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Birrell, the monkey jumped up and down on the ground.
He howled angrily. He often had temper tantrums. Whenever his momma didn’t
give him his way, he acted this way. “I want the big banana!” he cried.
His feet stomped the ground as he yelled, “I want it! I want the big one!
I want it now!”
His momma looked at him and shook her head. Birrell’s
little sister, Jasmyn, was eating the big banana and loving every bite.
She smiled as she gobbled it down.
“Birrell, you can’t have that banana. Here’s another
one,” she said, trying to give him a much smaller one. Birrell stopped and
looked at it. It was plump, bright yellow, and had brown freckles all over
it. His momma peeled it back. “See, Birrell, it looks delicious, doesn’t
it? And smell it,” she said, sniffing it.
Birrell just pushed it away. “I don’t want that banana.
I want that one!” he whined, pointing at Jasmyn’s banana, which she had
almost finished eating. Jasmyn popped the last bite into her mouth.
Birrell cried more and more. His momma thought for a
moment, on what she should do. Birrell was acting terrible. She took
Jasmyn’s hand and walked off into the jungle. “If you are going to keep
acting like that, you’ll have to do it here, alone. Jasmyn and I are going
back to the tree. Come on, Jasmyn.”
Birrell kept on crying. He held his long brown tail and
fell to the ground. He stomped his feet and pounded his hands into the
ground. Nobody was around to hear him cry, nobody was around to see him
squeeze his tail and nobody was around to watch him kick the ground. After
a few minutes, realizing he was alone, he sat up. He looked around the
jungle. He saw a large green snake slither up a tree trunk. He noticed two
bright red parrots sitting on a branch, chewing berries. All around him
were bright pink, sunshine yellow, and vivid red hibiscus and
bougainvillea flowers, but none of the animals were paying any attention
to him. He noticed his momma had left the small banana for him, so he
picked it up, peeled it and munched it down.
He stood up and walked over to a vine that was dangling
down from high up in a tree. He started swinging back and forth on it. He
had some banana mush on his fingers and it made him lose his grip. He fell
from the vine and landed with a thud on top of a huge palm leaf that had
fallen to the ground. He started to cry.
His momma had walked back to check on him and saw him
sitting on the ground still crying. She shook her head and walked away,
thinking he was crying because he wanted the big banana.
Birrell saw that nobody was there to hear him cry so he
stopped. He wiped the tears from his big brown eyes and stood up. He wiped
his hands on some red hibiscus petals. He started to walk through the
jungle, heading for his tree. Maybe his momma had another big banana for
him. He had to jump over a tree trunk that had fallen across the path. He
splashed in a puddle of rainwater and got muddy water all over his fur.
He was nearly home when he noticed a family of wild pigs blocked the path.
The momma pig was in front, followed by six little piglets. He ran around
them and into the bushes. That’s when he spotted a banana palm. It was
filled with huge bananas, much bigger than the one Jasmyn ate earlier.
Birrell ran over to the tree and picked a few. He peeled them and ate them
quickly. He picked a few more and ate them too. Soon he had eaten every
banana on the tree and he felt quite full.
“Birrell, come home,” his momma called. Birrell heard
her and ran to the tree. Jasmyn was up in the branches, munching away on a
few mangoes. Momma saw Birrell coming. He was covered in mud and had twigs
in his fur. “Go down to the river and wash up, then hurry back. I’ve got
something special for you,” she said.
Birrell ran down to the wide river. It was moving very
fast. He saw several hippos in the middle of it and noticed a crocodile
lying on the riverbank on the other side. Quietly, not wanting to disturb
the big animals, he washed himself off and ran home. His momma was
smiling. “Birrell, I know you wanted the big banana today and didn’t get
it, but I’ve got something even better for you. Here,” she said, handing
him three mangoes.
Birrell looked at them and started crying. It wasn’t
because he wanted a bigger mango, or because he wanted more mangoes than
Jasmyn had, but because he was so full from eating all the bananas earlier
and didn’t have room for anything else. His momma looked at him. Jasmyn
looked down from the top of the tree. He sat on the ground and cried and
cried. Momma didn’t know what she was going to do with him, but she was
thankful that at least he wasn’t stomping his hands and feet and squeezing
his tail! |
