Daddy Monkey and the Museum of Teeth!

Daddy Monkey is a small monkey with long tickly arms, little legs, a big tum, a long tickly tail and a cheeky grin. You might think he's just a toy, but he's much more trouble than that.

One night Daddy Monkey had a dream. He dreamed that he was in the Daddy Museum, but he had no teeth! “Eek!” he thought, and ran in a circle shouting “Eeeeeeee!” He ran in a circle for a long time, and people in the museum had to step over him when they wanted to leave.

               “What a funny monkey,” they said. “Why isn’t he in a case?”

                Well, after a while it went dark and the museum closed. Daddy Monkey had got tired, and fallen asleep behind the microscope – but he woke up when the museum’s big door went “Boom!” And he still had no teeth!

                “Eeeeee!” he shouted and ran around in a circle again.

                “Stop!” went a big voice that echoed off the stone walls and high roof.

Daddy Monkey stopped and stood in the middle of the floor between the bones of an elephant and the bones of a hippo.

“Why are you running around making all that noise?” said the voice.

“No teef!” said Daddy Monkey. “Where’s me teef?”

“Oh, I see,” said the voice. “What sort of teeth do you have?”

“Monkey teef!” said Daddy Monkey, putting his hands on his hips. But when he did that his elbows stuck out so far (because he had such long arms) that he knocked over the skeleton of a pig and a glass case holding a penguin. Clinkety clonk, went the bones, and fell in a funny pile. Splinkety splonk, went the penguin in the case, and waddled off to the toilets, where she swam about until the morning.

“Don’t do that, silly,” said the voice.

“Aw,” said Daddy Monkey, and put his hands on the floor.

“Ow!” said the voice, which was suddenly very muffled. “I’m squashed!”

“What?” said Daddy Monkey.

“I’m squashed!”

Daddy Monkey lifted his hands very slowly.

“That’s better,” said the voice.

“Sorry,” said Daddy Monkey. “I thought you were big.”

“I am big,” said the voice. “I’m the biggest beetle in this museum!”

Daddy Monkey looked down. Sure enough, there was a big shiny beetle looking grumpily up at his from the carpet.

“Now,” said the beetle. “What’s up with you?”

“It’s me teef!” said Daddy Monkey. “I’ve lost me teef!”

“Aha!” said the beetle. “My name is Carla Wingcase, and I’m the best beetle detective in the world!”

“Oh good,” said Daddy Monkey. “Can you find me teef?”

“Of course,” said Carla Wingcase. “But you have to pay. One banana for every set of teeth.”

“One banana!” Daddy Monkey put his hands on his hips. His elbows knocked over the spider crab and an ostrich. “That’s a high price. But I need me teef to eat me bananas!”

“All right,” said Carla Wingcase. “First we need to search in case your teeth are somewhere in the museum.”

So Daddy Monkey had to try all sorts of teeth. He tried a whale’s teeth – but they made his mouth so long his tongue fell down the stairs! So he tried the cheetah’s teeth – but they made his mouth run round and round faster than Daddy Monkey’s little legs could go. He ended up sneezing them out. They bounced off the ceiling and ended up on a mole’s mouth. The mole was so surprised about being scary, he even scared himself. “Oo!” he shouted, and the teeth jumped out of his mouth and back up to the cheetah, who immediately went to sleep.

“Hmm,” said Carla Wingcase. “That didn’t work. What about the pachycephalosaurus teeth?”

But the cross-looking dinosaur’s teeth were flat, like bits of mosaic. They made Daddy Monkey want to eat bits of water weed like a coot, but when he tried it he went “Plah! Plah! Plah!” and spat it all out – and the teeth too, which bounced off one of the statues and disappeared into a corner. The pachycephalosaurus head had to roll right across the museum to get its teeth back. Then it had to roll back, grumbling about those naughty monkeys that always caused trouble.

Well, Daddy Monkey tried echidna teeth, and a dodo beak, and elephant tusks and lizard teeth, and DNA, and even T. Rex teeth. But none of them fitted. Poor old Daddy Monkey. Even Carla Wingcase looked sad.

“Looks like your teeth aren’t here,” said the beetle gloomily. “You’ll have to eat banana soup for ever!”

But then there was a funny sound from the back of the museum.

“That sounds like a laugh,” said Carla Wingcase. “I bet that’s the teeth thief.”

They rushed to where the sound came from.

“But this is all trilobites,” said Daddy Monkey. “They don’t have any teeth.”

“Aha!” said Carla Wingcase, pointing with an antenna. “Look!”

Some white chompers flashed in the gloom. There was s smell of bananas, and suddenly there came the sound of munching. “Stop that trilobite!” shouted Carla Wingcase.

A dozen ammonites came out of their rocks and grabbed the trilobite with their tentacles.

“Me teef!” shouted Daddy Monkey, and grabbed his teeth from the ancient sea woodlouse. When he’d put them in he had a big toothy grin.

“That’s one banana you owe me,” said Carla Wingcase. “But first, Mr Trilobite – if that really is your name – why did you steal this good monkey’s teeth?”

“I smelt the bananas the museum guards keep for their lunch and I got sooo hungry!” grumbled the trilobite.

“In that case,” said Daddy Monkey, “It must be time for a banana party!” (Daddy Monkey was in such a good mood now that he had his teeth back that he even forgot to be cross with the naughty trilobite.)

“Hooray!” shouted Carla Wingcase, and all the trilobites and all the ammonites.

Well, it didn’t take long for the beetle and the monkey to find the secret door to the guards’ secret stash of bananas, under the case with the echidna and kangaroos inside. Daddy Monkey carried the bananas up in his long arms, and even brought some in his tail. And he and Carla Wingcase and all the trilobites and ammonites munched away at the bananas until the morning light started to peep through the museum’s glass roof.

When the museum guards arrived to open up, they found a pile of banana skins so high it was taller than the elephant skeleton. Even after they’d cleared all those away, they kept slipping on ones they hadn’t seen, and sliding whoosh! All the way down the museum and knocking over even more skeletons than Daddy Monkey’s elbows had done all the night before.

And all day the ammonites, trilobites and Carla Wingcase kept giggling, and hiding their mouths with their tentacles or legs so they wouldn’t breathe banana breath on anyone.

But where was Daddy Monkey? Had he gone home for banana tea and a ride in his new buggy? Or had it all been a dream, and he’d slept all night in Mummy and Daddy’s bed, shouting “Where’s me teef?” over and over again. Anyway, where it was real or it was a dream, next morning he made banana pancakes for Daddy, Mummy, Emma, Tom Monkey and Olivermonkey, singing a happy song to himself.

“Daddy Monkey, have you been naughty?” Daddy asked, but Daddy Monkey said nothing. He just made one more cup of banana tea.

“Never mind,” said Daddy, and drank it down.

And that’s the end of the story.