Monkey Business Read Online Free

ships? And how did you
get
an
aeroplane or a ship? Did you have to know someone who owned one, or could you just buy a ticket? He knew that there were planes called jumbo jets. Maybe they were the ones for the elephants.
    It was very frustrating. Felix had all these extremely important questions that needed answers, and he was stuck in the classroom learning the nine times table.
    He looked across the table at Flo who was busily filling in her maths sheet.
    ‘Flo?’ he hissed.
    She looked up at him from under her fluffy blonde mop of hair and frowned.
    ‘I need to talk to you about this Elephant Thing,’ he whispered.
    ‘Felix!’ Mr Beasley had magically appeared by his side and was breathing his cheese-’n’-onion breath snortily down Felix’s neck. ‘You will be staying in at
break if you have not finished the worksheet!’
    Felix sighed and started filling in numbers at random.
    By the time the bell had rung for break, Felix had decided that the whole Elephant Thing was not going to work out. His head was hurting from the nine times table anyway, and
he simply didn’t have enough brain power left to work out how to get hold of an elephant. He ran into the playground with Flo hot on his heels. Once they were safely by the bug bases and away
from the Boys Who Played Football, he turned to face his friend and said, ‘About this elephant—’
    ‘Yes, I wanted to talk to you too. I have been thinking about it all morning and I have decided we absolutely must do what we can to Progress This Project immediately,’ she said in a
posh, TV-newsreader-type voice.
    Felix frowned. ‘No, I don’t agree—’
    Flo arched one eyebrow impressively, stopping Felix in mid-tracks. ‘I have actually come up with a brilliant idea which you could say is Foolproof. I was multi-tasking it while I was doing
my maths sheet and I have got it all worked out.’
    She backed Felix into a corner and, dropping her voice to a hush, told him what they needed was A Plan of Action.
    ‘Last week my dad read a book to me about a man who had travelled to Africa and could talk animal languages and brought animals back from Africa to live in his house. He was called Doctor
Dolittle. So you see it must be possible.’
    The rumbling feeling Felix had had in his tummy all morning grew stronger. It was panic, he realized. Flo was most definitely On A Roll.
    He took a deep breath and said calmly, ‘This book could not have been a true-life story if it said that the man could talk animal languages, cos no one in true life can actually do
that.’
    This was a way of buying Felix a bit of time. He did secretly think that there probably
were
people who could talk animal languages, because otherwise how did you explain those people on
the telly who could get seals to understand exactly what tricks to do in those big swimming pools? And how could people train parrots to talk as well? And once he had seen a sign at the zoo which
said ‘wolves talk: 2.00 p.m’. (He did wonder why they only spoke at two o’clock in the afternoon, but there were some mysteries in this life which were not worth bothering to
solve.)
    ‘Well, it doesn’t matter about whether the animal languages bit is true life or not,’ Flo said dismissively. ‘What I am talking about is getting an elephant.’
    ‘Yes, but, Flo, no one has ever had an elephant as a pet. Not in England anyway. If they did, it would have been on the news,’ said Felix. ‘And it would never fit inside my
house and we only have quite a small garden at the back.’ He tried to change the subject altogether. ‘Can we talk about apes and monkeys now? Cos I have brought in my book to show
you—’
    Flo held up her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Felix Stowe, but I think you will find that I was talking first.’
    Felix rolled his eyes.
    ‘OK,’ he said heavily. ‘So where do
you
think we would keep it? IF we could get one in the first place,’ he added with deep scepticism.
    Flo looked up at the sky