“See-No! Speak-No! Hear-No! It’s fine!” said Louie. “I’m fine.”

The three chimps stopped jumping, chattering and screeching immediately. Instead, they lowered their heads, bowed towards Louie, and backed off, saying:

“Thank heavens for that, Your Eminence …”

“Truly thankful, Your Chimpi-nence …”

“Could not be more relieved, Your Hairy-ness …”

“Now …” said Louie, turning to Malcolm, his voice more booming and low than ever, “who are you? And why have you disturbed my mid-morning sleep?”

“Well, Louie …” said Malcolm.

“Lord King Louie!” interjected See-No.

“Or Your Chimpi-nence!” said Speak-No.

“And if you continue to speak to the Lord King, it’s ch’amp as in Champion Chimp, not Ch’ump as in –” at this point Hear-No looked a bit uncertain – “chump.”

“Er … right. Well, Lord King Louie, sir …”

“You don’t have to say sir,” said Louie, magnanimously.⁴³

“Right. Well. Thing is, I’m a …” Suddenly, Malcolm felt very tired of having to explain about how he was really a boy again. Also, for some reason he couldn’t quite explain, he was not particularly keen on Louie. So instead he said …

“Actually, why do I have to call you Lord King Louie? And why is everyone bowing and scraping to you?”

Louie frowned – chimps can really do this – and very large lines appeared across his forehead. His nostrils flared, becoming even wider holes than they already were. Speak-No, Hear-No and See-No looked incredibly shocked – in fact Speak-No put both his hands over his mouth, Hear-No put his over his ears, and See-No put his over his eyes.

“Because I …” said Louie, even more loudly and boomingly, “… am the Dominant Male in this community!”

“The Dominant Male!” echoed Speak-No, Hear-No and See-No together (still holding their hands over their mouth, ears and eyes – so it was quite hard to hear Speak-No, and quite surprising that Hear-No heard it in the first place).

Then they actually sang it, like an amen in church:

“The dooh-minn-annt …

Ma-yalll!”

“Would you like to dispute my dominance, Malcolm?” said Louie, rising up to his full height. “Would you like to challenge it?”

Louie then did something, which, if Malcolm hadn’t been so frightened, he might have found funny, as it was so … monkey-ish.

He – Louie⁴⁴ – raised both his long, furry arms above his head, and brought his fists down on his chest, beating it repeatedly, and screaming while he did it, like a … well, like a big monkey. Like King Kong.

Suddenly, all the chimps in the enclosure were surrounding Louie and Malcolm, going:

“Fight! fight! fight! fight!”⁴⁵

Louie was still beating his chest. Malcolm – although he didn’t really want to fight – thought: oh well, when in Rome. Or rather: when in the Monkey Drome.

So he raised himself up to his full height, and started beating his chest and screaming, too.

It kind of felt good. It kind of felt right. It kind of made Malcolm feel he was up for the fight. Hey, he thought, maybe if I win this fight, I’ll be the Dominant Male, and all the others will have to call me, Your Chimpiness! That’ll be great.

They approached each other, fists-a-beating, with all the other chimps still going: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Louie raised one of his fists above his head. Malcolm – suddenly realising that taking on the much bigger Louie may have been a mistake – cowered. But then, just before Louie brought that fist down on Malcolm, Hear-No cried out: “Your Smelliness!”

“What is it!?” said Louie.

“A human boy! Approaching the cage!”

Louie and all the other chimps stopped what they were doing immediately, turning to look. Louie nodded, and took a deep breath.

“We will deal with this…” he said, looking heavily at Malcolm, “… later. Meanwhile: prepare yourselves … for the ritual!!!”

The chimps all scurried away, as if taking positions.

Malcolm, confused, turned to look at the bars of the cage.

There, standing on the other side of them, smiling, pointing and clapping, was his little brother, Bert.