Story Twelve - Part Three

Continued from Monkey June and the Shimmering Stone - Part Two

“That’s Mango Monkey!” June whispered. “And his family! We need to get them out of there!”

“I’ll take care of that,” her father said. “You stay here and keep an eye on that boss guy’s cabin. If he comes out—“

“I need to go with you to the cage,” June said. “They’ll recognize me. They trust me. I can tell them to be quiet while you get them out.”

June’s father gave her a look that said that he did not like that idea one bit, but he knew that she was right. “Fine, but we must go quietly. And you’ll do everything I say.”

“Quiet as a mouse,” June agreed. “I mean ‘quiet as two mice’.”

They carefully (and quietly) made their way around the edge of the clearing instead of cutting across it in the open. If they heard anyone coming they wanted to be able to disappear into the trees.

The clearing wasn’t very large, so they found themselves at the cage in no time. June had never seen Mango Monkey and his family looking so sad and tired. Their fur had clumps of sticky stuff in it, and they looked like they hadn’t eaten in a long time.

“They must have tried to escape from those men by climbing the trees,” June’s father said quietly.

“And the trees near the shore are all gunky,” June said. “Mango Monkey, it’s me June. We’re here to rescue you!”

While June tried to comfort Mango Monkey, Beautiful, and Bunky (you probably remember that those were the names she used for them, as she didn’t know their monkey-language names), June’s father tried to break the old rusty padlock on the cage.

“Well, well, well,” a rough voice said behind them, “what have we here? Thieves trying to steal my property—that’s what.”

June and her father stopped trying to break into the cage and turned to see the angry boss man standing behind them.

“You look like island vacation folks,” the man said. “Now why would vacation folks come over to my island and try to steal my monkeys?”

“This isn’t your island,” June said angrily, “and these aren’t your monkeys.”

“I hope you’re this girl’s father,” the man said, ignoring June. “Sounds like she needs a parent to teach her not to talk to her elders so disrespectfully.”

“I am her father,” June’s father said, “and my daughter isn’t saying anything that isn’t true. This is not your island, and these are not your monkeys. How about you set these monkeys free, let them go back to the big island with us, and we won’t tell anyone what you’re doing here.”

“This is a friendly scientific camp,” the man said with a scary, crooked smile, “where we do…ecological research on the unique plants and trees of this tiny island. Why would we not want anyone to know what we’re doing here?”

“Because you said so when you sent those men back to the beach!” June said. “You said, ‘No one can find out what we’re doing here.'”

“Well, well, well,” the man said, “I can see that you two know way too much. I’m going to stop pretending to be friendly and just tell you what happens next. You can’t be allowed to leave. You’ll wait here with me until my men get back, and they’re going to put you into that cage with your stinky little friends. That’s where you’ll stay until I figure out what to do with you.”

“You say ‘well, well, well’ a lot,” June said, sounding not at all afraid. “Also, you don’t scare us. You ever heard of Luke 12:7?”

“I don’t know anyone named Luke,” the man said, looking very confused.

“Well, you can’t keep us here,” June said. “You’re outnumbered.”

“Ha!” the man laughed. “Aren’t you a bold one? I don’t think this counts as ‘two against one’, though. What are you—five years old?”

“I’m almost five,” June said. “My birthday’s in October. But you’re wrong—it’s not two against one. It’s SIX against one!”

June had noticed what the boss man had not. Her father had been unable to break the rusty padlock, but he had been ‘leaning’ on the door of the cage since they had turned around to face the boss man. The whole time the boss man had been trying to sound scary while talking mostly to June, June’s father had been pushing and bending the latch on the cage. It was way more flimsy than the old, rusty padlock, and the wood around the hinge was old and half-rotted away.

Just as June shouted ‘…SIX against one!’, her father threw open the door of the cage and three monkeys came flying out with loud, fearsome screeches. All three of them jumped onto the boss man and clung to him as they scratched and bit him.

Mango Monkey waved for June and her father to go, and the two of them ran off down the path towards the beach.

“Mango Monkey and his family can join us at the beach now that they’re free,” her father said as he scooped June up into his arms so he could run faster. “As soon as they scare that guy enough to make him not want to chase after us, I’m sure they’ll catch up.”

They were about halfway to the beach when they remembered that there were three other men on the island. They remembered this because those other three men met them on the path.

“Who are you?” they shouted.

June’s father stopped running just long enough to say to them, “I work for the company. I’m here for an inspection. Thank goodness we found you. Your boss is in trouble. He told us to come find you and send you back to the clearing right away.”

“What kind of trouble?” the maintenance guy asked.

“Monkey trouble,” June said.

“You’d better run,” June’s father told them. “You know how mad he gets when his orders aren’t followed.”

“C’mon guys!” one of the other men yelled. “If we don’t get back there quick the boss will be super mad.”

The three men ran off towards the clearing and June’s father ran on towards the beach. (Luckily, none of them thought to ask the ‘inspector from the company’ why he would have a little girl with him on a work assignment.)

By the time June and her father got to the raft, Mango Monkey, Beautiful, and Bunky were arriving there as well. They must have swung through some of the cleaner trees and then run beneath the nasty trees to get to the raft as quickly as possible.

June’s father set her down on the shore so she could greet and hug each of the monkeys. June then pointed to the raft and all three monkeys jumped on board.

June’s father also jumped up onto the raft.

“We need to jump on this thing so it’ll go back to Mango Beach Island!” he shouted. “June! Why are you still on the shore?”

“I’m coming,” June said.

As the monkeys and her father had jumped up onto the raft, she had noticed something shiny on the ground, half-buried in the gunky rocks. She knew she didn’t have time to hang around and investigate the mysterious object, so she just pulled it from the muck and stuck it in her pocket.

A few seconds later she was on the raft with everyone else and they were moving away from the little island.

About four minutes after that, four men appeared on the shore. They seemed to be shouting at them and waving their fists in the air, and they looked very angry. The raft was too far away for June and her father (and the monkeys) to hear what they were shouting, though.

Just a few minutes after that, they were so far away from the little island that they couldn’t see whether there was anyone still on the beach or not.

“And then we found some bananas, because we were all starving,” June’s father said. June and her father were sitting on one of the beds in their hotel room later that day, telling June’s mother about everything that had happened during Corey’s nap.

“And me and Daddy went all the way to Mango Monkey’s house and it was kind of like walking them home except we were on the ground and they were up in the trees.”

“How nice of you,” June’s mother said. “And did they invite you in for tea?”

“Very funny,” June said. “No. We let them go in and have some time to themselves. Daddy said they’d probably want to clean each other’s fur, clean all the rotten fruit out of their house, find new fruit—stuff like that.”

“Will you get to see them again before we leave?” her mother asked.

“I hope so,” June said. “They know where to find us. We should just go to Mango Beach every day and relax and I’m sure they’ll visit us some time.”

“What about those mean guys on that nasty little island?” June’s mother asked. “Did you ever figure out what they were doing there? It must be something illegal.”

“I cleaned this off and showed it to Mr. James,” June said, holding up the shiny object she had found on the beach as they were leaving. “As soon as he saw it he knew what they were up to. He said that before Monkey Island was cursed there was an old opal mine there. Some of the biggest and most expensive opals in the world were found there.”

“But then there were some terrible mining accidents and the company that ran the island was shut down,” June’s father continued. “It seems that some men decided to take over the island and look for opals that they could sell illegally. They invented the idea that Monkey Island was ‘cursed’ and did all sorts of things to keep monkeys away from there. The island used to be full of them.”

“Sounds like they did all sorts of things to keep people away from there as well,” June’s mother added.

“But now their mining days are over,” June’s father went on. “Mr. James called the authorities and told them what we had discovered over there, and…well, the police here have boats and the bad guys will be in jail before sunset.”

“And I get to keep this big beautiful opal I found!” June said. She planned to add it to her box of treasures as soon as she got home.

“Well, I’m glad you two were able to rescue those monkeys and outsmart the bad guys,” June’s mother said. “I do have one question about your adventures, though, June… If you, your father, and three monkeys were all ready to jump on that boss guy, why did you say it was ‘six against one’?”

“Joshua 1:9, mom!” June said. “‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be…something…for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

“‘Dismayed’,” her mother reminded her. “Pretty good job remembering that one. You only forgot one word!”

“I can’t remember what ‘dismayed’ means, but I remembered the part about not being frightened and about God being with us. God made it ‘six against one’!”

Those of you who are listening to (or reading) this story probably already know that ‘dismayed’ means ‘to be concerned or distressed about something unexpected’—but we must remember that June was not quite five years old when she memorized that verse. We should be pretty impressed that she only missed that one word.

The rest of their vacation was wonderful. They heard from Mr. James that the bad guys were arrested and ended up in jail. The illegal mining operation on Monkey Island had been shut down.

June and her family enjoyed several more happy days on the beach, even though Corey was too little to do much—other than napping. They got to see Mango Monkey and his family a few more times, and June was sad when it was finally time to return home and leave her friends.

“We’ll come back to see them again next year,” her father told her as they boarded the plane for the flight home.

“You promise?” June asked him.

“I promise!”