Story Twelve - Part One

I hope you’ve heard (or read) at least one story about the girl many people call ‘Monkey June’. If you haven’t, I wonder why you are reading this story instead of starting at the beginning. You do realize that this is the twelfth Monkey June story, right? Well, however you got here, here we are, so let’s get into the story…

June was a girl who really loved monkeys—which was good, because her life seemed to be full of them. She had a stuffed monkey named ‘Monkey’, she had shirts with monkeys on them, skirts with monkeys on them, shoes with monkeys on them…I think you get the picture. She even personally knew a whole family of monkeys who were some of her best friends. She had visited island where they lived twice already.

This story is about her third visit to that island.

I must let you know that this is another one of those stories 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’ in this story, and you’ll hardly hear the name ‘Monkey June’ at all. I’m sorry, but that’s just how things were in her younger days.

June was a very clever four-year-old girl. The summer before she turned five, she and her family visited their favorite island for a bit of a vacation. It was a tropical island, so it was always warm and sunny there. I can’t tell you where it is or what its real name is for two reasons: I don’t want you to go there trying to find and visit Mango Monkey (Monkey June’s monkey friend who lives there), and I don’t want anyone to go there thinking that they might find a massive treasure that may or may not be hidden in a giant wooden sailing ship that may or may not be buried somewhere under the forest of that island—and may or may not have a family of monkeys living in it.

June and her family usually called it Mango Beach Island, so we can probably call it that, too. (You’ll never guess what they called one of the beaches on that island…)

If you don’t know all about how June and her family had been to this island when she was nearly three years old and again when she was nearly four years old, and how they had met a ‘dangerous’ monkey named Mango Monkey, and about the strange adventures they had all had, you can read about those thigns in Story Six: Monkey June and Mango Monkey, and in Story Eight: Monkey June and the Brass Monkey.

If you’ve already heard (or read) those stories, I’m sure you remember that June’s parents had promised to take her back to that island every year for a nice summer vacation. Little June reminded them of their promise constantly, of course. She always looked forward to visiting the island again, finding her friend Mango Monkey, and seeing how he and his family were doing. She didn’t speak monkey language, so she didn’t know what their monkey names were, but she liked to call them Mango Monkey, Beautiful (Mango Monkey’s wife, who really was the most beautiful monkey June had ever seen), and Bunky, their little child monkey.

The last time June had been to the island, she had discovered the secret underground house where Mango monkey and his family were living.

I won’t bore you with long descriptions of how they prepared for their trip, all of the things they packed, the arrangements they made for a friend to come to their house and water their plants while they were away, how they made reservations to stay at their favorite hotel, and so on. I’ll just fast-forward to the part where they arrive at the hotel…

It was a beautiful, sunny day as June and her family walked into the hotel on Mango Beach Island (not its real name). Their friend Mr. James was in the lobby and came right over to greet them.

“June!” he shouted in his big, friendly voice, “It’s so wonderful to see you and your parents again this summer! And who is this new little one?”

“That’s my baby brother Corey,” June said proudly. “He was just born in March.”

“Well, I’m so glad that he’s here! I’m glad that all of you are here!”

I might have forgotten to mention that June’s little brother Corey was born in March that year. He was a little over four months old on his first visit to Mango Beach Island (not its real name).

“I’ve arranged for you to have one of our best rooms,” Mr. James continued.

“Thank you so much,” June’s father said to Mr. James. “You know, you’re always so helpful to us, and you seem to know everything about the island, its history, its people, and its monkeys—but I don’t think I’ve ever asked you what you do here at the hotel.”

“I thought you knew,” James said. “I’m the owner of this hotel. It’s been owned and run by my family since before the island’s colonial days.”

“Is that a long time?” June asked.

“Centuries,” James said.

“Wow!” June said.

“Eeerk,” Corey squealed.

“Even Corey is impressed!” said June’s father with a smile.

“No…I don’t think he’s impressed,” June’s mother said. “I think this little one needs to be changed.”

“I’ll take you straight to your room,” James said with a warm smile. “We’ll get you checked in later, after everyone has had a chance to settle in—and little Corey has been outfitted with a new diaper.”

June’s mother and father (and Corey, I suppose) wanted to spend their first day on Mango Beach, relaxing after their long flight, but June was only excited about one thing…

“I need to go and see Mango Monkey!” she said (repeatedly). “And his family!”

“You’re not going anywhere out of our sight on this trip,” June’s mother said. “Every time we let you run off somewhere where we can’t see you, something scary happens.”

“Something ‘interesting’, I think you mean,” June suggested. “Besides, I’m big now. I’m almost five.”

“You won’t be five for another two months,” her father reminded her. “And I’m not even sure five would be big enough to go running around in the woods by yourself. What if you fall into a big, dark, gooey puddle or something?”

“I already did that once—and I was really little. And I was smart enough to figure my way out of it!”

“Still, we don’t need you falling into any dangerous situations,” her mother said firmly. “We’ll go with you when you visit Mango Monkey and his family. That’s final.”

“Okay,” June said, picking her towel up off of the sand. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

June’s mother and father looked at each other with a silent, questioning look they often shared. June thought it might mean ‘She’s going to keep talking about this until we do it, so…should we just go ahead and do it now?’

Whatever the look meant, June’s parents got up and started folding their beach blankets. June’s mother put Corey into a baby-carrying sling made of cloth that attached him to the front of her. It always made June smile to see Corey in that sling because it made him look exactly like a baby monkey clinking to its mother.

They were ready. Off the family went, into the woods.

“Do you remember the way?” June’s mother asked her as they passed a big, dark, gooey puddle in the forest.

“Of course!” June called back to them from her place in the lead. “And if I get lost, I’ll just remember my favorite verse!”

June had been learning longer verses from her mother and father now that she was almost five.

“I’m sure you don’t remember that long verse,” her mother said with a smile, knowing that June would prove to her that she certainly did know it.

“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight!”

“But do you remember where it’s found?” her father asked.

“Proverbs three, verses five and six,” June answered confidently. “Look! There’s the tree!”

She ran ahead of her parents and Corey (because of course you knew she would), and ran around to the back side of a large oddly shaped tree. By the time her parents got there, she was halfway down some old wooden steps that they could see went down into the tree but also deep into the earth.

They followed her.

When they got to the bottom, they found June holding an old, rusty, metal flashlight that she had just switched on.

“This one looks like the batteries might last a while,” June said. “Follow me!”

Her parents (and Corey, of course) had no choice but to follow June, since they didn’t want to be left in the dark at the bottom of those strange steps, and they didn’t want to go back up to the forest and leave June alone in such a strange place.

“I know exactly where to find them,” June said as she moved boldly through the dark, past a bunch of bunk beds and a room that looked like a large, old, fancy bedroom—then through a door, down more stairs, past long rows of canons, through another door, down more stairs, and into a long room lined with heavy padlocked doors.

“This is a ship!” June’s father said.

“I think I know what ship,” her mother said.

“Now you have to keep the secret, too,” June said. She had arrived at a door at the far end of the storage level. She knocked politely at the door.

No one answered.

June knocked harder.

No one answered.

June banged on the door with both of her fists.

No one answered, but the door did swing open a little bit. June pushed the door open a little more and shined her flashlight into the darkness. It was an empty cargo hold. It looked like a room where some monkeys had been living. There were some nice leaf-beds in one corner and some piles of bananas and other fruit (like mangoes, of course) on the other side of the room. But there were no monkeys to be seen anywhere.

“What’s that smell?” June’s mother asked.

June’s father pointed to the fruit piles. “I think those bananas and mangoes have gone bad. It looks like no one has been here for a long time.”

“Where could they be?” June asked. In the yellow glow of the dimming flashlight, her parents noticed a tear rolling down June’s cheek.

“We’ll figure that out, dear,” her mother said, “but first we should get back above ground before that flashlight goes out.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried looking for a missing family of monkeys in a tropical forest, but I can assure you that it’s quite a difficult task.

They searched the area around the oddly shaped tree for clues, but could find nothing.

They went back to the big, dark, gooey puddle and looked for monkey footprints that might point them in the right direction, but they found nothing.

They went through the forest all the way to the rushing river that had a huge log across it. Beneath the log, the deep river roared violently down towards the ocean over dozens of sharp, dangerous rocks.

“It’s the only place they could be,” June said, pointing across the river. “We’ve looked everywhere else.”

“I’m not taking Corey over that,” June’s mother said.

“I’ll go with June,” June’s father said. “You can take Corey back to the hotel for a nap. I’m sure we’ll be back by nightfall, and we’ll tell you all about how we found Mango Monkey and his family.”

“Or we’ll tell you about how we didn’t,” June said sadly.

“I thought you were depending on a certain verse today,” June’s mother said. “Sounds like you might need to remind yourself of what it says.”

“Proverbs three, five and six: Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight!”

“I expect straight paths for you both,” said June’s mother. “And I will be taking a straight path to a nap for Corey and me.”

With that, she kissed them both and headed back towards Mango Beach and the hotel.

June and her father looked at the huge log. Then they looked at each other.

“At least the huge log looks pretty dry today,” June said with a grin.

Continued in Monkey June and the Shimmering Stone - Part Two