Cherry Meets Curious George

chapter 6

Ted made himself a sandwich and everyone took their lunch break. They all ate sandwiches, but Theodore's was bigger than everyone else's due to his appetite. As they ate, Ted's hat came off his head suddenly as he bit into his sandwich.

"What happened to your hat?" Eleanor asked as she made a sandwich for Simon.

"I dunno..." Ted rubbed the top of his head and looked up into the tree, seeing a brown monkey. "Hey! Oh, a monkey... Hey there, little guy."

The monkey seemed to smile at him as he was with Ted's hat.

"He seems to like it." Patch said.

"Um, hello, monkey," Ted looked up at the tree. "Can I have my hat back, please?"

The monkey oohed to them.

"I kind of need my hat," Ted then said, trying to get the monkey to understand. "The sun's hot and I freckle... Not the good kind either, I blotch... So please, my hat?"

"I hate monkeys..." Cherry muttered under her breath.

The monkey looked down to them and showed them the yellow hat.

"Let me talk to him." Atticus volunteered before going over to the monkey.

The monkey was very curious of the hat and was going to play with it.

"Excuse me, but can you please give my friend his hat back?" Atticus asked. "I can talk to animals, so it's okay if this is kind of confusing."

The monkey merely smiled to him, he took the yellow hat and used it as a parachute as he fell down next to the man in the yellow clothes.

"Hmm..." Ted smirked, deciding to play along with the little monkey.

"He's like a little kid." Eleanor giggled at their new jungle friend.

"Hello, anybody in there?" Ted pretended to ask. He then lifted it up to take a look at him with a friendly smile. "Peek-a-boo!"

The monkey laughed and enjoyed this game.

"It makes me think of when we first met Dave." Alvin smiled in memory.

"Yeah..." Theodore joined him, holding onto that memory.

Ted kept playing a little longer, then took his hat back once he was done, but this disappointed the monkey. "Well, look at that," he smiled. "A monkey who likes to play peek-a-boo."

The monkey smiled back and took his arm, chattering a little.

"What did you say?" Brittany asked the primate.

"He likes Ted." Patch translated.

"Yeah," Atticus said. He then went over to the monkey. "Excuse me, but would you mind telling me where your parents are, they must be worried about you." Atticus said in monkey language, hoping he translated it correctly to the monkey.

The monkey tilted his head, not answering the question about his parents.

"What's wrong?" Atticus asked him.

The monkey still didn't answer him, but then asked a question in his monkey language. "What are parents?"

"You know, a mom and dad that take care of you, feed you, bathe you, give you lots of love and makes sure that they do everything that they can to make sure that you're safe and sound." Atticus explained in monkey language.

"I never heard of them, do they live around here?" the monkey then asked which made the very sad conclusion that this monkey was an orphan.

"Oh, dear, um, I-I don't know how to tell you this, but I think your parents might be..... Dead." Atticus said in monkey language.