Benny and his new coconut monkey were a big hit the next day. Several of Penny’s customers asked whether it was for sale. “No way,” he answered with a cheerful smile.
Benny’s monkey even came to the rescue when a little girl came in to have her picture taken for a pirate picture. Henry did everything he could to make the girl smile, but she wouldn’t put her face behind the pirate cutout.
“Come on, Katie, stay still and smile for the camera,” the little girl’s mother said.
But the little girl wouldn’t smile. In fact, every time she looked up at her mother, her lip trembled as if she were about to cry, not smile.
“Oh, dear,” the mother said. “We were going to get a pirate photo for her dad’s birthday.”
Henry made funny faces. He held up a teddy bear. But the little girl kept getting up and running to her mother.
Benny figured out just what to do. “Wait a minute, Henry. I’ve got an idea.” Benny placed a stool next to his brother. “I’ll stand next to you and hold up my monkey. I’ll make faces. That will make the little girl laugh.”
Sure enough, as soon as the little girl saw the monkey’s silly face and Benny’s identical silly face, she sat still and gave the two boys a big, dimpled smile. Click! A perfect picture.
Pretty soon, there was a line of customers who wanted pirate pictures, too. “With the monkey, okay?” some of them asked.
So Benny lent out his monkey. But he was very careful to keep an eye on it. One little boy’s dad offered Benny ten dollars for the monkey.
“It’s not for sale,” Benny said.
“I’m expecting a shipment in a few days,” Penny told all the customers who wanted coconut monkeys. “Make sure to come back.”
“You children have worked enough today,” Penny said later on. “Didn’t you tell me you had some shopping to do at the mall? The stores close soon, so why don’t you leave now?”
Jessie and Violet finished wrapping last-minute souvenirs for several senior citizens who had to get back to their bus.
“Grandfather gave us money to get new jeans before we go back to school,” Jessie told Penny. “That jeans shop next door has a lot of them. I guess this is a good time to go shopping.”
It was never a good time for Benny to go clothes shopping. He wanted to go to the store that sold nothing but train models. Or go window-shopping at the store that had puppies in the window. Or stay at Penny’s and show off his monkey Anything but clothes shopping.
“Come on, Benny” Jessie said. “We might as well get it over with. You’re growing like a tree all the time. Look how short your jeans are.”
Benny looked down. About two inches of his socks showed between the bottom of his jeans and the top of his sneakers. “I like short jeans,” he told Jessie.
“Well, either you get new jeans or those jeans will soon look like shorts, not pants,” Henry said, half joking. “Same with mine. I’m not much of a shopper, either, but sooner or later we all need new jeans.”
The children walked over to the store next door. The Jeans Warehouse carried denim pants, jackets, shirts, and shorts. There were jeans stacked to the ceiling.
“How will we ever decide on jeans?” Violet asked. “The jeans store in Greenfield only has a few kinds.”
“I’ll help you,” a smiling young woman told Violet when she overheard her. “Tell me your sizes.”
“We all need jeans,” Jessie announced. “Here’s a list of our sizes.”
“Sure thing,” the young woman said. “Why don’t you each find a dressing room in back. I’ll bring in some jeans for each of you.”
The children found several empty dressing rooms and waited for the saleswoman. In a few minutes she came back with piles of jeans for the Aldens to try on. Jessie and Violet each found a pair right away.
“We’re going to go pay for our jeans,” Jessie told Henry as she stood outside his dressing room. “We’ll be browsing around in the shops nearby. See you in a while.”
Benny also decided on a pair quickly, the very first pair he tried. Jeans were jeans, and he wasn’t going to try on any other pairs. He sat down in his dressing room to wait for Henry. He played with his coconut monkey and made funny faces in the dressing room mirror. “Next time, save your old jeans for me, okay?” he called over to Henry in the next dressing room. “Then I won’t have to go shopping again.”
The boys stopped talking while Henry changed back into his regular clothes. That’s how the boys happened to overhear two people talking just a ways down.
“I told you I don’t want to get involved in this even to help you out,” the young saleswoman said. “My boss said I can’t hire anyone while she’s away.”
Henry and Benny heard the door to another dressing room bang shut. “I could work in the storeroom. I’m used to heavy lifting from my job on the boat.”
“Sorry,” the saleswoman said. “I’ll let you know as soon as my boss comes back about whether we can hire you. Why don’t you try some of the other stores.”
“I ... uh ... well, I like this store, that’s all,” the man said.
Henry and Benny didn’t hear anything else. They gathered up their new jeans and carried them to the cash register. While he waited to pay, Henry looked around the store. “That man’s voice sounded familiar.”
“Did you see who it was?” Benny asked.
“No, and now it’s going to drive me bananas all day.”
As they left the store, Benny suddenly felt empty-handed. “Uh-oh.”
Henry looked down. “What’s that uh-oh about?”
Benny’s ears turned pink. He didn’t want to tell Henry what had happened.
“My new coconut monkey! I think I left it in the dressing room when I was talking to you,” Benny said.
“No problem. Just run back inside the store and get it,” Henry said. “I’ll wait right here.”
When Benny came back, he was empty-handed again.
“What happened? Wasn’t the monkey there?” Henry asked.
Benny swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to cry, but he was upset with himself. After all, Henry had gone out and found him another monkey. Now it was lost again.
Henry went back inside to a clerk at the counter. “Did someone find a monkey in the dressing room?”
The clerk shook his head. “What an odd question! A monkey in the dressing room? How would a monkey get in there?”
The saleswoman came out of the dressing room area. She held up the coconut monkey. “Yip! Yip!” she said.
Benny ran toward the young woman. “Phew, I thought I lost this. Thank you.”
“I saw you come in with it before, so I put it away when I found it. I knew you would come back,” the woman said. “And the funny thing was, a man saw it and said it was his, but I didn’t let him have it.”
“Good thing,” Henry said. “The one I bought at that other store was the last one in stock. Now, Benny, you’d better keep that next to you wherever you go.”
Benny hugged his monkey. “I’ll be really careful this time.” With that, he put the coconut deep in his shopping bag. “Now nobody can see it.” |