Precious and the Monkeys (7 page)

Tapiwa and Sepo walked off, but only after throwing a disapproving look at Poloko. It was the sort of look that said
You're still a thief, you know.
And Poloko,
who was clearly feeling very miserable, walked off in the other direction.

Precious waited for a moment before following the dejected-looking boy. “Poloko,” she said, as she caught up with him. “I believe you. I don't think you're a thief.”

He stopped. “Thank you, Precious. I know you don't think that.” He paused, looking over his shoulder to where other children were standing, listening to Tapiwa and Sepo. “But they'll all think I'm a thief.”

Precious knew that what he said was true. But she did not like to think that he was still unhappy, and so she tried to comfort him further. “It doesn't matter what people like that think,” she said. “What matters is what your friends think. I'm your friend, and I know that you're telling the truth.”

He listened to what she said and was about to say something when the
bell sounded for them to return to the classroom. So he simply muttered “Thank you” and left it at that.

But Precious was not going to leave it there. That afternoon, when all the children left the school and began to walk back home under the hot African sun, she found Poloko and asked him to walk with her. They were going in the same direction, as he did not live far away from her.

He was pleased that she asked, as they could both see the other children looking at him suspiciously.

“You see,” he said. “They've told everybody. Now they all think I'm a thief.”

“Pay no attention to them,” said Precious. “They can think what they like.”

She knew, though, that it was not that simple. All of us worry about what other people think, even if we do not have to. It was easy to tell somebody to ignore that sort of thing; it was much harder to put such advice into practice.

They set off, following the path that wound down the hill. It was a narrow path and a winding one – here and there great boulders had rolled down the hill thousands of years ago and the path had to twist around these. In between the boulders, trees had grown up, their roots working their way through gaps in the
stone. These trees made the places in between the rocks a cool refuge from the heat of the sun, and sometimes Precious would sit down there and rest on her way home. But these places were also good hiding places for snakes, and so you had to be careful or …

There was a noise off among the rocks, and they both gave a start.

“A snake?” whispered Poloko.

“Perhaps,” said Precious. “Should we look?”

Poloko nodded. “Yes, but we must be careful.”

They heard the noise again. This time Precious thought that it might be coming from the tree, and she looked up into the branches.

“There!” she said, pointing into the tangle of leaves.

Poloko looked up. He had expected to see a snake wound round one of the branches,
but that was not what he spotted.

“Monkeys!” he said.

Precious smiled. “They were watching us.”

And then, just as she spoke, one of the monkeys dropped something. It fell down
from the tree, caught in a shaft of light through the leaves. Poloko watched it, and then ran forward to pick it up, paying no heed to the excited chattering of the monkeys above his head.

For a moment or two he stared at it before passing it to Precious.

It was a piece of iced bun.

OW SHE WAS SURE.
But it was one thing to be sure about something and quite another to prove it to others. That was something that all detectives knew, and although she had only just started being a detective, Precious was well aware that you had to be able to show people something if you wanted them to believe it.

That night, as she lay on her sleeping mat, she went over in her mind what she had seen. The monkeys were the culprits – they had given themselves away – but it would not be easy to catch them in the act. Monkeys were very nimble, and, in their own, special monkeyish way, very
cunning. It was much easier to catch a human being red-handed than to catch a monkey.

Red-handed … It was just an expression, a couple of words that meant to catch somebody in the middle of doing something wrong, but it was a good way of putting it and … red-handed?

She closed her eyes and imagined how monkeys would steal buns. They would dart in through the window when nobody was looking and their little hands, so like human hands in every respect, but a bit hairier, would stretch out and snatch. Those little hands … What if the thing they were trying to snatch was even stickier than the stickiest of iced buns? What if it was a cake filled with … icing sugar and GLUE?

Like all good ideas, it was enough to make you sit bolt upright. And that is what Precious did, sitting up on her sleeping
mat, her eyes wide, a broad smile on her face. Yes! She had worked out how to trap a thief, particularly one with tiny hands!

She lay down and closed her eyes again. It took some time for her to drop off, as it often does when one has had a particularly clever idea, but eventually she became drowsier and drowsier and went off to sleep.

She dreamed, and of course her dreams were about monkeys. She was walking under some trees in her dream and the monkeys were up in the branches above her. They were calling out, and to her
surprise they were calling her name.
Come up here, Precious. Come up here and join us.

In your dreams you can often do things that you just cannot do when you are awake. Precious could not normally climb trees very well, but in her dream she could. It was very easy, in fact, and within moments she was up in the branches with the monkeys. They gathered about her, their tiny, wizened faces filled with joy at finding a new friend. Soft, tiny hands touched her, stroking her gently, while other hands explored her ears and hair.

Then they took her by the hand and led her along one of the branches. The ground was far away below, so hard and rocky if you should fall.
Don't be frightened
, said one of the monkeys.
It's very easy, you know.

And with that, Precious began to swing from branch to branch, just as the
monkeys do. It was the most wonderful, light feeling, and her heart soared as she moved effortlessly through the canopy of leaves. So this was what it was like to live in the trees – it was like living in the sky. And it was like flying too. As she let go of one branch and swung through the air to another, she felt as light as one of the leaves itself might feel as it dropped from the bough.