CHAPTER 11

THE GIANT GORILLA

But before we could get back to finishing our book we had to clean up the mess the monkeys had made.

Finally, after about a thousand million trillion gazillion years, we had everything back to normal and were ready to start work again.

I had just finished writing the words, “Once upom another time,” and Terry had just finished pointing out that I had misspelled “upon” again when the table began shaking.

“Quit shaking the table!” I said.

“I’m not shaking the table,” said Terry. “I thought you were shaking the table.”

“I’m not shaking the table!” I said, as the treehouse began to sway.

“Quit swaying the treehouse!” said Terry.

“I’m not swaying the treehouse,” I said. “I thought you were swaying the treehouse.”

“It’s not me,” said Terry. “I think it’s that giant gorilla down there.”

“But why would a giant gorilla be shaking our tree?” I said.

“Beats me,” said Terry. “It’s not like it’s a banana tree.”

“Of course!” I said. “That’s it! To the gorilla it is a banana tree...a giant banana tree!”

“Huh?” said Terry.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I said. “The giant banana we catapulted must have landed on a distant tropical island...

where the giant gorilla lives...

and it found the giant banana and ate it...

and loved it so much that it made a boat out of the giant banana peel...

and used its giant nostrils to track the giant banana’s scent all the way back here...

and is now shaking our tree in the mistaken belief that it’s a giant banana tree.”

“It seems a little far-fetched,” said Terry. “All that trouble for a banana?”

“A giant banana,” I reminded him. “With extra giant-banana flavor.”

Just then we heard the unmistakable roar of a giant gorilla that has traveled across the ocean in a giant banana peel boat in search of giant bananas.

“I think you could be right,” said Terry. “It would certainly explain why it’s here, shaking our tree. What are we going to do?”

“Give it more giant bananas, of course!” I said.

“We can’t!” said Terry. “The monkeys broke the banana-enlarger!”

“Can’t you fix it?”

“Maybe, but it would take too long!” said Terry. “They’ve completely pulled it apart!”

“Well we’ve got to do something!” I said. “Before it shakes the treehouse to pieces!”

“BANANA!” roared the giant gorilla. “BANANA!”

“There are no bananas here!” shouted Terry. “Well, there was, but not anymore!”

“BANANA!” roared the gorilla in response.

“It’s no use,” I said. “Apart from the word ‘banana,’ I don’t think it speaks English.”

And then, just when we thought the day couldn’t get any crazier, a white stretch limousine pulled up at our front door and a chauffeur in a fancy uniform got out and rang our doorbell.

“We’re up here!” I called down to him.

“Which one of you is Terry?” he said.

“Me!” said Terry.

“Well,” said the chauffeur, “I’m very pleased to inform you that you have won first prize in the Barky the Barking Dog drawing competition with your drawing of Barky at the beach.”

“Wow, that’s so exciting,” said Terry. “What do I win?”

“You get to meet Barky,” said the chauffeur.

“When?” said Terry.

“Right now!” said the chauffeur, opening the back door of the limousine.

“This is great!” said Terry. “Barky’s here! Not only do I get to meet him, but he can save us—and the treehouse!”

“And how exactly is he going to do that?” I said.

“By barking, of course!” said Terry.

Right on cue, Barky emerged from the limo and began barking at the giant gorilla.

He barked,

and barked,

and barked.

And then the giant gorilla lifted up one of its gigantic feet and stomped on him.

We watched as the chauffeur scooped Barky up and carried him to the limo.

“Do you think he’s okay?” said Terry.

“Well, he’s still barking,” I said.

“I didn’t even really get to meet him,” sighed Terry.

Meanwhile, the gorilla wasted no time in getting back to shaking the tree, only this time even harder than before.

“Oh no,” said Terry. “We really are in trouble. Even Barky couldn’t save us. What are we going to do?”

“Say good-bye to the treehouse,” I said, “and say hello to the monkey house. Without the treehouse we’ll have nowhere to live and nowhere to write books.”

“I hate monkeys,” said Terry. “And giant gorillas.”

“Well, you’ve only got yourself to blame,” I said. “If you hadn’t sent away for sea-monkeys or fooled around with giant bananas in the first place, none of this would ever have happened!”

But Terry wasn’t listening to me.

He was looking up into the sky.

“Can you hear that?” he said.

“You mean the sound of a giant gorilla destroying the treehouse?” I said. “Yep! Coming through, loud and clear!”

“No,” said Terry. “The sound of a flying cat. It’s Silky! She’s come back! And she’s not alone!”