CHAPTER 2

Outside the monkey house we filled up our lungs with enough air to last us. Once inside, we only breathe through our mouths, not our noses. The smell is something fierce.

The guard stood propped against the wall, watching us. Maybe he thought we were planning to rip off a couple of monkeys.

“Ask him,” Al said, nudging me. She doesn’t like to ask people things, directions, anything like that. She always makes me do the asking. I went up to the guard. He was new.

“Where’s the baby monkey?” I said. “They told us last time we were here that the baby was coming in a couple of weeks.” He just looked at me.

“There was this pregnant monkey,” I said. “Has the baby been born yet?”

He folded his arms on his chest and kept looking at me. Just when I’d about given up and was preparing to look for myself, the guard said, “You got me. I’m part-time. I don’t know nothing about no pregnant monkey. Come back when Larry’s here. Larry knows.”

“Where’d Larry go?”

“Atlantic City. Honeymoon. Him and the missus like to play the slot machines.” He pushed his hat back on his head. His forehead stretched on and on, hairless and smooth. “They give you a good deal. You get your bus fare, your hotel room, a nice, classy-type hotel, breakfast thrown in. Plus,” he said, “plus you get a free champagne cocktail. Courtesy of the management. All for thirty-six bucks a day, plus tax, double occupancy.” He must’ve memorized the ad.

“Well,” I said, “I guess if Larry and his wife are on their honeymoon, it must be double occupancy, right?” I gave him a smile, reluctantly. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would know what to do with one.

“Yeah. Right. So come back in a coupla weeks. Larry should be back by then. I’m just filling in. Sure stinks in here, don’t it?”

“It’s not so bad if you hold your breath,” I told him

“Try holding your breath for five hours, the whole five hours I’m standing here,” he said in an aggrieved voice.

Al was circling the room on her own.

“Hey!” she said. “Over here! He’s here! Come see!” She was hanging on the bars of a cage, looking in at two gigantic monkeys who were busily picking fleas or lice off each other. They were really concentrating. Between them, almost squashed, was this little tiny face peering out at us.

“That’s a face that only a mother could love,” I said.

“I think he’s adorable,” Al said. “He looks sort of like Teddy.” Teddy is my brother. He’s nine.

“Boy, you better not let my mother hear you say that,” I told her. I was sort of hurt. It would’ve been all right if I’d said the baby monkey looked like Teddy. But I didn’t think Al should’ve said it.

“I’m sorry.” Al can be very quick at catching bad vibes. “I meant it in a nice way. He’s adorable. So’s Teddy.” She smiled at me. “And Teddy smells better.”

“That’s what you think,” I said. We leaned on the bars and made dumb faces and talked baby talk to the little monkey. His parents kept picking stuff off each other. One thing about monkeys, they take care of each other. They have very strong family feelings.

On our way out I waved at the guard, who acted as if he’d never seen me before. “See you,” I called. “We found him. In cage three. In case anyone wants to see the baby. Cage three.”

He caught on I was talking to him and said, “Oh, yeah,” but I doubt he was tracking. Probably he was thinking about Atlantic City and slot machines, not to mention double occupancy.

“Come home with me and watch me pack,” Al said as we hit the street and breathed in the wonderful, polluted New York City air.

“Isn’t it a little early to start packing?” I said. Al’s going to visit her father and his new wife, Louise, and Louise’s three sons: Nick, Chris, and Sam. That was one big plus for Al. She inherited three stepbrothers when her father married Louise. She really likes them. I only have Teddy. He’s my blood brother. They say that blood is thicker than water. Whatever that means.

“You’ve got loads of time,” I told her. “If you pack now, everything will be wrinkled when you get there.” Al’s leaving next week. She plans on staying for three weeks. They asked her for a month, but she doesn’t want to leave her mother for that long. She and her mother might go on a cruise when she gets back from her father’s farm. They’re having a barn dance there for Al, with a fiddler and homemade ice cream. And the boy named Brian that Al likes will be there. It sounds exciting.

“Listen,” Al said. “Don’t think it’s easy, packing for that long. Because it isn’t. I’m only taking one bag. But I have to make sure I take the right clothes. I don’t want to look out of place. I don’t want it so’s when I walk down the street, they look at me and say, ‘Wow. Look at that creep. She must be from the big city.’ I definitely don’t want that to happen.”

Oh, boy. Al was going to get plenty heavy about her farm wardrobe. When Al gets heavy about something, she doesn’t fool around.

“If you’re on the farm all the time,” I said in my soothing voice, “probably all you have to have is blue jeans and sneakers. And some T-shirts. Maybe a dress if you go to church or anything. And don’t forget the white gloves,” I said, kidding. Al got all steamed up when she went to her father’s wedding to Louise. She was afraid her mother would make her take white gloves. Al’s mother works in Better Dresses. She’s very style-conscious.

Al frowned. “It’s easy for you to kid around,” she said. “But I definitely don’t want to look like a city square. You have to be careful not to look out of place. Especially when you’re from the city and you go to the country. You don’t want the kids there to think you’re a snob.”

“You couldn’t be a snob even if you went to snob school,” I told her. It’s true. Al is very down-to-earth. She is practically the most down-to-earth person I know.

“You’re a very down-to-earth person,” I said. “Even if you went to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen, you’d be down-to-earth.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she agreed. I could tell she was pleased. People are always pleased to be called down-to-earth. I have to reassure Al a lot. She’s a year older than me, but she still needs a lot of reassurance.

We headed across Fifty-seventh Street. There are a lot of art galleries there. Usually we stop and check out the paintings, chose the ones we wouldn’t mind having if we could afford them. Which we couldn’t. But today we didn’t stop. I wouldn’t have minded. But Al was in a hurry to get home and start packing.

“Come on,” she said, charging along at a fast clip.

“O.K.,” I said.

I’m not going anywhere. That I know of.