Daddy Monkey and the Cat Weasel

“Where did you and Daddy Monkey go out to last night Mummy?" asked Emma.

Timmy’s mum had come round and read Emma stories before she went to sleep, while Mummy and Daddy had gone out. “Catweazle,” said Mummy, “It’s a place where people do music and tell stories and poems.”

“And they have banana beer!” said Daddy, jumping into the room and hugging everyone.

“Really?” said Emma. “Don’t tell Daddy Monkey.”

Well, Daddy and Mummy didn’t tell Daddy Monkey – but someone else did. It was Orange Dinosaur, who just happened to be rummaging in the fridge for cheese while everyone was talking. Because he’d been looking in the fridge, and he had a big neck frill blocking his ears, he didn’t quite hear it all.

Munching his cheese sandwich he wandered upstairs, where he happened to bump into Daddy Monkey, who was building a tower out of yellow Lego.

“Hello, Daddy Monkey,” said Orange Dinosaur through a mouthful of cheese. “I’ve got a challenge for you.”

Daddy Monkey thought he meant a climbing challenge, so he said. “Easy. Where is it?”

“Easy?” spluttered Orange Dinosaur, waving his five-horned face around. “You haven’t heard of the Cat Weasel have you?”

“No,” said Daddy Monkey. “Is it like a monkey puzzle tree? I can even climb those these days.”

“No!” said Orange Dinosaur, getting cheese all over his scales. “It’s a terrible monster that guards a mountain of bananas. It shouts ‘banana here! Banana here!’ but it’ll eat you all up if it catches you. You have to play it songs, or tell it stories or poems. Mummy and Daddy went to see it last night – but they didn’t get eaten.”

“I wonder if they brought any bananas back for me,” said Daddy Monkey thoughtfully. He went down to the kitchen to have a look. Orange Dinosaur was confused, so he climbed into Emma’s bed and ate the rest of his cheese sandwich.

It didn’t look like Mummy and Daddy had brought any bananas back. “Humph!” said Daddy Monkey. He was going to complain to Emma about it, but then he found a ball and spent so much time bouncing it and giggling that he forgot all about it.

But the next Thursday Orange Dinosaur woke Daddy Monkey up. He had been having a snooze on top of Daddy’s head. (Daddy was quite pleased that Orange Dinosaur had come along.)

“What’s up?” said Daddy Monkey sleepily as Orange Dinosaur hurried him out of the front room and into the kitchen. Daddy Monkey didn’t know what was going on and felt quite grumpy – a bit like Daddy in the mornings before work.

“Are you going to fight the Cat Weasel?” asked Orange Dinosaur excitedly.

“The who?” said Daddy Monkey, thinking about bananas. He wondered if cats turned into bananas, but then decided that he ought to try to listen to the noisy pentaceratops in front of him.

“The Cat Weasel!” shouted Orange Dinosaur. “You know, the banana monster!”

“Oh, right!” said Daddy Monkey, suddenly remembering. “Of course, I’m the bravest monkey in all the world!”

“Great!” said Orange Dinosaur. “Off you go then.” He lifted Daddy Monkey up and carried him to the letterbox. Daddy Monkey found himself standing outside in the evening sunshine, and wondering if the Cat Weasel really was as scary as all that.

“Off you go then,” said Orange Dinosaur again, breathing cheese crumbs through the letterbox.

Well, Daddy Monkey had a bit of a problem. He didn’t know how to find the Cat Weasel, let alone know what kind of poems or stories it liked. “Hmmm,” he said to himself, and ate the banana he kept under the door mat in case of emergencies.

He thought about asking Daddy or Mummy how to get there, but he had a feeling that he’d only get into trouble. Then he had an idea – he’d ask Daddy Donkey, who lived out in a field and would surely have seen all the monsters in Oxford going past.

So he went round the back of the house to get his tricycle, but on the way back he stepped on the banana skin he’s left a minute before.

“Waaaaaagh!” he shouted as he slid along the footpath by Abingdon Road, with his tricycle on his head.

“What a funny monkey,” said Duckter Who, who was flying past. “Doesn’t he know it’s meant to be the other way round?”

Well it wasn’t long before Daddy Monkey reached the field where Daddy Donkey lived, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop. He took the tricycle off his head and held it out with his long arms. One of the handlebars got stuck on a tree branch, and Daddy Monkey went swish! spin! wheee! through the air to another tree just between the footpath and Daddy Donkey’s field. His arms had been stretched even longer, and now he was in one tree while his hands and the tricycle were in the other, and a couple of pigeons had settled down for a sleep on his arms hanging between.

“Oy!” said Daddy Monkey, and wriggled.

The pigeons flapped off, one saying to the other, “I told you it looked too furry to be a phone cable!”

Daddy Monkey climbed out of his tree using his feet and tail, and held his arms above his head so that they would go back to their normal size. He decided he’d get his tricycle later.

It was late evening now, casting long shadows, and Daddy Monkey’s was very strange as he walked across the grass to where Daddy Donkey was practicing his braying quietly to himself. “Ee-ooor, ee-oor,” he was whispering, “Ee – eek!”

The shadow on the grass had tiny legs, a big hungry tum, ginormous ears and huge tickly arms! “A monster!” brayed Daddy Donkey, but he was surprised when he heard all the robins and blackbirds laughing in the hedges of his field. He rubbed his ears with his long ears and looked again. “Oh, it’s you, Daddy Monkey.”

“Hello, said Daddy Monkey, “resting his arms on Daddy Donkey’s head.

“That’s a bit warm,” said Daddy Donkey, but before he could finish Daddy Monkey was talking superfast.

“TellmeabouttheCatWeaselthatwantspoemsandstoriesandgivesyoubananasandeatsyouupifyoudon’ttellhimpoemsandstoriesandsongsandI’dlikesomebananabeerfromhimtoo!”

“What’s that you say?” said Daddy Donkey, putting a hoof to his ear. Daddy Monkey got hold of that ear and said everything again, only twice as fast.

“Cat Weasel, you say,” said Daddy Donkey, ever so slowly. “Hmmm…”

…

Daddy Monkey waited, but he wasn’t much good at waiting, and soon he was running up and down Daddy Donkey’s back and mane shouting “Come on! Come onnnn!”

But Daddy Donkey was not a donkey to be in a rush. “Let me see…” he said after a while.

“Yesyesyesyesyesyes!” said Daddy Monkey, using his tail to hang from Daddy Monkey’s ear.

“Hmmmmmm…..” said Daddy Donkey.

“Come on! Come on! Come on! Agh! Ooh! Nyargh! Come on!”

“You are impatient for such a cute little monkey.”

“I’M NOT A CUTE LITT-“

Daddy Donkey put a hoof over Daddy Monkey’s mouth. “I remember now. I don’t know anything about the Cat Weasel…”

“Mmf! Mmf! Mmf!” said Daddy Monkey, still with a hoof over his mouth.

“But we can go for a gallop around and see if we can find him.”

“YES!” said Daddy Monkey, so loudly his cheeky grin flew over the trees and scared the bats before flying back to him.

“Hang on,” said Daddy Donkey. “I’ll just have a sandwich first.”

Daddy Monkey paced. Daddy Monkey humpled. Daddy Monkey stomped. Daddy Monkey climbed into a hedge and shouted “Oggly smobbly fargly ook!”

Daddy Donkey very slowly took two dock leaves between his hooves, and filled them with the seeds of creeping buttercup and some bits of thistle. Then he munched, very slowly and finished with a big donkey gulp. “Very tasty,” he said. “Now let’s go.”

Daddy Monkey jumped from the hedge onto Daddy Donkey’s back. Then Daddy donkey walked… ever… so… slowly to the hedge.

“Come on!” shouted Daddy Monkey. “Come on! Come on!”

Daddy Donkey waited a moment, then – zooooooooooooom! he leaped over the hedge and whooshed through all the fields and gardens up to Folly Bridge and on into town. All the birds flew up into the air squawking, and the driver of a bus crossing the bridge heard a sudden clomping, and then saw hoof prints all down the front of his bus.

Daddy Donkey stopped on Cornmarket – and Daddy Monkey went booing-stretch! but held onto the donkey’s ears and ended up sitting on top of a bin. Daddy Donkey held his nose in the air, sniffing. “Hmm, no Cat Weasel round here,” he said. “Let’s have a look around.”

He went slowly up and down, sniffing all the shop doors while all the people looked and pointed – they’d never seen a donkey in the middle of Oxford before.

“Oh this is taking aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages,” grumbled Daddy Monkey. He remembered that Golden Cross was round the corner, so he decided to go and see Tom Monkey at the Story-Telling Shop while Daddy Donkey faffed around.

The Squid answered the door in its squid pyjamas, and grumpily clicked and tweeted while Daddy Monkey climbed the stairs.

Tom Monkey was just making himself a cup of banana tea and sitting down to read the latest batch of stories. “Hello, Daddy Monkey!” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for the Cat Weasel that hands out bananas if you tell it stories. Do you know anything about him?”

“The Cat Weasel?” said Tom Monkey. “Now let me think…”

While Tom Monkey was thinking, Daddy Monkey drank a few cups of banana tea and three slices of banana cake. He was just starting on the bag of strawberries on the back of the kitchen door when Tom Monkey said “Aha! I remember.”

Daddy Monkey had forgotten all about the Cat Weasel, so when Tom Monkey spoke, he jumped, said “Eek!” and accidentally threw one of the strawberries into Tom Monkey’s banana tea.

“Look!” said Tom Monkey, showing Daddy Monkey a map on his mobile phone. “You have to go down the High Street, then down Cowley Road as far as Princes Street, and on the corner there… Wait, Daddy Monkey!”

But it was too late. Daddy Monkey had run out of the kitchen and down the stairs, past the grumpy Squid, who was cleaning his beak, and out into Cornmarket, where Daddy Donkey was just settling down for a nap while all the people who’d been to the pub were taking photos of him.

“What a Daddy Monkey,” said Tom Monkey, sitting down again. “I was just going to explain that the Cat Weasel isn’t what he thinks it is – agh! Why’s there a strawberry in my tea?”

Meanwhile, Daddy Donkey was zooming again. Daddy Monkey waved his cheeky grin as they went past cyclists, buses and taxis down the High Street, and stuck his tongue out and blew raspberries as they went past people on Magdalen Bridge and down Cowley Road.

Daddy Donkey stopped ever so suddenly – again! “Wagh!” went Daddy Monkey, and this time he couldn’t keep hold of Daddy Donkey’s ears, so he hit the ground and kept rolling, a small ball of monkey fur, all along the ground, up some steps, through a door, boing off a wall, through another door, and into a very hot room. “I wonder where I’ll end up,” he wondered as he heard the sound of clapping, and a voice saying “And now for a few songs from mumble mumble.”

Bosh! Daddy Monkey hit a wall and stopped. He unfolded himself, and felt himself all over to check he was still there. He heard laughter. “This must be the den of the Cat Weasel!” he thought, and turned round.

He was standing on a little stage surrounded by curtains. “Or are they serviettes for when the Cat Weasel eats you up?” he wondered. A bright light shone into his eyes, making it hard to see. But he thought that he could make out lots and lots of eyes looking back at him. “Eeek! This Cat Weasel is scarier than I thought!”

A voice came out of the eyes in front of him. “Oy, don’t just stand there looking cute! Let’s have some songs!”

Daddy Monkey didn’t want to be eaten up, and he did want some banana beer. “Songs…” he thought to himself. So, tapping his feet, he started.

                “Daddy Monkey, indestructible

                Dn-dn-dn-dn, dn-de-de-de-dn

Daddy Monkey, indestructible

                Dn-dn-dn-dn, dn-de-de-de-dn”

There was a huge amount of clapping. Daddy Monkey’s grin got even bigger.

                “Daddy Monkey, Dad Monk

                Daddy Monkey, Dad Monk

                You only see him when you’re very hungry

                He’ll take all the bananas from you,

                All the bananas from you.”

Lots more clapping. “Sing them again!” shouted the voice. “And we’ll join in!”

So he did, and lots of voices joined him.

When they’d finished Daddy Monkey bowed, and the clapping started again.

“Can I have some banana beer now?” he asked, and there was even more clapping and laughing, and he heard a voice say “What a cute little monkey.”

“I’M NOT A CUTE LITT-“ he stopped, thinking that it might not be a good idea to shout at the Cat Weasel. So he stepped off the little stage, and out of the light – and he realised that all those eyes weren’t the eyes of a big monster, but lots of people sitting down. Behind him someone else got on the stage, and announced that another person would now say some poems.

Daddy Monkey wandered about a little bit, but didn’t really know what was going on. “Where’s the banana beer?” he whispered to a lady sitting nearby.

“You have to go to the back,” she said. “And I loved your songs.”

“Thank you,” said Daddy Monkey, grinning even more.

It took him ages to get to the back because lots of people wanted to shake his hand, and say “Well done!” When he got there, someone said, “Hey, let’s get that cute little monkey a drink.”

Soon Daddy Monkey had his banana beer (but no one heard when he asked if there were any actual bananas). He also got some banana crisps, which he crunched and crunched. He listened to the people on the stage, who told stories and said poems and sang songs, and thought “This is the best monster ever!”

But after a while he remembered about Daddy Donkey. He finished his banana beer and went outside in the dark to find him. Daddy Donkey was sniffing some bikes by a wall. “Nope, no Cat Weasel here, either.”

“I don’t think we’ll find the Cat Weasel tonight,” said Daddy Monkey. “Let’s go home.”

“You’re right,” yawned Daddy Donkey. “I quite fancy a snooze.”

So Daddy Monkey climbed on his back and they zoomed in a sleepy sort of way all the way back to Daddy Donkey’s field.

“Night night, Daddy Donkey,” said Daddy Monkey, getting his tricycles down from the tree.

“Snooooore,” said Daddy Donkey from the long grass. Daddy Monkey tricycled home, yawning all the way.

Next morning Daddy Monkey was the last of the animals to wake up. Orange Dinosaur brought him a cup of banana tea.

“You didn’t get eaten!” said the pentaceratops. “Wow! How many bananas did you get?”

“I got some banana beer and banana crisps,” said Daddy Monkey. “But there wasn’t a monster. It’s just a place where people go to enjoy themselves. That’s why Daddy and Mummy went.”

“Aw,” said Orange Dinosaur. “I thought there’d be a monster.

“No, it was just the Catweazle Club,” said Daddy Monkey. “But they liked my songs.” He sang them again.

“That’s fun,” said Orange Dinosaur. “I like those songs.”

“Well next week it’s be even better!” said Daddy Monkey. I’m going to sing my la-la-la-la-la-la songs.”

“Uh-oh,” said Tim Zebra, who was passing by.

“What do you mean?” said Orange Dinosaur. But then Daddy Monkey started to sing. “La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!”

“Agh!” said Orange Dinosaur.

Well, Daddy Monkey carried on singing all day, and everybody who went past the house had to put their fingers in their ears. In the end, Olivermonkey had to make a banana masala – Daddy Monkey ate so much he fell asleep.

Daddy carried him upstairs and he and Emma put him to bed. “What a noisy Daddy Monkey,” said Daddy. “He sounds like a monster.”

“But he’s ever so cute,” said Emma. “Hee hee hee!”