Story Eleven

I’m going to assume that you already know a lot about Monkey June and I’m not going to spend too much time at the start of this story describing her to you. I will spend a little time, though—in case you aren’t familiar with her.

She was a girl about your age who really, really, really loved monkeys.

(Was that short enough? I could have tried it with ‘really, really’ instead of using three of them. But I think maybe I should have used more than three. But never mind that—we must move on to the story part of the story.)

Monkey June woke up one sunny morning, rubbed her eyes, stretched a bit, and looked around her room. She saw her monkey backpack, her favorite monkey shirt, her favorite monkey-patterned skirt, and…her shoes. (I’ll let you guess what was on them.) They were all neatly set out on the chair by her desk. It was unlike her to be so organized. She wondered why…

She suddenly remembered why she had put all of those things there before going to sleep! Today was the last day of school! And it was Field Day!

Monkey June jumped out of bed and got herself ready for school in record time!

Monkey June burst into the kitchen to find her mother making her world-famous french toast! Her favorite breakfast!

“Just in time!” her mother said, sliding some french toast onto a monkey-shaped plate for her with some sliced bananas and delicious syrup.

“Thanks!” Monkey June said. “I’m so excited for Field Day today!”

“This breakfast should fuel you up for an active day,” her mother said as she sipped her coffee. “I accidentally used a little too much sugar in the recipe. Hope it doesn’t make you too active.”

“Nah,” Monkey June said. “I’ll have two more pieces. I’m going to need the energy!”

“Coming right up!”

“Mom…” Monkey June asked between bites of the most delicious french toast the world had ever known, “…do you know where my old monkey socks are? The yellow ones?”

“Um…I think they were getting kind of worn out. Didn’t you wear them to Field Day last year?”

“I wear them to Field Day every year! Those are my luckiest socks!”

“Well,” her mother said, looking a little uncomfortable, “I…haven’t seen them in a long time. They were really stretched out and—you remember how one of them had a hole—”

“Please don’t tell me you threw them away!” Monkey June said, suddenly getting the feeling that her mother was about to tell her that the luckiest socks in the world had been thrown out.

“I don’t think I did, sweetie,” her mother said. “I’m pretty sure I put them in ‘the vault’.”

Monkey June breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“I’m going to find those socks!” she said as soon as she had finished wolfing down the last few bites of breakfast.

“Don’t take too long,” her mother said as Monkey June ran out of the kitchen. “It’s almost time to go!”

Now, you might be thinking that Monkey June’s family had a mysterious vault in their house where they kept important or expensive things—like a bank vault (which is a huge safe the size of a room with a huge metal door and a giant metal lock-thing on it).

The ‘vault’ at their house was not that kind of vault, though. That was just what they called the corner of the attic where they stored Monkey June’s old toys and clothes and things that were too important to her to get rid of but didn’t need to be cluttering up her room anymore.

Monkey June ran upstairs to the attic door, flung open the door, and ran up the steep, narrow steps to the attic. She was a girl on a mission!

After flipping on the attic lights, she went straight to the ‘vault’ side of the attic and started digging through boxes of old clothes and things. She found her first pair of monkey shoes. She found her favorite monkey sweatshirt for winter (which was being stored up there until winter came around again). She found an art project she had made earlier in the year—monkey-related, of course.

What she didn’t find was…her luckiest socks.

“HEY!” she heard her mother shouting up the attic stairs. “Time to go!”

Something suddenly caught her eye—way over in the corner where there was a lot of stuff from when she was very little. There was a crib over there, a little dresser, the cutest little wooden rocking chair—and right there sitting on the rocking chair was the thing that had caught her eye: a strangely familiar…pillow.

It was a very small pillow. It looked handmade. There was a cute little monkey stitched on it.

She didn’t know why the pillow made her feel so happy, but it completely erased her desire for her lucky socks. She felt certain that she needed to bring it with her. It didn’t make any sense, but she also felt certain that having that pillow with her would be far more useful than having the luckiest socks in the world on her feet.

She ran over to the rocking chair, grabbed the little pillow, and ran downstairs.

Monkey June’s mother barely got her to school in time. As she was wishing Monkey June good luck at Field Day, her mother noticed a bit of pink cloth sticking out of her monkey backpack.

“What’s that?” her mother asked.

Monkey June pulled the pillow halfway out of her backpack.

“Monkey pillow. Found it in the vault. Gotta go! Wish me luck!”

Her mother didn’t say anything. She was suddenly speechless. She looked…shocked. She went pale. She looked frightened—like she had just seen a ghost instead of a cute, little monkey pillow.

“Um…wait! I don’t think you should bring that pillow with you. It’s…something your grandmother gave you when you were one year old. She used to say that someone gave it to her when she was one year old. She said had no idea how old it really was. It’s…kind of an antique. It’s not something you should run around with at school. What if it gets dirty? Or what if you lose it?”

“It’s fine, mom,” Monkey June insisted. “I won’t lose it. Can’t be late! Bye!” She stuffed the monkey pillow back into her backpack and ran into the school.

“This could be a problem…” Monkey June’s mother said to herself as she drove away from the school.

I don’t know if your school has a Field Day, but if it doesn’t, it should. If you are homeschooled, I hope you get together with a group of other homeschoolers and do some kind of a Field Day once in a while—or maybe you should try it with some brothers or sisters or cousins—or whoever!

The best thing about Field Day was that it took all day. (That’s why it has the word ‘Day’ right in the name.) No, wait…the best thing about Field Day was that it happened on the last day of school. No…the best thing about Field Day was how fun it was. Or…maybe all of those things were the best thing.

Monkey June didn’t have her lucky socks, but she had a feeling that her monkey pillow would bring her all the luck she could possibly need. She pulled it out of her backpack, squished it down, and zipped it up in the little bag she knew she’d have with her all day.

Usually the school’s PE teacher ran Field Day, but the PE teacher was out sick that day—so Mr. Jeffries was put in charge of Field Day.

The first event was Tug of War. Monkey June could immediately see that her team had no chance of winning. Chill Phil and a bunch of bigger kids were on the other side of the rope, and Monkey June’s side was mostly younger, smaller kids. It didn’t make sense. Maybe Mr. Jeffries didn’t know how to run a Field Day—or maybe her pillow wasn’t so lucky after all…

Mr. Jeffries blew his whistle and the teams started pulling on the rope. The smaller kids did not immediately get pulled over the line! After pulling for a while, Monkey June realized that her team was keeping the bigger kids from winning…and then…unexpectedly…Monkey June’s team was winning! With just a few more tugs, they pulled the bigger kids over the line like it was nothing!

“I don’t know what you had for breakfast,” Chill Phil said to her as he massaged his sore hands, “but it must have been packed with energy!”

“My mom’s world-famous french toast!” she said—but she was wondering if something other than french toast might have helped. She was also wondering why her hands weren’t sore at all.

As Field Day went on, the games got stranger and stranger. It became obvious that Mr. Jeffries knew almost nothing about how a Field Day was supposed to work. He had the kids do a four-legged race instead of a three-legged race. (That was three kids on each team—in a row with only the legs on the outside not tied together.) Instead of a potato-sack race, he had them do a really difficult race called Two-in-a-sack. If you’ve never tried jumping across a field with you and a partner stuffed into the same sack—well, I don’t recommend you try it.

Even though the games were strange and unfamiliar, Monkey June simply could not lose! Monkey June, Marilyn, and Carolyn won the four-legged race together. Monkey June and Ryan won the Two-in-a-sack race so quickly that one of the teachers said they thought they had just seen a kangaroo jump across the field.

The weirdest thing of all was that the more games and races Monkey June did, the less tired she was. She was more and more energetic as Field Day went on!

She won every race game whether she had a partner, a team, or just ran on her own. She won every water game. She even won the random games that Mr. Jeffries added to Field Day that no one had ever heard of before! There was a ‘Jump-a-rope Challenge’, a ‘Loop-the-Loop Race’, a game called ‘Ten Square’, and a ‘Hula Hoop Game’ that didn’t actually use any hula hoops. Most of these games had instructions that no one could understand—but Monkey June won every one!

That was the good news. But the bad news was that with every event she did, Monkey June got more and more active. By the time her grade was sent to jump around in the bounce houses, you might say that she was already bouncing—no inflatables needed!

“Maybe you should skip the popsicles,” her friend Carolyn said, barely keeping up with her as they rushed to the popsicle and bounce house area, which was close to the school building.

“I agree,” her friend Marilyn said, trying to catch her breath as she struggled to keep up. “You don’t need any more sugar.”

“Hey,” Monkey June called back over her shoulder, “watch me dominate the monkey bars!” She hit the monkey bars at a full run, scampered up to the top (skipping most of the ladder bars), and swung herself to the other side faster than a real, live monkey could have done it. At the other end, she actually screeched like a monkey and launched herself through the air. As she landed on the grass, she rolled like an action hero in a movie, then popped up onto her feet and went back to running.

Carolyn and Marilyn stopped trying to keep up with her and paused to catch their breath.

Monkey June ran up the playground slide, paused at the top to give another monkey screech, then scampered down the ladder part of the slide. From there she kept running.

Soon she was on one of the bounce houses. Let me say that a bit more slowly so you don’t miss what I’m saying: She…was…not…in…a…bounce…house—she…was…on…top…of…a…bounce…house. No one was quite sure how she got up there. It all happened so fast.

Someone ran and told Mr. Jeffries and asked him if something needed to be done about Monkey June. By the time he walked over to the bounce house to see for himself what was going on, Monkey June was no longer up there. You might think that was good news, but it was not. Just as everyone was wondering where she had gone, they heard her calling down to them from much higher up.

“Hey, did you guys know that you can bounce to the roof of the school from the top of that bounce house?” she shouted. Everyone was shocked to see her standing on the roof of the school looking down at them.

“What is she waving around up there?” Marilyn asked.

“I can’t tell,” Carolyn answered. “Something square? Something pink? Or is it pink and white? I think it has a monkey on it.”

“Young lady, get down from there this instant!” Mr. Jeffries yelled.

A teacher leaned over to Mr. Jeffries and quietly asked, “Mr. Jeffries, are you instructing one of our students to jump from the roof of the school onto a bounce house?”

“Uhh…” Mr. Jeffries said, unsure how to answer that question. “No. I mean, I don’t think I am. Maybe we should call the Fire Department.”

“Where’d she go?” Marilyn asked Carolyn. Monkey June could no longer be seen on the roof of the school.

“This is not good,” Mr. Jeffries and the teacher said at the same time.

“This is very strange,” Marilyn and Carolyn said at the same time.

“This is awesome!” Chill Phil and Ryan said at the same time.

“I’m back!” Monkey June said, suddenly walking around the corner of the school building. “There’s a big drain pipe in the back that was super-easy to climb down.”

“Principal’s office,” Mr. Jeffries said angrily. “Now.”

“Principal Evans,” Monkey June’s mother said calmly, “this is all just a…terrible misunderstanding.” Monkey June and her mother sat across from Principal Evans' desk in the Principal’s office.

Principal Evans took off her glasses and calmly placed them on the center of her desk (which kids said she only did when she was very, very, very angry). After a pause, she said, “Misunderstanding? A student running around on the roof of the school—"

“I wasn’t running,” Monkey June interrupted her. “That would be dangerous. I was kind of…bouncing. But I was mostly standing—carefully—looking down at everyone.”

Principal Evans didn’t respond. Her face turned very red and her lips started trembling.

“Principal Evans,” Monkey June’s mother said calmly, “I shouldn’t have let her bring her monkey pillow to school. It was a gift from her grandmother when she was very small—just one year old, actually.”

Principal Evans looked confused. “What does that have to do with—”

“It has always—shall we say—hyped her up a bit,” Monkey June’s mother explained. “When she was little she used to say that it gave her ‘monkey superpowers’. Oh, the imagination of a child! We didn’t like the dangerous things she did whenever she had it with her, so her father and I, um…put it in a safe place one night when she was four, and she hasn’t seen it since.”

“Until today?” Principal Evans asked.

“Exactly,” Monkey June’s mother said.

“So you’re saying if you take this…baby pillow away from her and hide it, she won’t do anything like this again?”

“Wait a second—” Monkey June started to say, but her mother motioned for her to be quiet.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” her mother told Principal Evans.

“Let’s agree to that, then. And young lady, I hope I never see you in my office again—unless I’m giving you an award for academic excellence or…for winning the Science Fair or something.”

“Could I do a science fair project about monkeys?” Monkey June asked.

Monkey June’s mother nudged her with her elbow.

“Yes, ma’am,” Monkey June said quietly.

Monkey June was in her room trying to figure out how to display all of the medals she had won at Field Day when her mother came in.

“That’s a lot of medals!” her mother said.

“More than anyone has won at any other Field Day in the history of the school!” Monkey June said proudly. Then she paused for a moment before asking, “Do you really think the monkey pillow gave me monkey superpowers?”

“I didn’t say that I thought that. I said that you used to think that. Your father and I decided that you loved that pillow so much that it got you overexcited and made you think you had superpowers. You were so obsessed with it that we finally decided to put it away for awhile.”

“And now it’s been put away for awhile again?” Monkey June asked her mother.

“For awhile,” her mother said. “It’s never good to become obsessed with anything here on earth and make it the number one thing in your life. People who do that are quick to forget who’s really supposed to be number one in their life.”

“God!” Monkey June said. “’And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ Mark 12:30!”

“Exactly. If you really need that pillow for something, you can ask me and maybe I’ll get it for you. If it’s a good enough reason. Otherwise it’ll stay hidden. That thing seems to cause trouble wherever it goes.”

“Like a wild monkey! Okay, so if I’m ever in danger or need to save the city—or save the world or whatever—it’s still around here somewhere. Got it.”

“Save the world…” Monkey June’s mother said. “You know…if the world needed saving and I had to find a girl who could do it, I would definitely pick you—pillow or no pillow.”

Next thing you know, Monkey June’s mother was getting a big hug from her girl—and if there are any stories about other times when Monkey June had to use that pillow, I’ll have to tell you about those some other time.