My ten years as a dancing monkey

Gold cherry

By Terrence Oblong

Sun, 27 Dec 2015
  • 2101 reads
7 comments
 
 
No sensible reader wishes to read the adventures of a common street urchin, what could be more tasteless or banal? But attend to this tale, for I was a boy of good stock and breed who spent ten years on the streets due to ill fate and treachery.
 
It started one evening when I was but eight years of age. My parents had sent me to board at Atkin’s school, where I was to learn to be a gentleman.
 
It was the day of the great summer treat. The staff and pupils at Atkins descended on London, where we were to enjoy a theatrical entertainment in the evening. During the day, we boys were given free rein to do what we would. We were at an age of dares and the other boys challenged me to enter one of the poor areas of the city and steal items from one of the shops there.
 
The task proved very easy. The first shop I entered I approached the counter and engaged the store owner in banter. Hidden by the counter, my hands grasped the first thing they came upon and placed it in a pocket. Such is the nature of my charm, my honest face and graceful gab, the man suspected nothing and I left the shop with a stolen spoon in my pocket.
 
I repeated the trick in five separate stores. Strangely, the item I took in each case turned out to be a spoon, fate had somehow taken me to six different spooneries.
 
However, my spoon-lifting had not gone unobserved, and as I left the last store I was grabbed by a ruffian who bundled me to a stinking den of crime and degradation. Little did I know it then, but this den was to be my home for the next decade.
 
Under threat of taking me to the police for spoon theft (the sentence for which was death) the ruffian, whose name I later learnt was Sir Reginald Copeland) forced me to don a monkey suit and dance for money in front of the Rat and Parrot pub in Duke’s Street.
 
Keen to escape, but aware that Sir Reginald had eyes and ears everywhere, I secured means to a pen and paper and dispatched a letter to my parents, explaining that I had been kidnapped by ruffians, dressed in a monkey suit and forced to dance for a living in front of punters at the Rat and Parrot pub in Duke Street. I urged them to send help and rescue me from my situation.
 
Content that the means of my escape had thus been established, I contented myself to dance, and proved highly effective. However, it so happened that as I danced a carriage passed by containing a group of my fellow pupils from Atkin’s Academy of Gentlemen. “Look,” said Cumberpatch, “A dancing monkey. I dare you to kidnap it Cameron.”
 
A dare, of course, is a dare, so Cameron was forced to kidnap me and bring me to their carriage. I didn’t resist, of course, I was free, I had secured a ride back to Atkins School and was back with my friends.
 
Pride, however, prevented me from confessing my identity. How I would have been teased had I been discovered dressed as a monkey. Instead I danced for them as instructed, knowing that once we arrived at Atkin’s I could escape, change out of my monkey suit and my humiliation would remain a secret.
 
Alas, my dancing came to bore them, and just a few miles from London I was thrown from the carriage.
 
I was stuck miles from anywhere, dressed in a monkey suit, with no money and but half a dozen spoons to my account. The only option open to me was to return to London where at least I was assured of food and board, and there wait for my parents to rescue me.
 
I had hoped to obtain a lift from a passing carriage or cart, but all such travellers proved averse to stopping for a hitchhiking monkey. It took me a full three days to walk back to my spot outside the Rat and Parrot.
 
My parents never came for me. It was many years later I learnt the truth. Having seen me absconded, Sir Reginal sent another boy to my patch, Hopeless Harry, who was given to dance in a gorilla costume. It was he who was rescued by my parents and taken to the family home in bleakest Derbyshire. Both being stupid, my parents failed to notice that they had taken the wrong boy.
 
I knew nothing of this, believing myself betrayed by my parents. I donned my monkey suit every morning and danced. I had no hope of escape, having absconded once Sir Reginald ensured that had eyes watching me at all times.
 
However, I came to enjoy this life on the street, became friends with all the regulars at the Rat and Parrot, the boys I shared my grotty lodgings with, and the other street urchins who worked their trade near me.
 
One of these was a girl named Polly, who kept a dancing dog and worked further down Duke Street. The dog and I regularly traded dance steps and tricks of the trade, and so I came to know Polly, and soon we were walking out together.
 
However, London was no place for us to marry, which was our intention. Polly had heard of a dancing animals circus that toured the kingdom, and applied for her dog and myself to become members. Thus it was that we left London and spent a year in every corner of the land, performing with a troop of dancing elephants, horses, ducks and every other creature that has mastered the art of dance.
 
It came about that a year or so after leaving London I found myself near my old family home. Polly and I snuck away from the circus and visited the place. Peering through the window we saw hopeless Harry, still in his gorilla suit, dancing for the pleasure of my parents.
 
We waited until the house was asleep, then kidnapped Harry in his bed and locked and bound him in the shed. The next morning, posing as myself, I announced to my parents that I was tired of being a dancing monkey and intended to dress normally in future. I also requested my birth certificate and a copy of my grandfather’s will. I had just turned 18, and by my grandfather’s decree I was to inherit the full estate from that date, as my grandfather had long ago recognised my parents as complete idiots.
 
I employed a lawyer, and was thus armed to throw my parents onto the street. Polly moved in with me, as did her dog and one of the dancing horses. We kept Harry, too, for entertainment purposes.
 
Though I had missed out on Atkin’s schooling, I had a unique form of education, and with my new found fortune quickly rose to become one the most important and powerful people in the kingdom.
 
But that, dear reader, is another story.
Certificate 15
Story
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is brilliant Terrence - I don't think you mean guerrilla though do you? 

 

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

thanks insert, I've corrected guerilla - i'd mispelt gorilla and spellcheck made the decision for me

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

I quite enjoyed the idea of a guerrilla too - it made a nice picture in my head!

 

Submitted by Bee on

The idea of the guerrilla suit had me in stitches - shame to change it really, but this was a fantastically imaginative story. I absolutely loved the silliness and the voice was wonderfully in keeping with the style of a time. And it does explain a certain lack of education amongst some at the top. Thoroughly enjoyed the read. 

Bee

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

Many thanks Bee, the style just came with the story, it just seemed natural. Well, as natural as any story about a dancing monkey

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day!

Get a fanastic reading recommendation everyday

 

Picture Credit: http://tinyurl.com/ozvax2g

 

Submitted by forest_for_ever on

Skipping as I do through various works, I paused to read this.  I kept on reading...the mark of an excellent piece of writing. A worthy pick by the editors.  Thank you for this.