My Dragon – Chapter 8 – I Meet A Gorilla

Chapter 8 – I Meet A Gorilla

I continued down the trail, but I started to feel hungry. I felt so hungry that I decided to take a short break. I sat down under a baby banyan tree that was near the trail and I ate four tangerines. I wanted to eat eight or ten, but I only had thirteen left and I didn’t know when I could get more food.

I packed away all the peels and I was about to get up when I heard the familiar voices of the boars.

“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes. You just wait and see for yourself! All the tigers are sitting around chewing gum. Old Rhinoceros is so busy brushing his horn that he doesn’t even look around to see who’s walking past. They’re all so busy that they won’t even talk to me!”

“That’s nonsense!” said the second boar, who was now walking even closer towards me. “They’ll talk to me! I’m going to get to the bottom of this, even if it’s the last thing I do!”

The voices passed me and went around a curve. As soon as they were out of sight, I jumped up and hurried down the trail. I knew how much more upset the boars would be when they saw the lion’s mane tied up in hair ribbons.

Before long, I came to a crossroads. I stopped to read the signs. Straight ahead, an arrow pointed to the Beginning of the River. Behind me was the Clearings. To the left was the Ocean Rocks. And to the right, the path lead to the Dragon Ferry.

As I was reading all theses signs, I heard steps behind me, so I ducked behind the signpost. A beautiful lioness paraded past and turned down the path that led to the clearings. Although she could have seen me if she had bothered to glance at the post, she was too busy acting dignified, so she didn’t see anything except for the tip of her own nose.

It was the lion’s mother, of course. And that, I thought, must mean that the dragon was on this side of the river. I hurried down the path, but it was farther than I thought. I finally got to the river bank in the late afternoon and looked all around, but there was no dragon anywhere in sight. He must have gone back to the other side.

I sat down under a palm tree. I was trying to come up with a good idea when something big, black and hairy jumped out of the tree and landed at my feet with a loud crash.

“Well?” said a huge voice.

“Well what?” I said. I was immediately sorry for saying that when I looked up and discovered that I was talking to an enormous, fierce gorilla.

“Well, explain yourself,” said the gorilla. “I’ll give you until the count of ten to tell me your name, business, age, and what’s in that backpack,” and he began counting to ten as fast as he could.

I didn’t even have time to say “Elmer Elevator, explorer” before the gorilla interrupted, “Too slow! I’ll twist your arms! Just like how I twist that dragon’s wings. Then we’ll see if you can’t hurry up.” He grabbed my arms, one in each of his fists, and he was just about to twist them when suddenly he let go. He started scratching his chest with both hands.

“These darn fleas!” he raged. “They won’t give me a moment of peace! And the worst thing of all is that you can’t even see them.”

He scratched and scratched. Then he called out, “Rosie! Rhoda! Rachel! Ruthie! Ruby! Roberta! Come here and get rid of this flea on my chest. It’s driving me crazy!”

Six little monkeys tumbled out of the palm tree, dashed to the gorilla, and began combing the hair on his chest with their fingers.

“Well,” said the gorilla, “it’s still there!”

“We’re looking, we’re looking,” said the six little monkeys, “but they’re awfully hard to see, you know.”

“I know,” said the gorilla, “but hurry. I’ve got work to do,” and he winked at me.

“Oh, Gorilla,” I said, “in my backpack, I have six magnifying glasses. They’re just the right thing for hunting fleas.” I unpacked them and gave one to Rosie, one to Rhoda, one to Rachel, one to Ruthie, one to Ruby and one to Roberta.

“Wow, they’re miraculous!” said the six little monkeys. “It’s easy to see the fleas now. But oh no! There isn’t just one. There are hundreds of them!” And they went on hunting frantically.

A moment later, many more monkeys appeared out of a nearby clump of mangrove trees and began crowding around to get a look at the fleas through the magnifying glasses. They completely surrounded the gorilla and he could not see me or remember to twist my arms.