Evergreen Academy and the Golden Club
Chapter 13
The Monkey in the garden
On Tuesday, after the class, Kerri stopped Daniel.
"I've got to ask you a favor again," she said, looking slightly embarrassed.
"What's it?" asked Daniel.
"It's my mythical animal class," said Kerri. "We're on the fire-spitting lions, and we're supposed to observe their behavior, habits and characteristics-I know Owen has one."
It really annoyed Daniel that she always thought he could speak for Owen.
"Shouldn't you talk to Owen?" said Daniel. "I'm sure that you know each other quite well by now."
"No, no," said Kerri quickly. "I'm not asking you to do it. I'm going to ask him myself. I just think if you could go with me."
They went into the animal house. There were quite a few students inside. Most of them were cleaning the stalls or feeding their pets. Some of the older students simply waved their sword and the old food and dirty straw flew in the dustbin. Fireball was jumping around Owen. It had been just a few months and he had already grown to the height of Owen's knees.
Kerri seemed to be a little scared of Fireball, but Fireball warmed up to her more easily than he did to Daniel. He ran over to where she stood and sniffed her. Kerri was about to back off.
"Don't move," said Owen. "If you back off, you won't gain his trust."
Kerri stood still. Fireball stood up on his two hind legs and Kerri crouched down. She let Fireball rest his front paws on her arm and petted him. Fireball started chewing on her sleeve.
At the same time, Some students were arguing in another room.
"You better control your stupid monkey," said a girl. "He stole the eggs in the pigeon room again."
"It's the girl who's in charge of the pigeons," said Owen. "She's really protective of them."
"How do you know it was him?" a boy answered back.
"Oh, I know," said the girl. "It's not the first time he's done it."
"So it's once a thief, always a thief."
"An animal like that never changes," said the girl. She sounded upset.
"Wait, what's that in the dustbin," she said in a high pitch voice.
From the sound, Daniel assumed that the boy was trying to push the dustbin behind himself with his foot.
"I'm going to tell professor Orni. I'll have the dirty thief kicked off the island."
On their way back to the dorm, Daniel paid more attention to the monkey in the garden. The quarrel he had overheard in the animal house was like a hint. Maybe the monkey wasn't completely innocent after all. The monkey still threw pebbles at people passing by; but when he saw Owen, there was fear in his eyes even thought he tried to act normal. He threw pebbles at them but jumped to another tree right away. He must still remember being frozen by Owen. Daniel could only imagine the terror of not being able to move a single muscle while still wide-awake, but he didn't understand why the monkey still stayed in the garden if he was living in fear.
"Have you ever used the freezing charm on a person?" asked Daniel.
"No, why?" Owen looked a little confused. "I was told not to use it on people."
Daniel was amazed that Owen never seemed to realize how much power he had.
"Nothing," he said, glad that he didn't have to go through the trouble of lecturing his friend. "I'm wondering if the monkey was standing guard for someone else on Moon festival-I read about the Rabies charm. You can't remember anything afterwards."
"What do you mean?" asked Owen.
"I think the monkey still remembers what you did to him. It means that he didn't lose his consciousness when he attacked you. He was probably not under a mind-controlling charm."
"So it means the monkey is guilty right? I knew he's not so innocent."
Daniel spent most of the free time during the next two weeks observing the monkey. He found that the monkey left the garden a couple of times during the period. One afternoon, he followed the monkey.
The monkey jumped from one tree to another.
Daniel jumped on his sword when the monkey disappeared on the other side of the hill. He flew over the hill. Someone shouted at him from the ground that he was not supposed to fly over the girls' dorm, but he ignored it. He was afraid that the monkey was going to hear it. Luckily with his power, he was able to keep a safe distance. The monkey was too far ahead of him to notice. In the air, Daniel could see that the monkey soon left the school grounds. After a while, the stream where he went with Owen for fruit came into view. The monkey seemed to be very familiar with the area, avoiding all the dangerous plants.
To avoid being seen by the other monkeys, Daniel lowered the sword so that he flew right over the treetops. He found that some of the branches were not actually branches. They were snakes well camouflaged. He saw a couple of unsuspecting birds stop on the snakes. The snakes struck like lightning, and the birds disappeared in their mouths. Daniel made sure that he kept a safe distance from the trees too-snakes always made his skin crawl.
The monkey soon reached the waterfall. He was greeted by some of the other monkeys.
"He's not an outcast after all," thought Daniel.
After some careful examination, he found a safe spot among the trees where he could spy on the monkey. He saw the monkey jump behind the waterfall. In the valley, the other monkeys were not playing around; instead, they were fighting each other. Taking a careful look, Daniel found that they were actually practicing combat with wood swords.
"So that's why they picked those twigs-to make the wood swords," thought Daniel. Last time he and Owen were in the jungle, they both found it odd that the monkeys were not playing around but picking fruit and twigs like workers.
None of monkeys were really good at sword fighting. In Daniel's opinion, they were probably more dangerous with their claws than with swords in their hands. They were easily distracted. If a butterfly flew by, some of them would slow down or direct their swords at the butterfly. In about fifteen minutes the monkey jumped out from behind the waterfall. He chatted with a couple of the monkeys and then left the valley.
Daniel stayed for a short while. He didn't dare to stay too long. He could hear all kinds of movement around him. There were insects moving towards him. The insects also attracted insect eating birds. He was afraid that they would attract the snakes or the attacking vines. The safe spot could be dangerous in a moment. The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of the monkeys.
Very carefully, he flew out of the valley and found himself back at the school.
"The monkey in the garden is reporting to someone in the cave behind the waterfall," said Daniel during dinner. He had told Owen about his adventure in the jungle. "I've never heard of monkeys acting like this before."
"I've heard of a monkey army before," said Owen with a frown. "It was led by the Monkey King."
"I wonder who's behind all this," said Daniel. Then he looked at Owen and realized that they were probably thinking about the same person.
"That's why Tao was reading the chapter about the Monkey King," he said. "Do you think it has something to do with the Golden Club?"
"It belonged to the Monkey King according to legend," said Owen excitedly. "Wow, I never thought Tao could be so ambitious and sneaky."
They went back to the dorm, got out their immortal history books, and read through the chapter about the Monkey King.
About three thousand years ago, a powerful monkey king led a monkey army. He occupied a mountain and declared himself king. Although he was a very powerful immortal and a fierce fighter, he was never good at managing an army or disciplining troops. The monkeys kept harassing the villagers near the mountain and caused a big commotion. First the local government tried to put them down, but without success. The central government sent an army down to suppress the riot, but the army wasn't good at fighting in the mountains. After many losses in ambushes set by the monkeys, the mortal army was defeated. The mortal emperor used another method. He offered amnesty to the Monkey King. The Monkey King said he wanted to be the high king. At first the emperor rejected his request. Then he changed his mind and gave the Monkey King an empty position telling him that he was the high king. The Monkey King, naive in a way, accepted the offer. It took him a while to find out he was given a worthless title. He was so mad; he made a huge scene in the palace and returned to the mountain. A few immortals tried to help the emperor repress the rebel army but didn't succeed. Finally, they had to invite the most powerful immortal at the time to bring the monkeys under control. The immortal opened a new world to the Monkey King. The Monkey King finally realized what a spiritual world meant. He disassembled the army and left the mortal world.
"Well, should we tell professor Alverdine?" asked Owen.
"You know, it's not a crime playing leader to a group of animals," said Daniel. "We've got no evidence he stole the Golden Club."
"But he could just take over the whole island and kick us all out," joked Owen.
"Now you are exaggerating," said Daniel with a smile.
Daniel wondered what made Tao think that he could recreate the glory of the Monkey King. He remembered Alverdine told him that Tao came from a similar background as Kerri. Was he born in a mortal family? Daniel was sure that if Tao's parents were mortals, he probably had a worse childhood than Kerri. At least Kerri looked completely normal.
"What's normal anyway?" thought Daniel. "To those monkeys, Tao must be more normal than most human beings."
All of a sudden, Tao and the Monkey King became fascinating to Daniel. When he looked at Tao in class, he wondered what was going through his mind that he so fiercely guarded. He wondered what Kerri felt too. Daniel could tell that Owen was now interested in Tao too. He kept looking at Tao during the class. Daniel had to kick him under that table to keep him from doing so.
"You are going to make him more secretive than he already is," he wrote on a paper and pushed it under Owen's nose.
After class, Daniel, Owen and Kerri went to the animal house. Kerri was still doing her project on the fire-spiting lion. They had really bonded now. Fireball seemed calmer around her.
"I read this book about fire-spitting lions," said Kerri, "Male lions are more at ease around females, lions or human beings, except when they were in their late teens. Then, they fight for attention."
"I think it's because of the hormones," said Kerri. She talked like she was thinking out loud if she wanted to have a conversation when Owen was around.
Daniel felt like asking her about her feelings about her childhood. Maybe that would give him some clue about Tao's behavior, but he thought better of it. Kerri seemed to be much happier and talked more. She was even less shy around Owen. It was kind of selfish and cruel to bring up her past again.
Daniel didn't tell Owen about either Kerri or Tao. He thought that it was their lives. It was the same with his life. He didn't want people know all about his past either.
"What's a hormone?" asked Owen, but he directed the question at Daniel.
"Something inside the body that controls our emotions and feelings, I guess," said Daniel.
"I wonder if Tao has the same hormones as we have," joked Owen.
"Do you know that most animals are afraid of fire-spiting lions?" Kerri said without looking up. Clearly she had spent a lot of time on the project and knew a lot about the fire-spitting lions. "Where fire-spiting lions go, animals flee. Wild animals are afraid of fire."
Daniel realized that was probably why the lion had the whole room to himself.
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