Monkey Business Read Online Free Page B

other good thing about the bike – you didn’t have to stick to the road, and you didn’t get caught in traffic jams.
    And there was the whole fascinating world of the canal and the woods lining the tow path in which Felix could lose himself until they reached the boat.
    So even though he was fidgety with impatience he sat back and forced himself to think Happy Thoughts, which ended up being not
that
tricky, as Felix was always happy when he was with his
uncle.
    ‘Hey, Feels! Check it out – a kingfisher!’ Zed suddenly called over his shoulder. Felix followed the line of Zed’s finger and sat up, goggle-eyed.
    ‘Wow,’ he breathed. The jewel-like bird zipped along the still, green surface of the canal and dive-bombed after a fish before vanishing into a small hole in the bank.
    ‘Feeding its family. Cool!’ said Zed.
    Felix found himself wondering yet again how it was possible that Mum and Zed were related. Mum would not have even
seen
the kingfisher, let alone pointed it out to Felix with such
relish.
    But then Zed was everything that Mum was not. For a start he was a man, although he had long hair (sometimes with beads in). And he had a beard (also sometimes with beads in), which of course
Mum did not (although she
did
occasionally wear beads – but they would be round her neck, not anywhere else). And he lived on a boat on the canal instead of in a normal house. And he
had a girlfriend called Silver who loved animals as much as Zed and Felix and Flo did. Whereas Mum had a husband called Dad who did not love animals at all, even one tiny bit.
    But it wasn’t just those kinds of obvious things. Zed never shouted or said, ‘We’re LATE!’ He didn’t even wear a watch, as he said, ‘Time is, like, a human
construct, man. Nature doesn’t have a watch – have you noticed? But lambs are still born in the spring and snowdrops still come out at the right season. It’s sweet! No need for
clockwork.’
    Flo loved Uncle Zed almost as much as Felix did.
    ‘You know I’ve never met anyone with a real-life beard like that one,’ Flo told Felix in hushed tones after her first encounter with Zed. ‘I mean – is it really
real? It’s so HUMONGOUS! And all that hair on his head is mega-weird – a bit like snakes or eels. Is that maybe a wig?’
    Felix sighed importantly and said, ‘Of course it’s not a wig. It’s his Eco-Hippy Tendencies, Mum says.’
    Flo pulled a face. ‘What’s an Eeeek-o-hippy? Sounds scary and a bit screechy.’
    ‘Not scary – hairy!’ Felix said, giggling.
    Uncle Zed’s real name was Clive, but he had given up that name long ago when he realized that ‘the name you’re born with is not the name to go forward with into this
world’ and that it was important to ‘take on a name that progressed your journey through life’.
    Mum said that was a ‘load of cobblers’ and that Uncle Zed had got his nickname from the fact that he was well known for taking afternoon naps, or ‘catching zeds’ as he
called it, and that if sleeping was something that progressed your journey through life ‘Uncle Zed had progressed enough already to earn himself a free travel pass’.
    Felix didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t really care. As far as he was concerned, his uncle was the best thing about his family, and that afternoon he had two whole hours
with him before Mum had to come and take him home to do homework and tidy his room and other dull and awful things that were Frankly Worse Than Death.
    Everything about spending time with Zed was fantastic fun. The boat he lived on (all the time – not just the holidays!) was brilliant, of course. It was painted in a rainbow of patterns
and swirls, and was called
Kiboko.
Felix’s house was just called ‘Number 12’, which was hardly a name.
Kiboko
meant ‘hippo’ in an African language called
Swahili. Felix thought it sounded magical and wished that people in England spoke Swahili instead of English. When Felix was still