Monkey Accepts a Challenge

For many years, a great clan of monkeys lived on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits. They enjoyed a carefree life, swinging from the tress and playing in the streams. Whenever they were hungry, they gathered delicious fruit from the trees. Whenever they were thirsty, they drank crystal water from the streams. Life was easy and wonderful.

But when that furious storm came to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits, it destroyed all the trees on the mountain. Day after day, the monkeys crept among the broken trees, searching in vain for something to eat.

One hot morning the hungry monkeys were sitting forlornly by a stream. “I wonder,” said one monkey, who was more curious than the rest, “what would happen if we followed this stream up the mountain. We might find a place that was better than this one”

“Yes, yes,” the other monkeys agreed. “It certainly can’t be worse.”

So they followed the stream as it wound through valleys and up steep cliffs. By late afternoon they had neared the top of the mountain and were feeling very tired. But they pushed on, past one more curve in the stream. As they came around the bend they found themselves at the bottom of a gigantic waterfall, an immense white curtain of rushing water casting down billions of water pearls, each one glittering in the sunlight.

“Ohhhh, how lovely!” said the monkeys, clapping their hands in delight.

The waterfall was so high that they could not see the top, so wide that all the monkeys holding hands could not reach from side to side, so dense that not even the sharpest-eyed monkey could see through it.

“If this waterfall is so beautiful on this side,” the curious monkey wondered, “what do you think lies on the other side?”

The monkeys looked at each other, but no one answered.

“Who will dare to go and look?” asked the curious monkey.

“Not me!” answered one monkey. “I’d get soaked!”

“Or crushed by the water!” said another.

“Worse! You’d drown and be swept away by the mighty current!” others cried.

All the monkeys whined and made excuses.

The curious monkey leaped upon a tree and shouted out, “I have an idea. Whoever is brave enough to go through the waterfall and discover what is on the other side will become our king! What do you say to that?”

“Very good,” said an old gray-haired monkey who was grandmother to the clan. “But I don’t think there is anyone foolish enough to accept the dare.”

“Who will go? Who will go?” the monkeys jabbered. Though they pushed and shoved each other, no one had the courage to step forward.

Suddenly, a loud voice boomed, “I will go!”

Standing on a rock hundreds of feet away was a monkey the clan had never seen before. He was small; his fur was silky and golden in color. And his eyes were shining with a strange light.

“Who are you? And where do you come from?” asked the curious monkey.

“I am Stone Monkey, born of Heaven and Earth,” Stone Monkey said. “I’m so brave, I’ll do anything.”

“Bragging! Bragging!” the other monkeys jeered, making faces at this new monkey.

Monkey did not say a word. He just laughed. Then he jumped. He jumped higher than the highest tree in the forest, somersaulted, and landed on his feet right in front of the astonished monkeys.

“Did you say I was bragging?” he asked. “Well, then, if I go through the waterfall, will you truly make me your king?”

Grandmother Monkey walked out of the crowd and looked into Monkey’s eyes. They were the strangest eyes she had ever seen. “Are you really so foolish as to try?” she asked.

Monkey craned his neck, pretending to search among the crowd. “Well, I don’t see anyone else volunteering,” he said. He stretched out his arm and bowed deeply. “But if any one of you is brave enough, please be my guest.”

“Oh, you boastful monkey,” several monkeys cried out. “Shame on you!”

“Silence!” ordered Grandmother Monkey. She turned back to Monkey. “Very well,” she said. “Let’s see if you really are as brave as you say.”

“If I succeed, don’t forget what you have promised.” Monkey winked at the curious monkey.

“Go! Go!” the monkeys chanted. “You’ll see. You’ll never come out alive!”

Monkey scampered through the crowd until he reached the edge of the giant waterfall. The rushing water made a noise like thunder. Very slowly he stretched out his legs and his arms. He turned his neck back and forth and wiggled his tail.

In awed silence, the monkey clan watched.

Monkey crouched down, closed his eyes, took a deep breath—and leaped straight into the waterfall—and vanished.