I can’t seem to find mine.”

“Sure,” the girl said casually, looking up from the surprise quiz (yerch!). She grabbed one of the pencils out of her bag (a blue one) and handed it to Monkey June. She was super calm while she did it; she didn’t give Monkey June any guilty looks or strange comments. She just smiled and looked like a normal girl helping out a kid who sat next to her by loaning her a pencil. Then the girl turned her attention back to the surprise quiz (mrmph!).

Monkey June didn’t even look up at the teacher who was still walking towards her. She just pointed her face at the surprise quiz (insert your own noise of frustration here) and got to work. Her teacher stopped, shook his head as thought he thought he might have imagined something earlier, and then quietly turned around and went back to his desk.

After class, Monkey June saw the girl in the hallway just outside of the classroom and caught up with her.

“Excuse me again,” Monkey June said, “I forgot to give you your pencil back.”

The girl turned and looked at Monkey June with another friendly smile on her face. “Oh, you can keep it. My friend gave me four of them this morning. Don’t you just love the cute little monkey things on them? I’ve got plenty, so you can have that one.”

“Thanks,” Monkey June said, and before she could say anything else, the girl continued off down the hall to do whatever she did at the end of a school day.

“That was very strange,” Monkey June said to herself as she stood in the busy hallway staring at the blue pencil in her hand with the monkey pencil topper on it. “There must be some explanation for this. I’ve never even seen that girl at school before. Is she new here? And who would give a new girl pencils that didn’t belong to them? That belonged to me? And did that person steal them or just find them? The more I think about it the more confused I get!”

“Why are you talking to yourself in the middle of the hallway?” her best friend Marilyn asked her. She must have walked up and noticed Monkey June standing there in a fog of confusion.

“Just trying to solve a mystery,” Monkey June said.

“Mysteries sure do seem to find you a lot," Marilyn said. “Well, don’t miss pick-up while you’re solving this one. See you tonight!”

With that Marilyn waved and smiled and headed to the parent pick-up area. Monkey June remembered that her mom was taking Marilyn, Carolyn, and Monkey June to do some shopping after school. They were even planning to get some food at Monkey June’s favorite restaurant. Suddenly, Monkey June had an idea…

She ran off down the hall as fast as she could, and turned right at the end of the hall where she had seen the mysterious pencil-girl turn just a few moments before. As she rounded the corner she almost ran into the girl.

“OH!” Monkey June said. “Sorry. I was looking for you. Do you want to go shopping with me and my friends after school today? We’re going to grab some food at Shenanigans too.”

“Sure!” the girl said. “Is that the place that has bowling and air hockey and indoor mini golf and axe throwing and laser tag and a kids’ play area and all that? Sounds fun! I’ll run outside and check with my mom. My name’s Maisie, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Monkey June,” said Monkey June. “And yes, that’s the place. I’m not allowed to do the axe throwing. The rest of it is great, though!”

“What an interesting name!” Maisie said as she ran off to talk to her mother.

As it turned out, Maisie’s mother already had plans for their family for dinner that night, but Monkey June told her she’d be welcome to join them some other time.

At home that night, as she was getting ready for bed, Monkey June asked her mom for advice. She told her about how her pencils had gone missing and how a girl named Maisie had suddenly had them, but that the girl had gotten them from a friend of hers somehow.

“None of it makes sense,” Monkey June said. “Why would someone take my pencils just to give them to someone else?”

“Well,” her mother said, “you may never know. Maybe she found them and didn’t need them, so she gave them to someone else. Maybe she took them and then felt guilty, but didn’t want to face you, so she gave them away. You did the right thing, though, not jumping to conclusions and getting mad at that new girl. Do you remember learning about what Jesus said we should do when someone takes something from us?”

“Give it to them,” Monkey June said. “And to go ahead and give them more. It sounds like a crazy thing to do, but sometimes someone else needs something more than you do, so it makes sense to just give it to them. Plus, even if they are being mean and trying to upset you by taking your stuff, you kinda make it not as fun for them when you just agree to let your stuff get taken.”

“True,” her mother agreed. “And it teaches you at least as much as it teaches them. You learn to get along with people, even when they aren’t trying to get along with you, and that makes the world a bit nicer instead of a lot uglier. If we all went around being mad at mean people or rude people all day, we’d just be grumpy-faced grumps all the time, and no one wants to live life as a grumpy-faced grump.”

Monkey June never did find out who found (or took) the pencils before passing them along to Maisie, but she did eventually get Maisie to go shopping with her and Marilyn and Carolyn, and they even got to go to Shenanigans together. Monkey June appreciated any situation that ended up making her a new friend, and Maisie was happy to make three new friends at the same time so soon after starting at her new school.

Story Three

Today I’m going to tell you about one of the strangest days that Monkey June ever had.

If you’ve never heard of Monkey June, I recommend you go back and read some of the stories before this one. If you have heard of her, then you already know that she was a girl who loved monkeys. She was a little obsessed with them. A little more than a little, some would say…

Every part of her room was decorated with some kind of monkeys. Everything she wore had monkeys on it. She had monkey hair clips, monkey socks, monkey stickers on her water bottle…I think you get the point. 

Some people get obsessed with things, but Monkey June was way beyond obsessed with monkeys—I mean, it was even part of her name (and some of you remember how that happened).

Monkey June’s friends were not obsessed with monkeys—or anything, really. Her friend Carolyn really liked horses, and she had one—a real live horse—and she knew how to ride horses and such, but she wasn’t obsessed with them. 

Her friend Marilyn really loved traveling and visiting new places, but she wasn’t obsessed with travel. She was actually at home most of the time.

Her newest friend Phil wasn’t obsessed with anything either. Monkey June thought that maybe he needed something to be obsessed with—or at least interested in. He was new in town and it didn’t seem like he had found any hobbies or interests yet. Monkey June was working on that…

Enough about her friends, though—I was trying to tell you about her strangest day…

Monkey June arrived at school that day a little early, which was her favorite way to arrive at school. Can you guess why? That’s right: she could spend a little time at her favorite place before school started: the monkey bars.

She was climbing around pretending to be the king of the monkeys in a faraway jungle somewhere, but it wasn’t as fun as usual because no one else was there to play with her and pretend to be her monkey subjects. There was one boy there, but he looked like he was from about two grades below Monkey June, and she didn’t know him, so she wasn’t about to go over there and ask him if he’d like to pretend to be a monkey and call her ‘Your Majesty’—in Monkey language, which sounded like, ‘Mmm, ooh, MMM!’

She did stop swinging for a moment to take a good look at the boy, though; he seemed to be crying. Maybe he needed some help, she thought. 

Monkey June wasn’t the kind of girl who just kept swinging upside-down by her legs and enjoying herself when someone nearby needed help. She hopped down from the monkey bars and went over to the boy.

“Hey, there,” she said quietly, not wanting to frighten him. “You okay?”

The boy was not okay. He blubbered something about wanting something and not having it, or having something and not wanting it, or—well between the crying and the breathing strangely and all, she couldn’t quite figure out what was going on with him.

Monkey June was not a girl to give up easily, though. She asked him what was bothering him, and whether he needed her help at all. “Do you want me to go get a teacher?” she asked.

“No,” the boy said with a huge sniff. It was the first thing he had said that made sense. Monkey June smiled at him. Now she was getting somewhere.

“If I can’t get you a teacher, can I get you a snack? I have a banana in my backpack…” Monkey June believed that a lot of life’s problems could be solved by offering someone a snack, and when you ran across a problem that couldn’t be solved with a snack, at least you still had found a reason to share a snack, so it couldn’t be all bad. It certainly didn’t make things worse.

“I just need my bag!” the boy blubbered.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Monkey June said with a cheerful, helpful voice. “Where is it? I’ll get it for you.”

“Big kids took it,” the boy said between sniffs and slobbers. “It has my favorite squishy in it! For Show and Tell!”

Monkey June felt her face get red and her ears get hot. That’s how she could always tell that she was getting angry—that and the feeling of anger building up in her chest. She was not about to stand by and let big kids pick on this poor little boy. 

“What big kids?” She asked. “Where are they? Where did they take your bag?”

The boy was crying again and couldn’t say anything, but he did point in the direction of the main door of the school. Monkey June told the boy to wait right there and she’d be right back.

She went over to the entrance of the school. There were two bigger boys standing there. They didn’t look mean, but maybe these were the ones who had taken the boy’s bag.

“Hey!” she said, sounding a little angrier than she had expected herself to sound. “See that boy over there? He’s missing his bag. I don’t suppose you know where I can find it…”

“Sure we do!” one of the boys said with a big smile. This made Monkey June even more angry. Was he proud of himself for picking on a much smaller boy?

“How dare you?” Monkey June said with a voice that sounded so grown-up that she almost felt like her mother was standing next to her about to give these boys a good talking-to.

“How dare we what?” the other boy asked.

“How dare you pick on a little kid? Give me the bag!”

Both boys looked at her like they were genuinely afraid of what she might do next. Or maybe they just looked incredibly confused.

“What are you talking about?” the first boy asked. “We didn’t pick on anyone. We helped him.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you were…wait, what?” Monkey June was now the one looking confused.

“We saw him sitting there crying and asked him what was wrong. He said he wanted to climb on the monkey bars, but he didn’t want to lose his bag. We asked him if he wanted us to put it somewhere safe so no one would step on it, and he said ‘yes’, because he didn’t want anyone stepping on his squishy, so we did what he wanted: we put it somewhere safe.”

“Oh,” Monkey June said. “I’m sorry. When he said ‘big kids took it’ he didn’t say that he had asked some big kids to take it. I shouldn’t have thought that without checking. Anyway, where is it? I’ll get it and bring it back to him.”

“Custodian took it,” the other boy said.

“Custodian?” Monkey June said, confused again.

“Yeah, that’s a fancy word for ‘janitor’. Or maybe ‘janitor’ is a less fancy word for ‘custodian’. I can never remember. Anyway, we put it up against the building where no one could step on it, but then it disappeared. I saw Mr. Jeffries walking into the Maintenance Building with it.”

“Thanks,” Monkey June said, already running off towards the Maintenance Building. She didn’t want to be late for school, and this adventure was taking longer than she had expected. On the way she stopped to tell the little boy that she thought his bag was in the Maintenance Building and that she was on her way over to get it.

“I know,” the boy said with a sniffle.

“You know?” Monkey June asked, looking confused for maybe the third or fourth time that morning.

“He said I could knock on the door when I needed it back,” the boy said.

“But you said big kids took it.”

“They did, but then Mr. Jeffies moved it.”

“I could have used that information a few minutes ago,” Monkey June said, “but I suppose it’s my own fault for not asking more questions before I ran off. I’ll be right back…”

She ran over to the Maintenance Building, which was on the other side of the playground—not very close to the main school building—and knocked on the door. Mr. Jeffries opened the door. He was covered in grease and she could see a giant lawnmower-looking thing in pieces on the floor behind him. He looked busy.

“I’m here to get the backpack that belongs to the little boy on the playground,” Monkey June said, half out of breath.

“You’re the girl who broke the monkey bars last year,” Mr. Jeffries said as he turned and grabbed the boy’s bag from just inside the door.

“Um, yeah,” Monkey June said. “Good memory. I was hoping you’d forget that by now.”

“I never forget a good repair project,” he said. “Don’t worry if you break something else. Keeps me busy. I like fixing stuff a lot more than I like scraping gum from underneath tables.”

“For the record,” Monkey June said, taking the bag, “I never put gum under tables.”

“Good girl,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Off you go, then.”

And off she went.

The boy was happy to get his bag back, and just then the bell rang and they had to head to their homerooms. On the way, she asked the boy why he hadn’t just asked the big boys to go get his bag when he was ready to have it back. Or why he hadn’t just gone and knocked on the door of the supplies building.

“I don’t know,” the boy said.

“My mother has a saying that I always think of when I’m not sure what to do in a situation. It might be good for you to learn it. It goes like this: ‘You won’t get any answers if you never ask. You can’t find anything if you won’t get up and look for it. And nobody will open a door for you if you won’t bother to knock. Don’t just think about what you need—get up and do something.’”

“I like your mom’s saying,” the boy said.

“She made it up based on one of her favorite Bible verses. Luke 11:9. Ever heard that one?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should learn it. It’s easy. It says: ‘And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.’ It means you gotta get up and do something if you want results. My mom says it’s like that with people and it’s like that with God. Sitting around and crying kinda helps a little, but what helps a lot more is asking, seeking, and knocking. That’s what my mom says.”

As they went off to classes in different hallways, Monkey June thought about how strange her morning had been—but it wasn’t just strange because of the boy who didn’t know much about asking, seeking, or knocking… It had been strange because of something she had seen behind Mr. Jeffries while she was standing in the doorway of the Maintenance Building. Something she had never seen at school before. Something strange and amazing…

Story Four

If you don’t remember much about Monkey June, I’ll take a minute here to remind you: She was a girl who loved monkeys. She was a little obsessed with them. A little more than a little obsessed, actually. Some might call it super-obsessed.

Some even said that if she could discover a way to become a monkey, she would, but I asked her about that once and she assured me that it was just a rumor, and a completely silly idea if you thought about it for more than a minute or so.

She did have a lot of monkey-related items in her room, and she was never seen outside of the house without her monkey backpack. And her monkey hair clip. And her monkey water bottle. And…well, I’m going to stop right there, or I’d be listing things for the next hour, and we just don’t have time for that right now.

You might remember a time when Monkey June met a crying boy on the playground before school one day. The boy had a problem that he could have solved for himself by doing a bit of asking, seeking, and/or knocking, but for some reason he hadn’t thought to do any of those things, and Monkey June had managed to solve his problem for him by doing a little asking, seeking, and knocking.

If you don’t remember that story, you’ll have to go back in time to hear it, or maybe you could ask a friend about it—or maybe just look back at some of the stories before this one, and I’m sure you’ll find it.

One thing I will tell you, though, is that when Monkey June was talking to her school’s custodian, Mr. Jeffries, in the doorway of the school’s Maintenance Building, she saw something very strange behind Mr. Jeffries, way in the back of the room.

Now, it was dark back there, and there was a giant lawnmower-looking thing in pieces on the floor behind him, and she could have imagined it—maybe—but she saw something that made her eyes open up as huge as…well…a monkey’s. 

What she saw (or thought she saw) was a large monkey face against the back wall of the Maintenance Building, smiling at her from the shadows! Was it a painting? A large model of a monkey head? A giant monkey piñata? She didn’t know.

When she got to school the next morning, she found her best friends Marilyn and Carolyn and told them that they needed to have a Secret Conference at recess.

“You mean like we do every recess?” Carolyn asked.

“We do not have a Secret Conference every recess!” Monkey June insisted.

“I think we kinda do,” Marilyn pointed out.

“Well this one’s important,” Monkey June said. “Meet me at the usual place at the usual time, and use the usual password.”

Her two friends did meet her at the usual place (near the…monkey bars, of course), at the usual time (five minutes into recess, so they could gather casually), and using the usual password, which I won’t tell you here, because that information is secret.

“Okay, MJ,” Carolyn said, “we’re here. What’s on the agenda for today?”

“A Monkey Mystery,” Monkey June said in her most mysterious voice.

“I never would have guessed,” Marilyn said, a little sarcastically.

“This is for real!” Monkey June said. She told them the story of how she had helped the boy the previous day and how she had seen something strange behind Mr. Jeffries in the Maintenance Building.

“When you got my bag?” a small voice asked nearby. It was the boy from yesterday. Somehow he had sneaked up behind Monkey June and had been listening to their Secret Conference.

“Oh, hi!” Monkey June said. “Yes. When I got your bag. But this is a Secret Conference, and I’m afraid it’s only for us Secret Conference people.”

The boy looked up at her with big, sad eyes, and his big, sad eyes began to fill up with big, sad tears, and then his lip started to quiver just a bit, and then…

“But, of course,” Monkey June said cheerfully, “you are one of our Secret Conference people, too, since it was your bag that helped me discover the amazing thing that’s hidden in the Maintenance Building.”

The boy’s face lit up and he joined them with a big smile on his face and no more tears—for now.

“So you’re saying that you saw a giant monkey face in the darkness that might have been imaginary,” Carolyn said, “and you want us to help you figure out how to get back in there so you can discover what it was?”

“Exactly!” said Monkey June.

“And this boy here…” Marilyn said, “um…what’s your name, little guy?”

“Ryan,” the boy said.

“Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Marilyn said, continuing. “So, MJ, this boy Ryan here is part of all our Secret Conferences from now on, or just this one?”

“That’s beside the point,” Monkey June said. “What we need to be talking about is how we can get into that Maintenance Building and see what’s hidden in there.”

“I learned that you won’t ever find anything if you don’t knock,” Ryan said, “so wait here…”

The three girls were too confused about what he was saying to do anything to stop him, and about five seconds later he was over at the Maintenance Building knocking on the door.

“Direct approach,” Carolyn said. “I like this kid.”

“He learned it from me,” Monkey June said.

No one opened the door when Ryan knocked. After waiting for a bit and getting no answer, Ryan grabbed the door handle and tried to open the door. To everyone’s surprise, it opened, and Ryan disappeared into the building. The heavy, metal door clanged shut behind him.

“What do we do now?” Marilyn asked. “Wait for him to come out?”

“No,” Monkey June said. “He might get lost in there. It’s dark. There’s all kind of dangerous equipment in there. I think some older kids should go in there and make sure he’s safe.”

“Okay,” Marilyn said. “HEY, PHIL!” she shouted across the playground. “WE NEED AN OLDER KID! COME HERE!”

“I meant us!” Monkey June hissed at Marilyn as Chill Phil walked up. 

“Oh,” Marilyn said, half embarrassed and half offended. “You didn’t say ‘us’. You said we needed an older kid.”

“Need an older kid for what?” Phil asked.

“We saw a little guy go into the Maintenance Building,” Monkey June said. “We’re about to go make sure he’s okay and tell him he shouldn’t be in there.”

“Cool,” Phil said. “Let’s go.”

They walked over to the Maintenance Building and as Phil was about to knock on the door Monkey June just grabbed the handle and gave it a twist.

“It’s open,” she said.

The four of them soon found themselves in the darkened Maintenance Building with the smell of oil everywhere and a giant lawnmower-looking thing in pieces on the floor in front of them.

“It’s hard to see in here,” Carolyn said. “Does anyone know where the lightswitch is?”

“No worries,” Chill Phill said calmly, “I have a light.” He took a tiny flashlight out of his pocket and clicked something on the back of it. Suddenly, they could see the giant lawnmower-looking thing as plain as day, but there was no sign of Ryan.

“Ryan,” Marilyn called out, “are you in here?”

“Back here!” the small boy’s voice came from the very back of the building. “You won’t believe it! You have to see this stuff!”

The four older kids walked back towards the sound of Ryan’s voice, being careful not to bump into the giant lawnmower-looking thing or slip in any puddles of oil or touch any sharp tools or anything along the way.

When Phil’s flashlight lit up a huge monkey face at the back of the room, Monkey June let out a squeal that might have been a ‘yipe!’ of fear or a ‘yipe!’ of excitement. Or maybe it was a little of both.

“Have you ever seen a monkey head that big?” Ryan asked, running over to them with the world’s biggest smile on his face.

“What’s it for, though?” Carolyn asked. “Why would there be a huge monkey head statue—or whatever that is—in here?”

“That’s only the start of it!” Ryan said. “There’s so much more! Come see!”

They followed Ryan to see more of what was stored against the back wall. I only have time to list a few of the things here, but they included:

• a cotton candy machine
• a sno-cone machine
• a strange contraption that looked like you could fill it with water and have someone sit above the pool of water and then fall into the water if someone threw a ball just right at a target-lever-thing
• a ticket booth, folded into a flat bunch of boards and leaning against the wall
• various signs that said things like ‘Cake Walk!’ and ‘Dunking Booth!’ and ‘Tickets’

“It’s a carnival,” Phil said. “I mean, it’s all in pieces, but it’s everything you would need to have a carnival.”

“Do you think the school is planning something like that?” Marilyn asked.

“I hope so!” Monkey June squealed.

“If they are,” Phil said, “we probably shouldn’t ruin the surprise. Also, what if all this stuff is from a long time ago—when they did a back-to-school carnival or something—and it’s just sitting here now, being stored forever, and they don’t plan to use it anymore?”

“I guess that’s possible, too,” Monkey June said.

“HEY!” a man’s voice yelled suddenly from somewhere near the door to the Maintenance Building. “Who’s in here?!”

The five kids froze, and Phil snapped off his flashlight. Without saying a word they all looked at each other wondering what to do. Monkey June was about to put her arm around Ryan and say, “Hi, Mr. Jeffries! We came in here to find this little guy!"—hoping that he wouldn’t realize that they were actually snooping around in there. Before she could do that, though, Ryan silently waved his hands to get everyone’s attention and then pointed at something that might solve their problem without them having to explain anything to Mr. Jeffries: there was a staircase not far from the carnival things—a staircase that went down into total darkness.

“Where does that go?” Marilyn whispered.

“No time to find out,” Monkey June whispered. “Follow me.”

With that she tiptoed to the stairs as quietly as she could, and started down into the inky darkness.

She was glad that the stairs were made of concrete, because they didn’t squeak or creak or make any noise as they walked on them. She didn’t know if they were headed into a basement, a cellar, or some other storage area, but she did notice that the others were following quietly after her.

The deeper they got down the stairs, the darker it got. Monkey June finally felt that they had probably reached the bottom, but it was so dark down there that she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t see anything at all. She felt things, though—like four people bumping into her from behind.

“I think we’re far enough away from Mr. J. that you can use your flashlight, Phil,” Monkey June said quietly.

Phil didn’t waste time answering; he just clicked on his light and shined it in front of them.

Monkey June almost jumped for joy when she saw what the light revealed: they were in a tunnel.

“Where does this go?” Ryan asked.

“I think I know exactly where it goes,” Monkey June said. “C’mon. We can’t stand here talking or Mr. J. might find us.”

Monkey June started off down the tunnel and Chill Phil followed after her, which was great because his light was pointed down the tunnel so she could see where she was going. The others had no choice but to follow, since they didn’t want to be left standing in the dark waiting for Mr. Jeffries to find them.

After they had walked about as far as they would have walked to get from the Maintenance Building across the entire playground and back to the main school building, Monkey June pointed to another set of stairs at the far end of the tunnel.

“Up we go!” she said cheerfully, and up they went.

At the top of these stairs was a metal door that Monkey June opened a teeny, tiny bit, and peeked out. She turned back to the others and said, “It’s the little kids hallway. Ryan, you can pop out first and go find your class.”

“We’re back inside the school?” Ryan asked. “How did that happen?”

“We went under the playground!” Carolyn said. 

“Cool!” Marilyn said.

A few minutes later, Ryan was back in his class, and the others had come out through the door (which had a sign on the outside of it that said ‘Custodian Use Only’) and had gone to their own classes.

The only one who almost got into trouble for coming back from recess late was Phil, but he said that he had been helping some younger kids find a lost friend of theirs—which was true—and his teacher told him that was very nice of him.

Monkey June was now more curious than ever, though. She wondered what that carnival stuff was there for. She had to figure out some way to figure it out…

Story Five

Monkey June was a very curious girl. Her grandpa used to tell her when she was very little that she was as curious as a little monkey. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she became such a huge fan of monkeys as she grew older. Or maybe that was just a coincidence. 

We may never know what inspired Monkey June to love monkeys so much, but she definitely was a girl who loved monkeys. 

If you’ve been paying attention to her story up to this point, you already know that just about everything she owned had some kind of monkey theme to it. You even know how she got her name, which happens to have the word ‘Monkey’ right in it! You probably also remember how she went on a secret mission to discover why there was a huge monkey face in the Maintenance Building at her school, and how she and her friends found a bunch of carnival-related games and booths and signs and things stored in the back of that building in the dark.

You probably also remember that after she and her friends found an underground tunnel back to their school, Monkey June was more curious than ever about what all that stuff was for—and she was determined to find out.

When she woke up the next day, she started planning her next secret mission immediately. She would go to school as usual and go about her day as usual. But when it was lunchtime, she would ask the lunchroom attendant if she could use the restroom. Then she’d go to the little kids hallway, go through the door marked ‘Custodian Use Only’, go down the stairs, go through the tunnel, make sure no one was in the Maintenance Building, and get a good look at that stuff again. She hoped that she could be back in the lunchroom before anyone noticed her missing. 

It was the perfect plan—except for one thing: Nothing about that day happened ‘as usual’.

That morning when Monkey June was getting some breakfast, her mother reminded her that she had an orthodontist appointment that day, and that it was during school time (which never happened!). Monkey June’s mom told her that her dad would come and get her at lunch time, take her to the appointment, and then drop her back off at school when that was done.

That was very strange!

Monkey June decided that she’d just have to do her secret trip the next day…but on that day one of her teachers said that she needed help rearranging some things in her classroom, and asked Monkey June if she would mind eating her lunch with her while she helped with the rearranging. That was very strange! None of her teachers had ever asked her to help them during lunch before. Of course Monkey June wanted to be helpful, so she said she’d be happy to help. She decided she’d have to do her secret mission the following day…

But the next day Monkey June couldn’t carry out her plan because she realized that she hadn’t brought a flashlight. That was very strange because she was sure that she had put her favorite flashlight into her monkey backpack before she had gone to bed the night before. How could it not be there when she needed it? She thought about asking Chill Phil if she could use his flashlight, but he didn’t know anything about this mission, and she kind of wanted to do it herself. If she told him, he might want to come along or something. She certainly wasn’t going to go walking down a dark tunnel without a light, so she decided she’d have to try again on Monday.

By the way, can you guess what kind of flashlight Monkey June’s favorite flashlight was?

But Monday and Tuesday of the following week were also busy days filled with strange and unexpected events. And then she forgot to bring a flashlight again on Wednesday. Once again, she was sure that she had put it in her bag. But when she needed it, it wasn’t there! That was very strange!

Monkey June was beginning to think that she was terrible at planning secret missions…or maybe she was just a very busy girl who didn’t really have time to carry out secret missions. Either way, she was starting to get very frustrated.

Finally, the day came when everything was just right. She had brought a small flashlight. She didn’t have any appointments. She was able to get to the Custodian door at just the right time. It wasn’t locked. She went in…

…she clicked on her tiny flashlight…

…she went down the concrete stairs…

…and down the dark, dark tunnel…

…and up the concrete stairs at the other end…

…and she found herself in the dark, dark Maintenance Building…

…and she didn’t hear anyone clanging around in there working on broken lawn-mower-ish things…

…and she made her way to the back wall where the carnival things…

…WERE NOT THERE! Nothing was stored against the back wall at all! Monkey June shined her monkey flashlight across the entire wall—up, down, left, and right…and saw that there was absolutely nothing there. It was empty. Nothing but wall.

That was very strange!

Where could it all be? It hadn’t been set up on the playground or in the field next to the school; she would have noticed it that morning.

Had someone stolen it? Had the school thrown it all away because it was from some old carnival years ago and it was no longer needed?

Where had it all gone?

Back in the lunchroom, she joined Marilyn and Carolyn and she told them about the missing stuff.

“Weird,” Marilyn said. “Where do you think it went?”

“I have no idea, but I’m still going to come up with a plan to find it.”

“What if it can’t be found?” Carolyn said. “You’ll just get in trouble if you keep sneaking over there looking for something that doesn’t exist.”

“I don’t know,” Monkey June said. “I just don’t like mysteries that can’t be solved. I’m curious. It’s in my nature.”

“Well, how ‘bout you get curious about what’s for dinner at my house tonight,” Marilyn suggested. “My mom said you should come over tonight. We can work on homework together and you can eat with us.”

“That sounds great,” Monkey June said. “I’ll ask my mom, and—”

“Oh,” said Marilyn, “Don’t worry about that. Your mom already said it’s okay. My mom already asked your mom. You can just come home with me right after school.”

“Oh,” Monkey June said. “Great.” That was very strange, though. Usually the girls would come up with a plan and then they’d ask their mothers. Half the time the moms would say ‘no’. The moms didn’t usually make the plans for them and agree on everything ahead of time. Monkey June had a favorite saying, though: ‘Don’t look a gift monkey in the mouth.’ The real saying had something to do with horses, but Monkey June liked to invent new ways of saying things that included monkeys, so that’s how she liked to say it. She wasn’t sure why anyone would want to look into a horse’s mouth for any reason, but that didn’t matter to her; Monkey June always loved visiting a friend’s house.

“Can I come over, too?” Carolyn asked.

“Of course you can!” Marilyn said. “We can talk about what Monkey June has planned for her birthday this year. It’s getting close. What do you want the three of us to dress up as this year, MJ?”

“That’s right! It is getting close,” Carolyn said. “You’re so lucky that your birthday is October 31st, MJ. That makes it super easy for everyone to remember.”

Monkey June wasn’t too worried about her birthday yet, though. She hadn’t even come up with any group costume ideas. She had a mystery to solve, and her birthday was still a few weeks away. She was happy that she would get to spend the evening with her two friends, though. She had been so busy over the past week that she felt like she hadn’t had time to see them at all. 

Story Six - Part One

Once there was a little girl named June. You might think that her name was ‘June’ because she had a birthday in June, but not this girl. Her birthday was in October—on the last day of October, actually. Her name was actually short for ‘Juniper’. No one called her that, though, except her mother once in a while if she was in trouble.

June was never any trouble, though. She was a cute, active little two-year-old girl whose only interests were spending time with her parents and running around exploring her world.

One summer—the summer before her third birthday—her parents decided to take her on a special trip. June was an only child (because her little brother, Corey, hadn’t been born yet) so her parents planned a lot of their family adventures around June and they were always looking for activities she would find fun and interesting.

That summer they had already taken her to the beach for the first time (she had been totally amazed at the size of the ‘big water’)—and her second time, and her third time. The beach was definitely one of her favorite places. They had taken her to a water park. They had taken her to a summer carnival. They had taken her to a fancy restaurant for the first time (and they would not do that again until she was at least four, they decided). They had even taken her to the zoo for the first time—where she had definitely enjoyed the monkeys more than the other animals; in fact, they could barely drag her away from them.

But their big vacation plan that summer was to take June with them on a two-week trip to a beautiful tropical island.

The family packed for their big trip, including everything they would need for summer fun, but all June cared about was her little stuffed monkey that she had to have with her everywhere she went.

June called her stuffed monkey ‘Monkey’. If she had been a little older, I’m sure she would have chosen a more interesting name, but she was not yet three years old, so ‘Monkey’ was the best name she could think of—and it really did fit him perfectly.

With everything packed, June and her parents set out on their trip. They had the best time! The beautiful tropical island where they were staying had swaying palm trees, white, sandy beaches, and the clearest, bluest water that June (or any of them) had ever seen.

The thing about the island that made June laugh and squeal with joy every day was…there were monkeys there! These monkeys were not in a zoo, but walked around (and climbed and swung around) as free as can be. And they liked to play tricks on people! You had to be careful when eating outside, because a monkey might appear suddenly and snatch a chip or half a sandwich right out of your hand and quickly disappear into the nearby forest with it.

The people who lived on the island knew every monkey that lived around the hotel where June and her parents were staying. Each monkey had its own personality, and the people of the island had even given them names that fit their personalities.

‘Grabber’ was a monkey who liked to…well, grab things out of your hands when you least expected it. ’Pushy’ was a monkey who would run up and just push you for no reason—or maybe the ‘reason’ was that he just thought it was funny. There was a monkey called ‘Jumper’ who would jump up into your arms like he wanted a hug, but then he wouldn’t let go for a long, long time—which could be more than a little annoying if you had somewhere you needed to be where you didn’t need a monkey attached to the front of your body. They called one of the monkeys ‘Mama Monkey’, because she had lots of little kid monkeys with her all the time. Someone told June and her parents that Mama Monkey might be the daycare provider for all of the other monkeys in the area.

During the second week of their trip, June and her parents had the surprise of their lives while they were enjoying some snacks on the beach. A monkey appeared that they had never seen before! Every monkey they had seen on the island up to that point had been covered with brown, dark brown, or almost-black fur. This new monkey, though, had orange fur!

For a while this orange monkey sat on the sand some distance away and just looked at them. June waved at him. The monkey moved a little closer. He seemed very curious about them.

The monkey slowly moved closer and closer until he was right in front of June. He reached out his little monkey hand and carefully touched her stuffed monkey, Monkey—as if he had never seen a small monkey letting a human girl carry him around with her. He patted Monkey on the head a few times. Then he moved back a little bit and looked at the family intently.

“I wonder if he’s hungry,” June’s dad said.

“He’s not looking at our food," June’s mom said. “I think he’s fascinated with June’s monkey.”

“Monkey!” June said, pointing at the orange monkey.

“Yes, June,” her dad said. “That’s a monkey, all right. I’ve never seen an orange one, though. That’s got to be rare.”

“He seems friendly,” June’s mom said. “His fur is so pretty!”

“June’s not afraid of him,” June’s dad said. “And this one’s not playing any tricks, so that’s nice.”

“Lu-twe-sen!” June said cheerily.

“What’s that, June?” her father asked.

“Lu-twe-sen! Lu-twe-sen!” June repeated.

“I don’t know what that means,” June’s father said.

“Don' be ‘fraid! Lu-twe-sen!” June explained.

“OH!” June’s mother said. It’s the Bible verse I taught her! Luke 12:7! ‘Don’t be afraid!'”

“Don’ be ‘fraid! Lu-twe-sen!” June said again.

“It’s her first Bible verse,” June’s mother explained. “I can’t believe she remembered it.”

So it seemed that June had decided not to be afraid of this new monkey. But the new monkey did turn out to have a trick. Without any warning at all, he jumped towards June. As quick as lightning he snatched Monkey out of June’s hands and ran off into the forest so fast that he looked like a disappearing puff of orange smoke.

June started crying, of course, and her parents did their best to calm her down.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” her dad promised her, “we’ll get your Monkey back.”

June’s mother wasn’t so sure. She whispered to June’s father, “We can’t chase a monkey through the forest. We’d never catch him.”

“No, but we can ask some of the local people what they know about this orange monkey. They know everything about these little guys. I’m sure they can tell us something about this orange monkey.”

They packed up what was left of their picnic lunch, wondering why the orange monkey hadn’t tried to grab any of their food like most monkeys did. Then they picked up June and headed back to the hotel.

They knew exactly who to talk to at the hotel about monkeys. It was an old man who worked there named James. He knew the most about all of the monkeys around the island, and he loved talking to the guests about the local monkeys.

As they described the orange monkey to James, he sat down on a nearby chair. His face became gravely serious.

“No, no, no,” he said shaking his head. “Not that one.”

“What do you mean?” June’s mother asked.

“He’s bad,” James said. “Very bad. Dangerous. Stay away.”

“Dangerous how?” June’s father asked. “He didn’t seem dangerous. He just took her stuffed monkey. He didn’t even take any of our food.”

“We call him…Mango Monkey,” James said, his voice deep, ominous, and soft.

“Mango Monkey!” June said suddenly, clapping with excitement. She was at an age where she loved learning new names for things.

“I get it,: June’s mother said, “it’s because he’s orange! Like a mango!”

“He only eats mangoes,” James said.

“Oh,” June’s mother said.

“And he is mango-colored,” James said. “He is the only monkey that color.”

“That is very strange,” June’s father said.

”Mango Monkey!” June said again.

“Yes, dear,” June’s mother said. “He’s the monkey who took your monkey, Monkey. That sounded weird. Anyway, we’ll find him. Don’t you worry.”

“Do not find him,” James warned. “Stay away from that monkey.”

“Mango Monkey! Mango Monkey! Mango Monkey!” June said, laughing and spinning in circles as she said it, as if she couldn’t wait to see him again.

A few hours later, June and her parents were back at their favorite picnic spot on the beach, but this time the only food they had was several large piles of…mangoes. They had unripe mangoes, ripe mangoes, overripe mangoes, sliced mangoes, grilled mangoes, and even some mango juice. It was all there, sitting out in the open—a great feast of mangoes. They were obviously hoping that a certain mango-loving monkey would smell all of that delicious mango goodness and come to investigate.

But they sat there for quite some time, and there was no sign of Mango Monkey.

“He has to smell all this stuff,” June’s mother said. “The whole beach smells like mangoes now.”

“Maybe he’s not coming to check it out because we’re all sitting here,” June’s dad said.

“Mango Monkey!” June said.

“Maybe we should pretend to be asleep,” June’s mother suggested.

“Like normal people would just go to sleep on a beach right next to a feast of mangoes?” June’s father said a little skeptically.

“Plenty of people nap on beaches,” June’s mother insisted. “Besides, what does Mango Monkey know about what ‘normal people’ do?”

“Mango Monkey!” June said.

“Fine,” June’s dad agreed. “Let’s try it.”

June’s parents stretched out their beach towels, lay down, and pretended to be asleep.

“Mango Monkey?” June asked quietly. Her parents didn’t answer. June decided to do what her parents were doing. She lay down near her mother like it was nap time, but she didn’t close her eyes.

A few minutes later, June saw something orange moving towards them very slowly and cautiously. It was Mango Monkey. June reached over and gave her mother a poke. Her mother didn’t respond; she was fast asleep.

June reached over and shook her father’s shoulder. There was no response from him except a snort and a snore. He was asleep, too.

June lifted her head a bit and saw Mango Monkey approach the irresistible feast of mangoes. She saw that he was still carrying her stuffed monkey, Monkey. She hoped that Mango Monkey would put down her monkey, scoop up a bunch of mango stuff, and run off into the woods, leaving her stuffed monkey behind.

But that’s not what happened.

He did scoop up a bunch of mangoes, but he kept the stuffed monkey in his furry arms along with everything else. Then he started walking slowly back towards the woods.

June was a very small girl, but she was smart enough to see that there was a difference between how fast a monkey moved carrying a light stuffed animal and how fast a monkey moved carrying a bunch of heavy fruit and a stuffed monkey.

She decided to chase after him. She could move much faster than him; she was sure of it. She jumped up and ran over the sand towards him yelling, “MANGO MONKEY!” over and over like some kind of revenge-crazed maniac girl on a mission—which, if you think about it, she pretty much was.

She caught up to him pretty quickly and almost grabbed him.

Once Mango Monkey realized that he was being chased, he tried to speed up, but the stuff he was carrying really slowed him down. He refused to let go of any of it, though.

June got so close to him once or twice that she felt his fur when she grabbed for him—but then he’d put on a little more speed and get ahead of her so she couldn’t reach him. Soon they were right at the edge of the woods. June looked back quickly—just once—to see if her parents were chasing after them to help her catch Mango Monkey. They weren’t. They were sleeping on the beach, just as she had left them.

A few seconds after that, Mango Monkey disappeared into the woods— and June disappeared into the woods after him.

Continued in Monkey June and Mango Monkey - Part Two

Story Six - Part Two

June’s mother woke up and looked around. She wondered why she was sleeping on a beach. Then she remembered everything: the trap they had set for Mango Monkey, her pretend nap, and…she must have fallen asleep for real!

She looked around for June. June was nowhere to be seen.

“Wake up! Wake up!” she yelled, shaking June’s dad. He sat up and looked around in confusion (like most dads do when someone wakes them from a sound sleep).

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“We fell asleep! June’s gone!”

June’s father looked over at the feast of mangoes and saw that some of the mangoes were missing. Then he noticed some dropped mangoes between them and the woods. Two sets of footprints in the sand told him the rest of the story.

“She chased after him!” June’s dad yelled. “Mango Monkey was here and June went after him!”

“We have to find her!” June’s mother yelled. They both got up and ran as fast as they could, following the footprints in the sand.

June ran after Mango Monkey, not noticing how deep into the woods they were getting. The farther they ran, the taller the trees got, and the taller the trees got, the more they blocked out the sunlight. This meant that as June ran, the forest got darker and scarier.

Mango Monkey was always five or ten steps ahead of her. It was frustrating. June wondered how he was staying ahead of her so well. She suddenly realized that she was wearing shoes…and Mango Monkey was not. Maybe, she thought, it’s easier to run in the forest with bare feet!

“Don' be ‘fraid,” June said to herself as she stopped, quickly pulled off her shoes, and then continued running after Mango Monkey barefoot. “Lu-twe-sen.”

After running like this for a few minutes, June noticed that she actually was getting closer to him. Her idea had worked! But then something strange and terrible happened…

Mango Monkey jumped over a big, dark, gooey puddle (which couldn’t have been easy since he was still carrying a good number of mangoes and a small stuffed monkey named Monkey) and stopped on the other side of the puddle to look back at June.

He didn’t just look at her; he gave her a loud monkey screech.

June couldn’t believe he had stopped! Now she had him! She ran right through the big, dark, gooey puddle and stretched out her arms towards the screeching, orange—

—and she stopped. Her bare feet didn’t seem to want to leave the puddle. Mango Monkey screeched at her again, shook his head, and ran off.

June looked down at her feet. They were stuck in the big, dark, gooey puddle. She tried to pull a foot out. It wouldn’t budge! She was stuck to the puddle like it was made of glue! She tried to pull her other foot out. It was stuck, too! The harder she tried to pull her feet out, the deeper she sank into the puddle and the more the goo grabbed onto her feet. Soon she was stuck in it almost up to her knees!

June’s mother stopped running. She and June’s father had entered the trees, and for them, the forest was not yet so dark.

“Stop for a second!” June’s mother said.

“We can’t stop!” June’s father yelled. “We need to find June!”

“Didn’t you just hear a screech?” she asked. “It sounded like the screech of a small monkey. I bet it was him—Mango Monkey. If it was, I think we’re going the wrong way…”

Before June’s father could say anything, they heard a second screech.

“You’re right!” June’s father yelled. “Quick! This way!”

June’s parents ran as fast as they could towards the screech. A few minutes later, they found two little-girl-sized beach shoes lying on the ground.

June’s father noticed them first. “This is the right way!” he shouted. “Look! June’s shoes!”.

“Why would she take off her shoes?” June’s mother asked.

“Maybe so she could run more like a monkey?” her father guessed.

“Smart girl!” June’s mother said. “JUNE!” She yelled. “JUNE!”

There was no answer.

June’s mother picked up the tiny shoes and they started running again.

June wasn’t even three-years-old yet, but it didn’t take her long to notice that moving around so much was what was making her sink deeper and deeper into the gooey goo. She held still for a bit and thought about what to do next.

She started to feel afraid, but she reminded herself: “Jesus said ‘Don’ be ‘fraid’! Lu-twe-sen!”

Suddenly she realized what she needed to do. She grabbed onto a fallen log that was near the big, dark, gooey puddle, and she slowly, slowly, slowly pulled herself out of the goo. It worked! her legs were covered with gooey goo from her knees to her bare feet, but at least she was out of the puddle and could chase after Mango Monkey again.

She ran off in the direction that she had seen the little orange monkey run.

“Stop!” June’s mother yelled. “Stop running!”

“What?” June’s father asked as he skidded to a stop right before splashing through a big, dark, gooey puddle. “We need to keep—”

“Look at that puddle,” June’s mother said. “Why are there black, gooey splashes on that log? And small black, gooey footprints on the other side of the puddle?”

“She got stuck here!” her father said. “But she pulled herself out! And now she’s running again. I’m glad you saw that! One more step and I would have been stuck in that goo!”

The two of them ran around the big, dark, gooey puddle and ran deeper into the forest following the tiny black footprints.

The footprints didn’t continue for long, because some goo must have wiped off of June’s feet with every step she took, but at least they showed her parents which direction to go.

June stopped crashing through the trees and came to a stop on the bank of a roaring river.

There was Mango Monkey! He was standing on a huge log that had fallen over the river! He was still holding a large number of mangoes and June’s stuffed monkey. Beneath the log, a deep river rushed violently down towards the ocean over dozens of huge, sharp, dangerous rocks.

“Mango Monkey!” June said angrily.

Mango Monkey looked at her and took a few steps backwards on the log, moving farther away from her.

“Mango Monkey!” June said even more angrily.

Mango Monkey took one more step away from her.

June saw that the only way to catch him would be to walk out on that log. She looked at the rushing river below. She looked at the sharp rocks in the river. She looked at how far below her those sharp rocks were.

“Don’ be ‘fraid,” June said to herself. “Lu-twe-sen.”

June’s mother and father stopped crashing through the trees and came to a sudden stop on the bank of a roaring river. 

There was June! She was standing on a huge log that stretched over the river! Mango Monkey stood on the same log, facing June, his arms wrapped around a large number of mangoes and June’s stuffed monkey, Monkey. Beneath them, a deep river rushed violently down towards the ocean over dozens of huge, sharp, dangerous rocks!

“If June falls…!” June’s mother yelled.

“June!” June’s father yelled.

June didn’t turn around.

“She can’t hear us!” June’s father shouted. “The water’s too loud!”

June took a careful step towards Mango Monkey. Mango Monkey took a step away from June. June took another step towards Mango Monkey. Mango Monkey’s monkey-feet gripped the log with every step he took, but June only had regular human-girl feet…

With her next step, she lost her footing, sat down hard on the wet log, and slipped over the side…

June’s parents gasped, frozen in shock. They could never reach her in time! There was no way to save her! They could only watch her fall into the roaring…

But June didn’t fall into the roaring river! As she slipped, an orange, furry hand moved towards her as fast as lightning, grabbed her arm, and swung her back up onto the log. She was safe!

About a dozen mangoes hit the sharp rocks below and were pounded into orange mush by the force of the rushing river. The orange mush whooshed down the river to the ocean.

June was not whooshing down the river to the ocean, though—she was happily hugging an orange monkey in the middle of the log.

A short time later, June and her parents were back at the beach where they had prepared the feast of mangoes, and a small, orange monkey was giving June back her stuffed monkey named Monkey. June and her new orange friend then spent the rest of the day chasing each other around the beach, eating mangoes, and hugging each other every few minutes. They were obviously friends for life, now.

(June even ran into the ocean a few times and got the last of that gooey goo rinsed off of her legs.)

June’s mother and father sat on the beach near the feast of mangoes, watching June run and play with her new friend.

“I wonder why James thinks Mango Monkey is so bad,” June’s mother said.

“I don’t know,” June’s father said. “Maybe the island folks just don’t like their mangoes being stolen by him or something.”

“Maybe none of the island folks ever tried to give him a hug or act friendly towards him,” June’s mother suggested. “Maybe now that he has a friend he’ll be a changed monkey.”

“His new friend will be going home at the end of the week,” June’s father pointed out.

“True,” June’s mother agreed, “but let’s promise her that we’ll come back here every summer so she can visit her orange friend.”

“Great idea!” June’s father agreed. “Unless we’re missing something, and that clever little orange monkey really is dangerous somehow…”

June was overjoyed when her parents told her about their plan to come back to the island every summer. And from that day on, whenever they asked June why she hadn’t been scared to walk out on that log over the rushing river, she would remind them of the first Bible verse she had ever learned:

“Jesus said ‘Don’ be ‘fraid’! Lu-twe-sen!”

Story Seven

If you don’t remember much about Monkey June, I’ll take a minute here to remind you of a few facts about her: She was a girl who loved monkeys. She was actually somewhat obsessed with them. More than obsessed, most people would say—and most people would be right.

Her bedroom was covered in almost every imaginable monkey-related decoration. Almost every clothing item she owned had some kind of monkey design on it. She had the largest collection of stuffed-animal monkeys in the world. Well…maybe not ‘in the world’—but it had to be the largest collection in her town.

You might think that with a name like ‘June’ her birthday would be in the month of June, but it was not; it was October 31st. This usually tied in very nicely with her love of monkeys, her love of dressing up in costumes, and her love of hanging out with her two best friends, Marilyn and Carolyn. Every year their birthday present to Monkey June was to let her come up with a three-person group costume that they would all wear while celebrating her birthday.

One year they dressed up as three long-haired orangutans. Another year they were three circus monkeys, with little red caps on their heads, cute little vests, and everything. Once they had been two Animal Control workers who had captured a wild monkey—and I’ll let you guess which of the three girls was the monkey…

This year, Monkey June had come up with her best group costume idea ever. Carolyn and Marilyn had agreed that it was just perfect, and the three friends couldn’t wait to dress up as—

Wait. I’ll just take a break from telling this story for a minute, and ask you what you think Monkey June’s ‘Best Group Costume Ever’ idea was…

Okay. Welcome back to the story and thanks for sharing all of those cool ideas. I’ll pass some of those along to MJ so she can think about using one of them on her next birthday.

For this birthday, though, her plan was that she and her two best friends would be…drum-roll please…Space Monkeys!

Their mothers had already found some shiny space-suit material and had been working on turning it into space-suits for the girls. Once those were ready it would be up to the girls to go shopping for some monkey masks and rubbery monkey hands and feet that they could put on so it would look like three monkeys were wearing the space suits. They even hoped to find space helmets that would finish off the look perfectly—but even if they didn’t, the costumes were still going to be amazing.

The plan was for everything to come together on October 31st—Monkey June’s birthday.

But that’s not exactly what happened. In fact, I need to warn you that this story gets a little…unhappy starting about now. If you’ve ever had a really rough day—the kind of day where everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong, and then a bunch of stuff that no one ever dreamed could possibly go wrong also goes wrong—then you may know the feeling of where Monkey June’s day was headed. I wish I could skip past this part, but that’s not how stories work.

On the morning of her birthday Monkey June woke up in a rather confused state. What confused her most was that the monkey clock on the table next to her bed did not say six o-clock as it usually did while making a bunch of cute monkey noises to wake Monkey June up. It showed no numbers at all. It was just blank. And the clock’s cute monkey noises had never happened.

“That is very strange,” she said to herself as she swung her feet onto the floor and got up.

She wondered if it was later than six o-clock. A quick look out the window past her monkey curtains didn’t tell her anything, because it was so cloudy and dark and grey outside that it could have been just about any time at all.

Monkey June made her way downstairs. Her mother was in the kitchen.

“There you are!” her mother said. “You don’t look ready to go! You’d better get moving. It’s time to leave for school.”

“What?” Monkey June asked. “Time to go? What time is it?”

“It’s seven-thirty,” her mother said. “Don’t tell me you’ve been oversleeping this whole time!”

“I think I’ve been oversleeping this whole time,” Monkey June said.

“I asked you not to tell me that,” her mother mumbled.

“Well, it’s true, I guess. My clock is blank. Maybe it got unplugged or something. Where’s Dad?”

“He had to go to work early today,” her mother said. “Maybe that monkey clock of yours is broken. We’ll take a look at it later. Right now, though, you need to set the World Record for getting ready for school. Can you do it in three minutes?”

Monkey June did not think that she could do it in three minutes, but she ran off to give it a try.

She shouldn’t have run, though. Her legs were still a little sleepy, and she tripped going up the stairs and landed flat on her face. Luckily, falling up a few stairs is usually a lot less painful than falling down stairs—but it felt like the stair-carpet had given her a painful spot of carpet-burn on her chin.

She got up and walked quickly (no running this time) into the bathroom to get ready.

A red rash of carpet-burn was definitely forming on her chin, and it did not feel good. While looking at herself in the mirror, though, Monkey June noticed something far worse than that: her hair was a mess!

Now, you’re probably going to say that everyone’s hair is a mess when they first wake up and that that’s nothing to get upset about, but what Monkey June saw in her bathroom mirror was no ordinary Bad Hair Day hair. No, no, no. This was much worse. This was worse than Crazy Hair Day at school. This was worse than the time her mother told her it looked like a flock of angry birds had built nests in her hair. This was hair so messy, so ridiculous, so astonishing, so insane, that a whole new phrase had to be invented to describe it…

It was Impossible Hair—and one look at it told Monkey June that this was going to be an Impossible Hair Day.

She tried brushing it out with her favorite monkey brush. It refused to cooperate. She tried wetting it. She tried combing it. She tried clawing at it with her fingers like she had seen monkeys do at the zoo (and on her favorite tropical island). Nothing helped. In fact, everything she tried only made it worse.

“Fine,” she said, talking to the crazy-looking wild child looking at her from the mirror. “I’ll just go to school like this. I’ll tell people it’s…um…part of a costume I’m working on.”

She brushed her teeth, rushed into her room, quickly found some random clothes and threw them on, and ran—I mean ‘walked rather quickly’—back downstairs.

“June!” her mother was already yelling. “C’mon! We need to go!”

Monkey June’s mother looked at her very strangely when she saw her Impossible Hair and mismatched clothing, but thought it would be best not to say anything. Monkey June grabbed her monkey backpack (suddenly remembering that she hadn’t done last night’s homework—ugh!) and headed out the door.

The moment they stepped outside, a tremendous crack of thunder made it sound like the entire sky had just broken in two.

“Arrgh!” Monkey June said.

“Hm,” her mother said. “Guess we’ll have a bit of a thunderstorm this morning. No worries, though.”

Monkey June did have worries, though. The wind was blowing like crazy. The rain came down harder and harder as they drove to school. They had to take two roads that they normally didn’t take, because giant trees had fallen over the roads they usually took. Lightning flashed constantly, and after every flash came a crack of thunder that seemed louder than the one before it.

“Should you be driving in this?” Monkey June asked her mother. “Should they be having school today?”

“Just a small storm,” her mother said. “It’s fine.”

By the time they got to school, Monkey June had used her favorite Bible verse about fifteen times. It was the first Bible verse she had ever learned—back when she was around two years old:

Jesus said, ‘Don’t be afraid…’ Luke 12:7

Her parents said that when she was little she had always called it ‘Lu-twe-sen’, but she was older now, and she said it the regular way these days.

She also worked on a new one she had been learning. It was 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, but she could only remember the last part of it (verse 18) so far:

…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

It was a very strange to think about being thankful when bad things were happening, but ‘all circumstances’ means ‘all situations’, and that means both good and bad situations.

After many repetitions of ‘Give thanks in all circumstances’ and ‘Don’t be afraid’, Monkey June realized that they had made it to school. She ran in (while getting soaked by pelting rain) and rushed to her first class of the day. She got there late, of course, and the whole class looked at her when she walked in. From the looks she saw on the kids' faces, she must have been quite a sight.

As she found her desk and sat down, Monkey June realized that her mother hadn’t even wished her a happy birthday!

You might think that once Monkey June got to school her day got back on track. Sadly, it did not. I don’t have time to tell you about the undone homework assignment that got counted as a zero (although I’m sure you saw that one coming), the surprise quiz in her second class, how she kept getting her hair caught on things while she walked around the school, how her Gym class was cancelled due to ‘renovations in the gym’ (—and on the day they were supposed to play her favorite game: Monkey Tag!), how she kept being asked about the weird rash on her chin, and…I’m sure you get the idea.

Monkey June was having the worst day ever—and it was on her birthday!

Every time something bad happened, though, she’d remind herself to ‘Give thanks in every situation’ and she’d try to look for a bright side. It was hard to imagine the bright side of getting your hair caught in a fire-alarm box and almost setting off the alarm. She figured that the bright side had been that she hadn’t actually set off the fire alarm. She didn’t want to imagine the whole school standing out in the rain for an hour if the alarm had gone off!

The worst thing was that she didn’t see either of her two best friends all day! Marilyn didn’t seem to be at school, and neither did Carolyn. She hoped that they weren’t sick. They had plans that evening! Plans that involved dressing up like Space Monkeys!

As she walked in the door after school that day, Monkey June was still mumbling to herself, “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Her immediate plans were to:

1. get changed out of her wet clothes (it was still raining) and
2. reach out her friends to see why they hadn’t been at school.

Before she could do those things, though, her mother got a distressing phone call. She motioned for Monkey June not to go anywhere.

Monkey June’s mother said, ‘Yes’ and ‘I see’ and ‘Oh’ and ‘Do you really think so?’ and ‘Oh my’ and ‘I think we could be there that quickly’ and a few other serious-sounding things that Monkey June didn’t quite catch.

The moment Monkey June’s mother hung up the phone she was already grabbing her purse, rushing towards the door, and telling Monkey June that she needed to get back in the car. She also said something about an emergency, but Monkey June didn’t quite hear that part.

“Where’s Dad?” Monkey June asked. “Can’t I just stay here with him? And where’s Corey?”

“Your father had to work late today, and Corey is playing with a friend. I’m sorry, but you'’ll have to come with me. Besides, I’m going to need your help with this situation. Let’s go.”

“Give thanks in every situation,” Monkey June said in a quiet, sad voice as she trudged back out to the car.

“What’s that, dear?” her mother asked.

“Nothing,” Monkey June said. As she fastened her seatbelt, she remembered again that it was her birthday, and not one person had mentioned it all day. She felt so glum that she didn’t even pay attention to where they were going or ask anything about what kind of ‘situation’ was going on. She just stared out the car window at the rain as her mother drove.

Monkey June was completely befuddled when her mother pulled up at Monkey June’s school. If you’ve never seen the word ‘befuddled’ before, it just means ‘confused, but ten times more confused than regular confused’. (I suppose I could have said that Monkey June was ten times more confused than regular confused, but that would have taken a lot more words.)

“I’m going to need help,” her mother said, jumping out of the car and practically running into the school. It was still raining, but at least it wasn’t storming anymore. Monkey June ran after her into the school.

The school was deserted. Monkey June could barely keep up with her mother as she rushed down one empty hallway after another. What possible emergency could have caused her mother to race over to the school like this? None of it made any sense. None of her entire day made any sense!

Monkey June turned a corner and found herself in the hallway outside of the gym. Her mother was nowhere to be seen, but there were two strange figures standing in the middle of the hall. They were kid-sized figures. They were…shiny. They were…furry. They were…her friends Carolyn and Marilyn! Dressed as Space Monkeys!

“‘Bout time you got here,” Marilyn said. “Quick—put this on!” She shoved a third Space Monkey outfit into Monkey June’s hands.

“Happy birthday!” Carolyn said. “Here—let me help with that.”

A minute or so later, three space monkeys (one of them far more befuddled than the others) walked into the gym and saw the most amazing thing that anyone had ever seen in the history of the school. The entire gym had been transformed into an indoor carnival! It was monkey-themed, of course, and the whole thing had been set up to celebrate Monkey June’s birthday.

“We were going to have it in the field down the block from your house,” Carolyn explained, “but with all the rain and mud your mom and dad had to figure out a different plan—and quick.”

Marilyn chimed in. “They got permission from the school to use the gym, since they were already borrowing the school’s carnival stuff—but only if they made it an all-school event.”

“The entire school is here?” Monkey June asked.

“Pretty much,” Carolyn said. “Your parents and little Corey and me and Marilyn have been here all day, working in the gym to get things ready.”

“So you didn’t miss school at all!”

“Well, we had to miss the boring parts,” Marilyn said. “Thanks for that.”

“So the gym wasn’t ‘under renovation’,” Monkey June said.

“Oh, it was,” Monkey June’s mother said, suddenly appearing beside her. “We were renovating it into this!”

A giant smiling monkey took up an entire wall of the gym. There was a dunking booth. There were midway games. There was a cotton candy machine. There was a sno-cone cart. There were three different kinds of inflatables! There were even rides! And everything was set up in the gym, with no rain anywhere in sight.

It was the most fun that Monkey June and her friends had ever had. Everyone Monkey June knew was there: Chill Phil, Ryan, Maisie, Mr. Jeffries—even her grandfather had come from out-of-town to join them in the celebrations!

It was the best night ever. It was her best birthday ever. And since ‘best birthday ever’ was a situation, and she knew it was important to give thanks in every situation, Monkey June found herself very thankful indeed as she remembered 1 Thessalonians 5:18 all night long:

…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

And the more she said it to herself, the more she noticed that the word ‘Thessalonians’ was pretty fun to say.

Story Eight - Part One

I know you’ve heard at least one story about the girl known as Monkey June, so I won’t waste time describing her here. If you’re not familiar with her at all, I have to wonder why you are reading this story instead of starting at the beginning. Were you just confused about where to start? Are you the kind of person who buys a book and starts reading at Chapter Eight? This story isn’t about you, though, so I’m going to get back to my story about Monkey June now…

She was a girl who really loved monkeys—which was good, because monkeys seemed to find their way into her life no matter where she was and no matter what she was doing. Can you imagine what her life would be like if she was obsessed with zebras or elephants or unicorns, and all kinds of monkey-related things kept happening to her?

Oh! I should pause here for a moment to say that this is another story from when June was younger, before she had ‘Monkey’ added to her name—so you’ll be hearing a lot of ‘June did this’ and ‘June said that’, and you’ll hardly hear the name ‘Monkey June’ at all.

June was a very clever three-year-old girl. She lived in a normal house in a normal town with a normal mother and a normal father.

About a year before this story—the summer before this story, to be exact—she had visited a tropical island with her parents. She had been two-years-old then—it was a few months before her third birthday. She had met a ‘dangerous’ monkey named Mango Monkey, and she had—well, she had been on various adventures that you can read about in Story Six. (It’s a two-parter. I highly recommend it.)

That was a year ago, though. Now June was three. It was the summer before she turned four. You may remember that June’s parents had promised to take her back to that island every year for their family’s summer vacation. Little June reminded them of this promise constantly because she couldn’t wait to go back to the island, find her friend Mango Monkey, and see how he was doing.

The last time June and her parents had been to the island, they had arranged a feast of mangoes on a beach there. (If that sounds strange to you then you haven’t heard or read Story Six. If you still haven’t checked it out, that’s on you. I recommended it two paragraphs ago.)

I won’t tell you the real name of the island they visited, because I don’t want you going there and trying to find Mango Monkey, or buried treasure, or dangerous secrets, or anything like that. I will say that little June and her parents usually referred to the place as ‘Mango Beach Island’, for obvious reasons.

June’s parents spent the first part of their summer planning their trip to Mango Beach with little June, and as the trip got closer and closer, June was hardly able to talk about anything else.

“Do you think Mango Monkey is still there?” she asked her father one night at dinner.

“I’m sure he is,” her dad said. “Where else would he be?”

“Right,” June agreed. “He’d never leave Mango Beach! You think he remembers me?”

“I’m sure he does, dear,” June’s mother said. “The two of you were best friends by the time we left there last summer. He saved your life. He’s not going to forget you.”

The day finally arrived. A very excited June made sure she had her favorite stuffed monkey named Monkey with her (her parents had taken care of the rest of her packing), and they went to the airport, got on a plane, and flew to the island.

As they checked in at the hotel, June recognized a familiar face in the hotel lobby.

“Mr. James!” she shouted as she ran over to say hello. James was their friend who worked at the hotel and knew everything about all the local monkeys.

“June!” he said, scooping her up into his arms before she could run into his knees and knock him down. “Welcome back! How you’ve grown!”

“I’m almost four,” she said proudly.

“That’s wonderful,” James said. “And I see you still have Monkey.”

“Always do. Had him since I was born.”

“I didn’t know that,” James said.

“Mango Monkey likes him, too,” June said.

At the mention of Mango Monkey, James got a troubled look on his face. He put June down on the floor and sat on one of the hotel lobby chairs.

“What’s the matter?” June asked. “Are you sad? Is Mango Monkey still here? Is he okay?”

“I don’t like talking about that monkey,” James said. “And neither should you. He’s dangerous.”

“He saved me!” June said. “He’s my friend!”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” James said. “He is dangerous. Don’t forget: he is the one who led you into that forest in the first place. He put you in danger. You must stay away from—”

“James!” June’s father said as he and June’s mother joined them. “How are you?”

“Fine, sir! Very glad you and your wonderful family are back to see us again!”

“We’re glad to be here,” June’s mother said. “We’re all checked in, June. Let’s head to our room and get settled in.”

“Bye, Mr. James!” June said.

“Bye, bye,” James said. “You remember what I said, now.”

Over the next few days, June and her parents didn’t see James much. They weren’t sure exactly what he did at the hotel, but whatever it was it must have kept him very busy.

June wanted to visit Mango Beach right away, of course. She even brought a few mangoes—not a whole feast, but as many as a small girl could carry—hoping that a certain friend of hers would smell them and come see who had brought mangoes to the beach.

Much to June’s disappointment, Mango Monkey did not appear that first day. He didn’t appear the next day, either. He didn’t appear the third day, either.

“Where is he?” she asked her parents.

“There’s no way to know, June,” her father said. “He’s a monkey. He’s probably exploring some other part of the island. He had no way of knowing when we were coming back.”

“But I miss him,” June said. Her eyes started to get teary and her chin started to get wiggly.

“I suggest we just enjoy our time here and if we end up seeing him, that will be wonderful. But if he’s off doing…monkey things and doesn’t come and see us…well…that’s just how it might be.”

“Mango monkey,” June said sadly as she went to walk by the water for a while by herself. Her father started to follow her.

“Let her be, dear,” June’s mother told him. “She needs some time alone, I think."

June walked along the water’s edge, kicking up clumps of wet sand. She looked angry, but she was really more disappointed—and worried that maybe their entire trip would go by without a chance for her to see Mango Monkey.

She didn’t pay much attention to where she was walking—or how far she had gone. Soon she was farther away from her parents than she was normally allowed to be. Looking back, she could barely see them from where she was. She turned and started walking back.

After about three steps, though, June stopped with a ‘YIPE!’

“Ouch!” she said after the yipe. “That hurt!” She looked at the wet clump of sand she had just stepped on. She must have kicked it up earlier. Stepping on a wet clump of sand usually crushed it into…well, wet sand. This clump did not crush; it hurt. There was something hard in it. Something solid, a little shiny, and…was that metal?

“That is very strange,” June said. She picked up the heavy clump of sand and dipped it in ocean water to rinse it off. Once the sand was gone, June couldn’t believe what she saw in her hand…

It was a monkey! A small, heavy monkey made of metal!

“I think it’s brass,” June’s father said as he looked over the strange little object.

“A brass monkey?” June’s mother asked. “Who would leave such a thing on the beach?”

“Maybe it came from the water!” June shouted. “Maybe it’s from Mango Monkey!”

“I don’t think so, sweetie,” June’s father said. “I think we should show this to an expert—someone who knows everything about this island.”

“Mr. James!” June said.

“Good idea!” June’s mother agreed.

“Where did you found this?” James asked, holding the strange brass monkey that June had found.

“Mango Beach,” June said.

“We don’t have a beach with that name on the island,” James said.

“June calls it that,” her father explained, “ever since last summer when we put a lot of mangoes on the beach, to try to catch—“

“Ah, yes,” said James, “I remember that place.” He turned to June. “I need you to show me exactly where you found this. It is very important.”

“Easy,” June said. 

“When would you like to go there?” June’s father asked James.

“Right now,” James said. “There is no time to waste.”

A short time later, June and her parents stood near the shore on what June called Mango Beach, not far from the crashing waves.

“Right there,” June said, pointing to the sand at their feet. June’s footprints had been washed away by the waves, but she was sure it was the place.

“Such a strange thing to find on a beach,” June’s mother said. “Do you know what it is, James? It looks really old.”

“Hundreds of years ago,” James said in a strange, faraway voice as he stared out over the ocean, “many ships would pass this island. Some stopped here to gather fresh water and supplies. The greatest of them were the mighty treasure ships of Spain—and the greatest of all the treasure ships of Spain was called ‘The Brass Monkey’.”

“Cool name!” June said.

“The Brass Monkey sailed only once,” James continued. “Some say she was built too big to sail safely. Some say she was a well-built ship, but that they filled her with too much treasure. When the Great Storm came, she disappeared with a full cargo.”

“Great Storm?” June asked.

“The worst storm the island ever saw,” James said. “It destroyed every building on the island—but in those days most of the buildings were huts made of logs. Still, the storm was legendary for the devastation it caused—and for the destruction of the greatest treasure ship that ever sailed.”

“Brass Monkey,” June said, her eyes wide and her voice serious.

“June found a brass monkey figure,” June’s father said, “but what does that have to do with the ship called The Brass Monkey?”

“People have searched for that ship for nearly three hundred years,” James said. “No one has ever found any sign of it—not a single piece of its unimaginable treasure—until today…”

“You mean…?” June’s mother said.

“Yes,” James said. “June’s brass monkey is from the Brass Monkey. It can only have come from there. That may mean that the sea is finally ready to give up its greatest treasure.”

To be continued in Monkey June and the Brass Monkey - Part Two