When Monkeys Attack
May. 26th, 2007 02:40 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAs our intrepid heroes explore the Putnam country fair, they discover a petting zoo containing monkeys. And prove yet again that leaving the mansion will always inevitably end in disaster.
"Dude, stop trying to eat my cotton candy. It's my pink caramelized sugar, not yours." Jennie held it up, trying to keep it away from Forge's grabbyhands.
"Technically, it's spun sugar, not caramelized," Forge objected, managing to snag a small piece and pop it into his mouth. "Caramelization requires oxidization, similar to a nonenzymatic Maillard reaction. Cotton candy is just spun and extruded using hot air and... dude, is that a petting zoo?"
"Mate, surely you can find a more creative equivalent of 'oi, look over there!' for the sake of a substance I would not be surprised to find clinging upon the sole of my shoe. Proximity alone makes me want to schedule an appointment with an oral hygienist." The contested food product received a look of polite disdain as Marius hefted the large, violently purple stuffed camel promised to Angel. If the look on the man's face when he'd scored the point had been any indication, the supplying game had almost certainly been rigged. Though it had fallen to Marius to become the hand of justice, the outcome had been a surprise to none but the booth operator. It was only the right and proper consequence of looking down a probability manipulator's shirt.
Kyle had ignored the cotton candy for the sake of a paper sack of freshly roasted peanuts, and was eating them by the handful. "So it's just sugar and hot air? Dude." The coloring was too artificial for his tastes, he'd had some at the previous year's fair and it had tasted too weird to keep eating. "I swear, petting zoos are cool, but then I always feel bad being a carnivore after.. Kinda. Only not."
"Mock all you want, but it's the only foodsource available that wouldn't get stolen by you people." Jennie glared at Forge. "Or so I thought." She licked a pink thumb and looked at where Kyle was gesturing. "Petting zoo? That's only slightly more dubious than where the turkey legs come from. Do they have a couple of sad looking goats?"
"Actually, they've got a lot of the animals that got suddenly relocated after the whole dinosaur mess at the Central Park Zoo," Forge explained, pointing a thumb at one of the placards around the fairgrounds. "A lot of local zoos are housing the Central Park animals until the rebuilding's done. I doubt they brought any of the really cool ones to a petting zoo, though."
"The only reason I'm not stealing your cotton candy is because I just finished off my third one," Angel told Jennie reasonably, taking a quick picture of the group before reaching over to pet the purple camel. She'd already named it Achilles much to everyone's amusement and confusion. Turning, she craned her neck to spy the petting zoo. "Let's pet something! Besides Marius or Achilles!"
Marius snatched the animal away. "You have wounded Achilles and I in equal measure. For the crime of that suggestion you must be punished." Despite the lack of fight he'd shown at the suggestion of finally leaving the mansion, Marius was the first to acknowledge that he was still slightly less than effulgent. However, the off mood did not spare Angel a camel-bopping.
"Maybe they'll have armadillos. I dig armadillos." Kyle said. "Or tapirs, and I can prove to Forge that they're -not- a kind of food." He made a shooing motion with his hands. "Come on. Zoo. Zoo zoo zoo. Or I and Angel will sing. The -doom- song. Angel can be Zim."
"Ah yes, the day of joy continues," Jennie said. She finished off the last of the cotton candy with a pointed look at Forge, crumpling the bag and tossing it in a waste bin. Jennie hadn't wanted to venture out since that lead to an unacceptable amount of anxiety, but one look at Angel's puppy eyes and she couldn't help but agree. Now she found herself acting so normal it almost surprised her. "Also, please don't pet Marius anymore, honey," she stage-whispered to Angel, "He might follow us home."
Forge smiled back at Jennie, then cocked his head, looking past her. "Well, they have monkeys," he said, pointing over to the small barn where the petting zoo had been set up. On the path to the barn, one small orange monkey was sitting in the middle of the footpath, scratching its head and making chirping noises, much to the amusement of the fairgoers who were stopping to watch.
Bouncing on her toes, Angel pointed in the direction of the barn. "I demand monkeys! I demand pictures of the monkeys! I wonder if Mr. Bubbles would like a monkey half-brother? I mean, he looks awfully lonely sometimes. But maybe all fish look really lonely considering they're stuck in tanks with just plastic diving men for company." She grinned and then grabbed Kyle by the arm to start to drag him in the direction she wanted the group to go. "Lookit the cute widdle monkey..."
"No monkeys. I don't think we're allowed to have pets that throw poop." Despite that if he'd wanted, he could've kept Angel from dragging him towards the petting zoo, Kyle followed along. But he looked over his shoulder at the remaining trio and gave them a pleading "Save me..." look.
Marius gave Jennie and Forge a speculative look as Kyle was dragged off, tapping his chin with his forefinger. "How far does our mercy extend, would you say?"
"About as far as fifteen feet away." Jennie said, putting her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "People and exotic animals never ends well. There are many stories back home of people getting too close to the attractions and losing bodyparts." She then eyed the exuberant Angel and raised an eyebrow. "Although perhaps we should stick close just in case."
"Shouldn't there be, like, a zookeeper or something keeping an eye on that monkey?" Forge said nervously, subtly moving to keep at least one of his friends between him and the small simian. "I've seen 'Outbreak'. Those little things are mean. AND they have thumbs. Never trust anything that cute with opposable digits, it's a rule."
"Does that go for girls as well as monkeys?" Angel asked over her shoulder and then stuck out her tongue. "And you're totally not allowed to say they're the same thing." She grinned at the little orange monkey on the road up ahead of him. "He's orange! He's kind of a red-head like me...whoa!" She stumbled back as a monkey off to the side suddenly darted out and crossed the path in front of the group.
"It's a monkey. It throws poop." Kyle said, glaring at the little monkey. It stared at him for a brief moment, let out a loud chattering noise and ran to join it's companion. "Great. Two monkeys. How many monkeys does this petting zoo have anyway?"
"Mate, while of course I do not judge you as a person I find your emphasis on bodily wastes unsettling," Marius said. He gestured with the camel to a hashed-together construction of crates that seemed to serve as an improvised jungle gym. "Look, there's another. Suppose it's a bit of a colony. Here, Angel, why don't you snap a few photos? Perhaps we can use them as a late entry to the school yearbook. I feel photographic evidence that it is possible to leave the mansion without catastrophe would be quite beneficial to the brochure."
"Don't have to ask me twice." Bringing the camera up, she made sure everything was ready before pointing towards the jungle gym and the other monkeys that seemed to be milling around. "Everyone get in a group before that! Well, not exactly right in front of it but close enough I'll get you guys and the monkeys in the picture. One group picture with no disaster coming right up!"
Dragged into the group despite his attempts at objection, Forge gesticulated fruitlessly as he looked towards the camera. "Need I reiterate the fact that these are monkeys? Creepy little primates that are far more intelligent and sadistic than anyone gives them credit for? Sure, you all think they're cute now, but when you're on that beach and you see the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand, remember who told you so. Remember who-"
Whatever he was going to say next was drowned out by a loud simian shriek as a bright orange monkey catapulted itself out of the petting zoo area, leaping in a ballistic arc to land directly atop Forge's head.
"MONKEY!" Forge shrieked in a high-pitched voice, immediately breaking away from the group to run around in circles, batting at the monkey atop his shoulders.
"Oh, man, way to jinx it," Jennie said, backing away as the monkey's friends joined it. It was a mini monkey revolution. Watching Forge run around shrieking like his head was on fire, Jennie did something she hadn't done in what felt like forever. She began to laugh.
"You're only making it worse!" she called after Forge ran by screaming.
Kyle had every intention of trying to help Forge out, and had even taken a step towards his friend when Jennie started laughing. It was infectious and he stopped dead in his tracks, staring wide-eyed. "Maybe stop drop and roll. Like a fire. Fire monkey..." he said, between bouts of uncontrollable laughing.
Swearing like a sailor, Forge tried in vain to dislodge the small critter from his head. The monkey, chittering away in a high-pitched squeal, picked that moment to wrap its tail around Forge's eyes, rendering the panicked inventor blind.
Which, of course, led to a rather spectacular tumble-and-roll over a park bench. Forge sat up, covered in dry grass and leaves, with the monkey still attached to its head. "Get it OFF!" he howled.
"Koko!" the monkey responded, slapping Forge upside the head and shrieking loudly in his ear.
With two of his friends already incapacitated, the need was clear. Abandoning the camel to whatever uncertain fate awaiting it, Marius attempted to be Dependable In A Crisis.
"This is only what you deserve for the ego of such mass as to develop its own gravitational pull," the Australian said, dropping to his knees beside Forge. He attempted to wedge his hands between the monkey and the other boy's face. The monkey disagreed. He tugged again. The monkey's tail curled around Forge's ear. The monkey itself shrieked. "Mate, it's not comin' off -- ah, wait, I've seen this in a Sigourny Weaver film. Close your mouth, take no chances it's marked you for an incubator--"
"Both of you, and the monkey, hold still!" Sadly, Angel was saying this not because she was coming to the rescue but trying to take a picture of the boys vs the monkey. "Oh man, best picture ever for the yearbook," she said, giggling madly as she lined up her shot, scooting in closer so she could take it faster without having to muck with the camera controls much.
As soon as she took the picture, she realized something...the flash had gone off. The very bright light. The monkey on Forge's face screeched along with something close by. That turned out to be a smaller one, a friend perhaps, and it took great offense. Angel shrieked and dropped the camera as a small orange blur shot out from the side and onto her neck.
"Shirt! Monkey in my shirt!"
"This is the worst petting zoo ever," Jennie said, managing to get some control over herself. She looked around for the monkey's minder, but there was no one to be found. Shrugging, she came to the younger girl's rescue. "Here, hold still, come on monkey. You don't wanna chew on Angel..."
Kyle straightened from being hunched over, holding his ribs laughing, and turned to glare at the monkey atop of Forge's head. "Bad. Monkey." He said, drawling out the words, and took a step closer, not taking his eyes off the monkey's face. It was funny, but the monkeys did have little claws on their little monkey hands, and Forge catching the monkey pox was -not- funny. "Where's the damn keeper?" He muttered.
The monkey chattered, swatting at Marius' hands and latching onto Forge's ears with its little prehensile feet. For a moment, it almost looked as if the monkey was giving Kyle the finger and laughing hysterically.
Forge, voice muffled by the monkey's tail, extended his prosthetic arm, two small prongs protruding from one finger. Quickly, he poked the monkey right in the flank, a small spark of electricity crackling. In an instant, the monkey shot up into the air, then landed on the ground, running in circles with both hands over its rear.
"Never say that Star Wars never taught me anything..." Forge gasped, trying to wave the stench of monkey away from his nose.
There were two children standing by the gate of the petting zoo behind them, slack-jawed. Marius dusted off his slacks and cocked his head at them. "Problem?" he inquired. "Truly, your lives must be unbearably dull if this is the first time you've ever seen a man electrocute a monkey."
Wordlessly, the older of the two raised his hand and pointed towards the jungle gym.
There had been more monkeys than previously thought. Many, it seemed, had been hiding in the crates. Or rather, they had until Forge's strategically applied electroshock of their brethren. A dozen orange faces were emerging. None looked as if it wanted a pet.
Marius' vigorous brushing slowed, then stopped. He turned to look at Forge. "Congratulations, mate. I believe you have angered their Queen."
And then the monkey Jennie was attempting to pry loose decided the only escape from its assailant lay down Angel's shirt.
A high pitched shriek echoed through the petting zoo as the young mutant nearly went airborne before realizing that while it might be self-defense, lighting the monkey on fire was not good. Instead, she tripped and went sprawling backwards, hands flailing at her shirt.
"Get out of there!" Angel wailed and then looked even more horrified. "That's my bra strap you little...eeek! Get it out, get it out, get it out!"
It was like some bizarre parody of Aliens, with the monkey straining against the fabric of the shirt and shrieking along with Angel. "I think it's calling reinforcements!" Wiggling was just not dislodging the monkey, despite her frantic rolling around.
"Okay, Angel, I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to have to lift up your shirt. Hold still." It was either that or let Angel get scratched up. Straddling the girl's knees to keep her from moving, Jennie held up the fabric of the girl's shirt and looked at the monkey that was trying desperately to get to second base with Angel. "Come on, honey. You can come out now," she cooed at the monkey. "Come on, Jennie's not gonna hurt you."
The monkey looked at her with wide black eyes, and cheeped uncertainly. Jennie beckoned it, continuing to talk to it in the soothing tone reserved for small pets and the very stupid. "Come on baby, come on..." It eeped and reached for her hand. Jennie gently pried it lose from Angel. "Yeeees. That's a good monkey."
"Those, however," Forge said as he pointed towards the dozen of orange monkeys moving to flank them, "are bad monkeys." He looked over at Kyle and shrugged. "I'm out of ideas, dude. Can't you, like, establish dominance or something?"
"I concur," Marius agree, waving one hand in the general direction of the encroaching horde. "Go forth. Dominate. Or, barring that, provide those of us without the benefit of a healin' factor a shield. Although perhaps that last bit needn't have been shared aloud, please disregard."
Kyle rolled his eyes. "If I incite a monkey riot and we all get arrested, I'm gonna tell the cops it was your idea." He turned slowly to look at the group of monkeys, locking eyes with the largest. Hopefully the biggest one was the leader, and he'd only have to try this once. Hopefully it would work, because if not, he was -so- making Forge buy him a new shirt after the monkeys pelted him with their poop.
He took a step forward, curling his fingers and baring his teeth and feeling utterly stupid. The monkeys looked at each other and the chattering increased in volume as Kyle moved closer. The closer he got, the wider their eyes got, obviously fearful, but not willing to run away from their potential targets of mayhem.
Before he was close enough to touch 'his' monkey, it let out a piercing shriek and scrambled backwards. In response, Kyle did the only thing he could. He ran forward into the pack of monkeys, bellowing nonsense and growling.
The second he got close to the monkeys, they broke apart with no resistance. Screeching and howling, they fled away from Kyle, seeking refuge. He was scarier than anything else in the petting zoo at the moment--llama's included--and they knew it. Some ended up in barrels while the others climbed as high as they could.
At a safe distance, some of them stopped and bared their teeth but didn't do anything else.
The students were able to re-group as a portly man came stumbling forward carrying a net. He wore a khaki jumpsuit, and his nametag proclaimed that he was "Steve." Steve's eyes were also bloodshot and he smelled very strongly of rum.
"The monkeys? Where'd...where'd they go?" Steve huffed out, expelling a noxious cloud that left no doubt exactly where he'd been while the monkeys roamed free.
Wordlessly, with the monkey now curled comfortably in her arms, Jennie pointed towards the opposite end of the petting zoo.
"Thanks," he puffed, and hefting his net, he began making 'ook' noises as the other monkeys hissed and scattered.
Marius sniffed the air as the man stalked past towards his leery prey, then waved a hand absently. "I suppose there is no other natural reaction to runnin' a faire petting zoo than heavy drinking," he observed, then turned to his friends and clapped his hands together. "Nonetheless, all sound? Kyle, nice one. For true, I could really feel the dominance. Forge, I should advise you proceed to Medlab for rabies shots an' careful inspection regardin' some form of primate larvae. Jen, should you not at least be buying Angel dinner?" He paused, assessed what remained of the situation and added, "And, more vitally, has anyone seen where the camel's gone?"
Forge turned to deliver a smartass comment to Marius, then paused, pointing at Jennie. "Monkey!" he hissed. "I knew it! She got bit and now she's in thrall to them! It's like... like being bitten by a vampire, or a werewolf, or Manuel! Where's a stake? Stakes work on monkeys, right?"
"But won't that mean we'd have to be staked?" Angel asked, trying to fix her shirt and bra. Nothing felt right. "I don't wanna be staked! Are we going to turn into monkeys, be monkey-ish or be monkey zombies? I don't like any of those options." She thought for a second. "I have no craving for bananas, I think I'm safe! Though if I develop a tail, it'd be the best thing ever."
The monkey leapt out of Jennie's arms and hissed at Forge, before scampering to rejoin it's brethren. Jennie wiped her hands on her jeans to rid herself of the monkey fur. She looked from Angel, whose shirt somehow managed to be on inside-out, to Forge, whose hair was stuck up at odd, wild angles.
And something inside her untwisted. She let go of a breath she hadn't even been aware she had been holding, and started to laugh again. This time, she couldn't stop.
"Oh, my god...the look on your faces...I'm sorry.." She choked. The giggles only increased as her monkey returned bearing the stuffed purple camel, sheepishly depositing it in front of Angel.
"I want a steak..." Kyle said. "A cow one, not a wood one..." And again, Jennie's giggles set him off on his own fit of laughter, causing him to sit down abruptly in the middle of the path and bury his face in his knees. "And.. and... pictures.. and... monkeys and camels... orange.. and purple..."
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Senseless, even. But nonetheless, between the particular angle of Forge's hair, Angel's inexplicably disarrayed clothing and Jennie's strangely enthusiastic monkey-in-waiting Marius, too, felt the laughter come. Laughing. For the first time since they'd been taken, he was laughing.
It felt good.
"Achilles!" Angel wailed, snatching it up and then dancing backwards a safe distance. "How do you thank a monkey? Wait, why should I thank it...it molested me!" She paused and stared down at herself, then up at Forge before finally looking around at everyone else. They were laughing. Laughing! "It's not really...funny...guys..."
It didn't help her case that the giggles wouldn't stop now.
Forge just folded his arms across his chest, blowing a lock of hair away from his eyes. "You are all," he proclaimed, "weirdos."
Of course, he only managed a few more seconds before collapsing into laughter as well.
The monkey retrieved from Angel's shirt cocked its head quizzically before cheeping and running off to torment "Steve."
For the rest of that day and on into the next week anytime one of the five students mentioned monkeys it would cause the others to break into fits of laughter. And quietly, unobtrusively, something from that horrible week was healed.
"Dude, stop trying to eat my cotton candy. It's my pink caramelized sugar, not yours." Jennie held it up, trying to keep it away from Forge's grabbyhands.
"Technically, it's spun sugar, not caramelized," Forge objected, managing to snag a small piece and pop it into his mouth. "Caramelization requires oxidization, similar to a nonenzymatic Maillard reaction. Cotton candy is just spun and extruded using hot air and... dude, is that a petting zoo?"
"Mate, surely you can find a more creative equivalent of 'oi, look over there!' for the sake of a substance I would not be surprised to find clinging upon the sole of my shoe. Proximity alone makes me want to schedule an appointment with an oral hygienist." The contested food product received a look of polite disdain as Marius hefted the large, violently purple stuffed camel promised to Angel. If the look on the man's face when he'd scored the point had been any indication, the supplying game had almost certainly been rigged. Though it had fallen to Marius to become the hand of justice, the outcome had been a surprise to none but the booth operator. It was only the right and proper consequence of looking down a probability manipulator's shirt.
Kyle had ignored the cotton candy for the sake of a paper sack of freshly roasted peanuts, and was eating them by the handful. "So it's just sugar and hot air? Dude." The coloring was too artificial for his tastes, he'd had some at the previous year's fair and it had tasted too weird to keep eating. "I swear, petting zoos are cool, but then I always feel bad being a carnivore after.. Kinda. Only not."
"Mock all you want, but it's the only foodsource available that wouldn't get stolen by you people." Jennie glared at Forge. "Or so I thought." She licked a pink thumb and looked at where Kyle was gesturing. "Petting zoo? That's only slightly more dubious than where the turkey legs come from. Do they have a couple of sad looking goats?"
"Actually, they've got a lot of the animals that got suddenly relocated after the whole dinosaur mess at the Central Park Zoo," Forge explained, pointing a thumb at one of the placards around the fairgrounds. "A lot of local zoos are housing the Central Park animals until the rebuilding's done. I doubt they brought any of the really cool ones to a petting zoo, though."
"The only reason I'm not stealing your cotton candy is because I just finished off my third one," Angel told Jennie reasonably, taking a quick picture of the group before reaching over to pet the purple camel. She'd already named it Achilles much to everyone's amusement and confusion. Turning, she craned her neck to spy the petting zoo. "Let's pet something! Besides Marius or Achilles!"
Marius snatched the animal away. "You have wounded Achilles and I in equal measure. For the crime of that suggestion you must be punished." Despite the lack of fight he'd shown at the suggestion of finally leaving the mansion, Marius was the first to acknowledge that he was still slightly less than effulgent. However, the off mood did not spare Angel a camel-bopping.
"Maybe they'll have armadillos. I dig armadillos." Kyle said. "Or tapirs, and I can prove to Forge that they're -not- a kind of food." He made a shooing motion with his hands. "Come on. Zoo. Zoo zoo zoo. Or I and Angel will sing. The -doom- song. Angel can be Zim."
"Ah yes, the day of joy continues," Jennie said. She finished off the last of the cotton candy with a pointed look at Forge, crumpling the bag and tossing it in a waste bin. Jennie hadn't wanted to venture out since that lead to an unacceptable amount of anxiety, but one look at Angel's puppy eyes and she couldn't help but agree. Now she found herself acting so normal it almost surprised her. "Also, please don't pet Marius anymore, honey," she stage-whispered to Angel, "He might follow us home."
Forge smiled back at Jennie, then cocked his head, looking past her. "Well, they have monkeys," he said, pointing over to the small barn where the petting zoo had been set up. On the path to the barn, one small orange monkey was sitting in the middle of the footpath, scratching its head and making chirping noises, much to the amusement of the fairgoers who were stopping to watch.
Bouncing on her toes, Angel pointed in the direction of the barn. "I demand monkeys! I demand pictures of the monkeys! I wonder if Mr. Bubbles would like a monkey half-brother? I mean, he looks awfully lonely sometimes. But maybe all fish look really lonely considering they're stuck in tanks with just plastic diving men for company." She grinned and then grabbed Kyle by the arm to start to drag him in the direction she wanted the group to go. "Lookit the cute widdle monkey..."
"No monkeys. I don't think we're allowed to have pets that throw poop." Despite that if he'd wanted, he could've kept Angel from dragging him towards the petting zoo, Kyle followed along. But he looked over his shoulder at the remaining trio and gave them a pleading "Save me..." look.
Marius gave Jennie and Forge a speculative look as Kyle was dragged off, tapping his chin with his forefinger. "How far does our mercy extend, would you say?"
"About as far as fifteen feet away." Jennie said, putting her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "People and exotic animals never ends well. There are many stories back home of people getting too close to the attractions and losing bodyparts." She then eyed the exuberant Angel and raised an eyebrow. "Although perhaps we should stick close just in case."
"Shouldn't there be, like, a zookeeper or something keeping an eye on that monkey?" Forge said nervously, subtly moving to keep at least one of his friends between him and the small simian. "I've seen 'Outbreak'. Those little things are mean. AND they have thumbs. Never trust anything that cute with opposable digits, it's a rule."
"Does that go for girls as well as monkeys?" Angel asked over her shoulder and then stuck out her tongue. "And you're totally not allowed to say they're the same thing." She grinned at the little orange monkey on the road up ahead of him. "He's orange! He's kind of a red-head like me...whoa!" She stumbled back as a monkey off to the side suddenly darted out and crossed the path in front of the group.
"It's a monkey. It throws poop." Kyle said, glaring at the little monkey. It stared at him for a brief moment, let out a loud chattering noise and ran to join it's companion. "Great. Two monkeys. How many monkeys does this petting zoo have anyway?"
"Mate, while of course I do not judge you as a person I find your emphasis on bodily wastes unsettling," Marius said. He gestured with the camel to a hashed-together construction of crates that seemed to serve as an improvised jungle gym. "Look, there's another. Suppose it's a bit of a colony. Here, Angel, why don't you snap a few photos? Perhaps we can use them as a late entry to the school yearbook. I feel photographic evidence that it is possible to leave the mansion without catastrophe would be quite beneficial to the brochure."
"Don't have to ask me twice." Bringing the camera up, she made sure everything was ready before pointing towards the jungle gym and the other monkeys that seemed to be milling around. "Everyone get in a group before that! Well, not exactly right in front of it but close enough I'll get you guys and the monkeys in the picture. One group picture with no disaster coming right up!"
Dragged into the group despite his attempts at objection, Forge gesticulated fruitlessly as he looked towards the camera. "Need I reiterate the fact that these are monkeys? Creepy little primates that are far more intelligent and sadistic than anyone gives them credit for? Sure, you all think they're cute now, but when you're on that beach and you see the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand, remember who told you so. Remember who-"
Whatever he was going to say next was drowned out by a loud simian shriek as a bright orange monkey catapulted itself out of the petting zoo area, leaping in a ballistic arc to land directly atop Forge's head.
"MONKEY!" Forge shrieked in a high-pitched voice, immediately breaking away from the group to run around in circles, batting at the monkey atop his shoulders.
"Oh, man, way to jinx it," Jennie said, backing away as the monkey's friends joined it. It was a mini monkey revolution. Watching Forge run around shrieking like his head was on fire, Jennie did something she hadn't done in what felt like forever. She began to laugh.
"You're only making it worse!" she called after Forge ran by screaming.
Kyle had every intention of trying to help Forge out, and had even taken a step towards his friend when Jennie started laughing. It was infectious and he stopped dead in his tracks, staring wide-eyed. "Maybe stop drop and roll. Like a fire. Fire monkey..." he said, between bouts of uncontrollable laughing.
Swearing like a sailor, Forge tried in vain to dislodge the small critter from his head. The monkey, chittering away in a high-pitched squeal, picked that moment to wrap its tail around Forge's eyes, rendering the panicked inventor blind.
Which, of course, led to a rather spectacular tumble-and-roll over a park bench. Forge sat up, covered in dry grass and leaves, with the monkey still attached to its head. "Get it OFF!" he howled.
"Koko!" the monkey responded, slapping Forge upside the head and shrieking loudly in his ear.
With two of his friends already incapacitated, the need was clear. Abandoning the camel to whatever uncertain fate awaiting it, Marius attempted to be Dependable In A Crisis.
"This is only what you deserve for the ego of such mass as to develop its own gravitational pull," the Australian said, dropping to his knees beside Forge. He attempted to wedge his hands between the monkey and the other boy's face. The monkey disagreed. He tugged again. The monkey's tail curled around Forge's ear. The monkey itself shrieked. "Mate, it's not comin' off -- ah, wait, I've seen this in a Sigourny Weaver film. Close your mouth, take no chances it's marked you for an incubator--"
"Both of you, and the monkey, hold still!" Sadly, Angel was saying this not because she was coming to the rescue but trying to take a picture of the boys vs the monkey. "Oh man, best picture ever for the yearbook," she said, giggling madly as she lined up her shot, scooting in closer so she could take it faster without having to muck with the camera controls much.
As soon as she took the picture, she realized something...the flash had gone off. The very bright light. The monkey on Forge's face screeched along with something close by. That turned out to be a smaller one, a friend perhaps, and it took great offense. Angel shrieked and dropped the camera as a small orange blur shot out from the side and onto her neck.
"Shirt! Monkey in my shirt!"
"This is the worst petting zoo ever," Jennie said, managing to get some control over herself. She looked around for the monkey's minder, but there was no one to be found. Shrugging, she came to the younger girl's rescue. "Here, hold still, come on monkey. You don't wanna chew on Angel..."
Kyle straightened from being hunched over, holding his ribs laughing, and turned to glare at the monkey atop of Forge's head. "Bad. Monkey." He said, drawling out the words, and took a step closer, not taking his eyes off the monkey's face. It was funny, but the monkeys did have little claws on their little monkey hands, and Forge catching the monkey pox was -not- funny. "Where's the damn keeper?" He muttered.
The monkey chattered, swatting at Marius' hands and latching onto Forge's ears with its little prehensile feet. For a moment, it almost looked as if the monkey was giving Kyle the finger and laughing hysterically.
Forge, voice muffled by the monkey's tail, extended his prosthetic arm, two small prongs protruding from one finger. Quickly, he poked the monkey right in the flank, a small spark of electricity crackling. In an instant, the monkey shot up into the air, then landed on the ground, running in circles with both hands over its rear.
"Never say that Star Wars never taught me anything..." Forge gasped, trying to wave the stench of monkey away from his nose.
There were two children standing by the gate of the petting zoo behind them, slack-jawed. Marius dusted off his slacks and cocked his head at them. "Problem?" he inquired. "Truly, your lives must be unbearably dull if this is the first time you've ever seen a man electrocute a monkey."
Wordlessly, the older of the two raised his hand and pointed towards the jungle gym.
There had been more monkeys than previously thought. Many, it seemed, had been hiding in the crates. Or rather, they had until Forge's strategically applied electroshock of their brethren. A dozen orange faces were emerging. None looked as if it wanted a pet.
Marius' vigorous brushing slowed, then stopped. He turned to look at Forge. "Congratulations, mate. I believe you have angered their Queen."
And then the monkey Jennie was attempting to pry loose decided the only escape from its assailant lay down Angel's shirt.
A high pitched shriek echoed through the petting zoo as the young mutant nearly went airborne before realizing that while it might be self-defense, lighting the monkey on fire was not good. Instead, she tripped and went sprawling backwards, hands flailing at her shirt.
"Get out of there!" Angel wailed and then looked even more horrified. "That's my bra strap you little...eeek! Get it out, get it out, get it out!"
It was like some bizarre parody of Aliens, with the monkey straining against the fabric of the shirt and shrieking along with Angel. "I think it's calling reinforcements!" Wiggling was just not dislodging the monkey, despite her frantic rolling around.
"Okay, Angel, I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to have to lift up your shirt. Hold still." It was either that or let Angel get scratched up. Straddling the girl's knees to keep her from moving, Jennie held up the fabric of the girl's shirt and looked at the monkey that was trying desperately to get to second base with Angel. "Come on, honey. You can come out now," she cooed at the monkey. "Come on, Jennie's not gonna hurt you."
The monkey looked at her with wide black eyes, and cheeped uncertainly. Jennie beckoned it, continuing to talk to it in the soothing tone reserved for small pets and the very stupid. "Come on baby, come on..." It eeped and reached for her hand. Jennie gently pried it lose from Angel. "Yeeees. That's a good monkey."
"Those, however," Forge said as he pointed towards the dozen of orange monkeys moving to flank them, "are bad monkeys." He looked over at Kyle and shrugged. "I'm out of ideas, dude. Can't you, like, establish dominance or something?"
"I concur," Marius agree, waving one hand in the general direction of the encroaching horde. "Go forth. Dominate. Or, barring that, provide those of us without the benefit of a healin' factor a shield. Although perhaps that last bit needn't have been shared aloud, please disregard."
Kyle rolled his eyes. "If I incite a monkey riot and we all get arrested, I'm gonna tell the cops it was your idea." He turned slowly to look at the group of monkeys, locking eyes with the largest. Hopefully the biggest one was the leader, and he'd only have to try this once. Hopefully it would work, because if not, he was -so- making Forge buy him a new shirt after the monkeys pelted him with their poop.
He took a step forward, curling his fingers and baring his teeth and feeling utterly stupid. The monkeys looked at each other and the chattering increased in volume as Kyle moved closer. The closer he got, the wider their eyes got, obviously fearful, but not willing to run away from their potential targets of mayhem.
Before he was close enough to touch 'his' monkey, it let out a piercing shriek and scrambled backwards. In response, Kyle did the only thing he could. He ran forward into the pack of monkeys, bellowing nonsense and growling.
The second he got close to the monkeys, they broke apart with no resistance. Screeching and howling, they fled away from Kyle, seeking refuge. He was scarier than anything else in the petting zoo at the moment--llama's included--and they knew it. Some ended up in barrels while the others climbed as high as they could.
At a safe distance, some of them stopped and bared their teeth but didn't do anything else.
The students were able to re-group as a portly man came stumbling forward carrying a net. He wore a khaki jumpsuit, and his nametag proclaimed that he was "Steve." Steve's eyes were also bloodshot and he smelled very strongly of rum.
"The monkeys? Where'd...where'd they go?" Steve huffed out, expelling a noxious cloud that left no doubt exactly where he'd been while the monkeys roamed free.
Wordlessly, with the monkey now curled comfortably in her arms, Jennie pointed towards the opposite end of the petting zoo.
"Thanks," he puffed, and hefting his net, he began making 'ook' noises as the other monkeys hissed and scattered.
Marius sniffed the air as the man stalked past towards his leery prey, then waved a hand absently. "I suppose there is no other natural reaction to runnin' a faire petting zoo than heavy drinking," he observed, then turned to his friends and clapped his hands together. "Nonetheless, all sound? Kyle, nice one. For true, I could really feel the dominance. Forge, I should advise you proceed to Medlab for rabies shots an' careful inspection regardin' some form of primate larvae. Jen, should you not at least be buying Angel dinner?" He paused, assessed what remained of the situation and added, "And, more vitally, has anyone seen where the camel's gone?"
Forge turned to deliver a smartass comment to Marius, then paused, pointing at Jennie. "Monkey!" he hissed. "I knew it! She got bit and now she's in thrall to them! It's like... like being bitten by a vampire, or a werewolf, or Manuel! Where's a stake? Stakes work on monkeys, right?"
"But won't that mean we'd have to be staked?" Angel asked, trying to fix her shirt and bra. Nothing felt right. "I don't wanna be staked! Are we going to turn into monkeys, be monkey-ish or be monkey zombies? I don't like any of those options." She thought for a second. "I have no craving for bananas, I think I'm safe! Though if I develop a tail, it'd be the best thing ever."
The monkey leapt out of Jennie's arms and hissed at Forge, before scampering to rejoin it's brethren. Jennie wiped her hands on her jeans to rid herself of the monkey fur. She looked from Angel, whose shirt somehow managed to be on inside-out, to Forge, whose hair was stuck up at odd, wild angles.
And something inside her untwisted. She let go of a breath she hadn't even been aware she had been holding, and started to laugh again. This time, she couldn't stop.
"Oh, my god...the look on your faces...I'm sorry.." She choked. The giggles only increased as her monkey returned bearing the stuffed purple camel, sheepishly depositing it in front of Angel.
"I want a steak..." Kyle said. "A cow one, not a wood one..." And again, Jennie's giggles set him off on his own fit of laughter, causing him to sit down abruptly in the middle of the path and bury his face in his knees. "And.. and... pictures.. and... monkeys and camels... orange.. and purple..."
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Senseless, even. But nonetheless, between the particular angle of Forge's hair, Angel's inexplicably disarrayed clothing and Jennie's strangely enthusiastic monkey-in-waiting Marius, too, felt the laughter come. Laughing. For the first time since they'd been taken, he was laughing.
It felt good.
"Achilles!" Angel wailed, snatching it up and then dancing backwards a safe distance. "How do you thank a monkey? Wait, why should I thank it...it molested me!" She paused and stared down at herself, then up at Forge before finally looking around at everyone else. They were laughing. Laughing! "It's not really...funny...guys..."
It didn't help her case that the giggles wouldn't stop now.
Forge just folded his arms across his chest, blowing a lock of hair away from his eyes. "You are all," he proclaimed, "weirdos."
Of course, he only managed a few more seconds before collapsing into laughter as well.
The monkey retrieved from Angel's shirt cocked its head quizzically before cheeping and running off to torment "Steve."
For the rest of that day and on into the next week anytime one of the five students mentioned monkeys it would cause the others to break into fits of laughter. And quietly, unobtrusively, something from that horrible week was healed.
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Date: 2007-05-26 08:29 pm (UTC)This was fantastic.
So was the Kyle and Forge game-pwning thing, oh yes.
Monkeys. Hee.
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Date: 2007-05-26 08:57 pm (UTC)