Precious and the Monkeys

by Alexander McCall Smith

  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.

  She moved through the trees, the monkeys all about her, waving to her, encouraging her. And then slowly the trees thinned out and she was on the ground again. She looked for her friends, the monkeys, and saw that they were gone. So it is with dreams: they take us to places we cannot stay; they bring us friends who will soon be gone. That is the way it is with dreams.

  HE NEXT MORNING, Precious was the first in the house to get out of bed. She had work to do – detective work – and her first task was to bake a cake. This was not difficult, as she was a good cook and had a well-tried recipe for sponge cake. Precious had learned to cook because she had to – her mother had died when she was very small and although her father thought that he was looking after her, when it came to cooking meals it was Precious who looked after him!

  The cake did not take long, and was soon out of the oven. It smelled delicious, but she resisted the temptation to cut a slice for herself and try it. Rather than do that, she took a knife and cut out the middle of the cake so that it was left with a large hole in it.

  The next bit of the plan was more difficult. Her father had a workshop next to the house – a place where he fixed fence posts and did odd carpentry jobs for friends. On a shelf in this workshop was a large pot of glue that he used for sticking wood together – it was very strong glue, a thick, sticky paste that was just the thing she was looking for.

  Very carefully, making sure to get none on her fingers, Precious ladled out several spoonfuls of this glue onto a plate. Replacing the glue-pot on the shelf, she went back to the kitchen. Now she took the piece of cake that she had cut from the centre and mixed it up with the glue. It made a wonderfully sticky mess – just what she wanted.

  She next put this sticky mixture back into the hole in the cake and covered the whole thing with icing. For good measure, she stuck a few red and yellow jelly sweets on the top. Nobody would be able to resist such a cake, she thought. Certainly no monkey would.

  “That’s a nice cake you’ve cooked,” said her father over breakfast. “Is that for your teacher?”

  Precious smiled. “No, I don’t think so.” She could imagine what would happen if the teacher ate that particular cake.

  “For your friends?” asked her father.

  Precious thought for a moment. She remembered her dream and the way the monkeys in it had welcomed her to their trees. Yes, they were her friends, she thought. In spite of all their tricks and their mischievousness, they were her friends.

  She carried the cake to school in a box. When she arrived, she put the box down carefully and took out its mouth-watering contents.

  “Look at that cake!” shouted somebody.

  “Don’t leave it there,” said another. “If you leave it there, Precious, then Poloko will be sure to steal it!”

  Other children laughed at this, but Precious did not. “Don’t say that,” she said crossly. But they did, and they said it again.

  “Poloko will eat that entirely up,” said one of the boys. “That’s why he’s so fat. He’s a fat thief!”

  Precious hoped that Poloko had not heard this, but feared that he had. She saw him walking away, his head lowered. People are so unkind, she thought. How would they like to be called a thief? Well, she would show them just how wrong they were.

  With the cake left outside, on the shelf where the children left their bags, school began. Precious went into the classroom and tried to concentrate on the lesson that the teacher was giving, but it was not easy.

  Her mind kept wandering, and she found herself imagining what was going on outside. The cake would be sitting there, the perfect temptation for any passing monkey, and it could only be a question of time before …

  It happened suddenly. One moment everything was quiet, and the next there came a great squealing sound from outside. The squealing became louder and was soon a sort of howling sound, rather like the siren of a fire engine.

  The teacher and the entire class looked up in astonishment.

  “What on earth is going on?” asked the teacher. “Open the door, Sepo, and see what’s happening.”

  The entire class took this as an invitation to go to the door, and they were soon all gathered round the open door and the windows too, peering out to see what was going on.

  What was happening was that two monkeys were dancing up and down alongside the shelf, their hands stuck firmly in the mixture of glue and cake. Struggle as they might to free themselves, each time they withdrew a hand it came out with a long strand of glue that dragged it back in. They were thoroughly and completely stuck to the cake.

  “See,” shouted Precious in triumph. “There are the thieves, Mma. See there!”

  The teacher laughed. “Well, well. So it’s monkeys who have been up to no good. Well, well!”

  The school gardener had been alerted to the sound of squealing, and he now appeared. Seizing the monkeys, he pulled them away from the cake, freeing them to scamper back to the trees not far away.

  “Little rascals,” he shouted, shaking a fist at them as they disappeared.

  The teacher called everybody back to their desks. “We shall have to be more careful in future,” she said. “Don’t leave anything out to tempt those monkeys. That’s the way to deal with that.”

  Precious said nothing.

  Then the teacher continued. “And I hope that some of you have learned a lesson,” she said. “Those who accused Poloko of being a thief may like to think about what they have just seen.”

  The teacher looked at Sepo and Tapiwa, who both looked down at the floor. Precious watched them. They had learned a lesson, she thought.

  On the way back from school that day, Poloko came up to her and thanked her for what she had done. “You are a very kind girl,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “That’s all right,” she said.

  “You’re going to be a very good detective one day,” he went on. “Do you still want to be one?”

  She thought for a moment. It was a good thing to be a detective. You could help people who needed help. You could fight injustice. You could make people happier – as Poloko now was.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”

  They walked on. In the trees not far away, there were some small eyes watchi
ng them from the leaves. The monkeys. Her friends.

  Poloko walked back past her house, and Precious turned to him and said, “Would you like me to make a cake? We could eat it for our tea?”

  He said he would, and while Precious baked the cake, he sat outside and sniffed the delicious smell wafting through the kitchen window.

  Then the cake was ready, and they each had a large slice.

  “Perfect,” said Poloko. “First class, number one cake.”

  And that is when she thought When I have a detective agency I’ll call it the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

  Many years later, she did just that. Which shows something else: when you decide that you want to do something, really want to do it, then you can. You really can.