Dexter stared out of his cage at the young chimp that was watching his every move. When Dexter reached up to scratch his head the monkey scratched his head. When he paced inside his cage, the monkey paced in front of him. Finally Dexter crossed his eyes and the monkey stared at him for a moment before screeching and jumping around the room, flailing his arms, turning over some wooden crates, and making a horrible racket.

Dexter retreated to the back of the cage and sat down in the corner, feeling confident that he had broken a grave rule of monkey self-conduct.

When the monkeys had shoved him aboard their ship they placed him in a metal cage along with a bowl of water, some sunflower seeds, and a teddy bear. The bars were an inch thick, and although he had shoved against the door, it hadn’t budged. He had no hope of escaping.

He tried to quell his racing heart and think rationally. He was sitting in a monkey cage on a monkey ship that was flying through space to who knows where. He would have been surprised at the turn of events, only he had been traveling on a ship piloted by Jacob Wonderbar. Of course he would be captured by space monkeys.

He buried his head in his hands and tried not to cry. The Era of Dexter, which had begun when he had helped rescue Jacob from deranged substitutes the first time they’d been in space, had already taken a severe blow when he had to dodge eighth-grade mutants during PE and sneak through back alleys whenever he walked home from school.

He had told himself that he would be brave in space, that he would finally put his scared ways behind him. And yet when the gray-haired chimp showed up in the cockpit he had wilted under pressure yet again. He froze and just went right along wherever the monkey pushed him.

Dexter lifted up his head and brushed off his shoulders. He was going to escape the cage. He was going to be brave.

“Hey,” he shouted at the young chimp. “Let me out of here.”

The chimp stared at him impassively.

Dexter walked over to the cage door and pantomimed turning a key and opening the lock. The monkey scrambled over and watched what he was doing.

After a moment the monkey screeched and ran over to the wall, where the key hung from a peg. He ran back over to Dexter and placed it on the floor.

Dexter lay down on the ground and reached as far as he could, but it was just a few inches out of reach. He stood up and frowned, and the chimp chirped happily.

He suspected the monkey was messing with him.

There was a commotion in the hall and the gray-haired monkey bounded in. He pointed at the door to Dexter’s cage, and the young monkey opened it. The gray-haired monkey grabbed at Dexter’s hand, but Dexter pulled back and retreated into the cage. He wasn’t going anywhere with the monkey leader this time. The gray-haired monkey pounded the floor and scrambled into the cage. He grabbed Dexter’s shoulder and pushed him out, and Dexter wasn’t strong enough to resist.

The monkeys forced him down the hall and into the cockpit, which looked like something out of an old science fiction movie. The dials and levers were old and rusted, and looked nothing like the futuristic screens aboard Lucy and Praiseworthy. The room was strewn with dried leaves and branches, and there were many dents in the walls and floor.

The gray-haired monkey pushed Dexter down into a chair and stared him in the eye for a moment. Dexter looked away, sensing that something important was about to happen.

The monkey leader scrambled over to a wall covered with small buttons. He pressed one, and a mechanical voice said, “Me.” He pressed another and it said, “Boris.”

He looked at Dexter to see if he understood. “Your name is Boris,” Dexter said, realizing they actually had a way to communicate. He was beginning to think the monkeys were more intelligent than Lucy had given them credit for. “Where are you taking me, Boris?”

Boris pressed another button on the wall. The voice said, “Banana now.” He held out his hand.

The monkeys began spinning in circles and screeching. One of the monkeys jumped up and grabbed a bar on the ceiling and swung himself around madly. The young monkey pounded the floor and bared his teeth.

Boris looked at Dexter, waiting with his hand outstretched. “I don’t have any bananas,” Dexter said.

Boris pressed the button. “Banana now.”

“I don’t have one.”

Boris kept pressing the button with his hand outstretched. “Banana now. Banana now. Banana now. Banana now.”

Dexter looked around at the monkeys, who were in a state of pandemonium. Two chimps got into a fight and began rolling around on the deck. Boris began jumping up and down and kept pressing the button.

“Banana now. Banana now. Banana now. Banana now. Banana now. Banana now. Banana now. Banana now…”

Dexter wished he were anywhere else in the entire universe.