Benny, Henry, Annika, and Blake didn’t find the camera at the butterfly exhibit, so they hurried on to catch up with the rest of the group.
“There! That’s where we’re supposed to meet Mr. Newton.” Benny rushed up to a cage where little monkeys were swinging from trees and playing with ropes. “Those are the baby monkeys.”
“Where is the banner that Mr. Newton mentioned?” Henry looked all around. “I don’t see him or the rest of the group.”
Pushing through a crowd of tourists, Henry looked closely at the monkeys. “Those aren’t babies,” Henry told Benny. “They are capuchins. From—” He leaned in to see the sign. “—South America. It says here that the average capuchin weighs no more than six pounds.”
“They’re not babies?” Benny asked. “Hmm. They sure look like babies to me.”
“Figures,” Blake said, pressing in next to Henry and Benny. “We’re in the wrong place.”
“But we can’t be far,” Benny told him. “This whole area is full of monkeys. We just need to find the baby ones. Ack!” Benny jumped back, surprised, when one of the little capuchins swung onto a branch right in front of him. “Oooh, oooh!” the monkey squawked at him.
“He’s trying to play with you,” Henry told Benny.
The little monkey pointed at Benny’s backpack.
“You want my snacks, don’t you?” Benny asked. “Sorry. I’m just an assistant zoologist, so I don’t know what monkeys eat. And I only have people food in my pack.” Benny waved at the monkey.
The monkey waved back, then pointed at Benny’s pack again.
It was like a game. The monkey would point and Benny would wave, and the monkey always waved back.
Finally, Blake said, “We better find the rest of the group. It’s already been half an hour.”
“When we find them, I hope they have your camera,” Annika added, shaking her head. “I really wish we’d found it.” She looked at Blake. “Stop staring at me,” she said. “I can tell you still think I took it.”
“Well, who else would it be?” Blake asked her. “Do you think Benny took it?”
“Me?” Benny asked, eyes wide. “I didn’t steal any cameras!”
His red hair glittered in the sunlight as Blake gave a little smile. “I know. You had no reason to steal it. The only person who had a reason is Annika.”
At that, Annika turned and dumped her purse onto a nearby bench. She emptied her coat pockets. She even turned her jeans pockets inside out. “See?!” she told Blake. “No camera except this one.” She held up her camera. “Mine. Not yours.”
“I still think—” Blake started, but Henry cut him off.
“Maybe one of the other groups found your camera, Blake,” Henry said.
“Let’s try going this way.” Benny pointed around the back of the capuchin cage. “See ya,” he told his new little friend.
And just then, the little monkey fiddled with the cage door. To everyone’s surprise, the door opened.
The next thing Benny knew, the monkey was sitting on his shoulder, trying to get into Benny’s pack.
“Oh no!” Benny said, trying to pull his pack away. “Help! A monkey broke out of his cage!”
“Hold still,” a voice echoed through the crowd. A zookeeper had been feeding the chimpanzees their lunch in a cage across the way. He heard Benny’s call for help. “I’m on my way,” the zookeeper called.
A tourist holding an ice cream cone was surprised as the little capuchin leapt off Benny’s backpack and made a grab for his dessert. “Get away!” the man shouted.
The man’s wife waved her arms wildly to chase the monkey away. “Don’t let the monkey near any children!” she cried.
The monkey gave up on the ice cream cone and jumped through the crowd.
In the short minute it took for the zookeeper to arrive, the little monkey had stolen a pretzel from a girl and an apple from a boy in a stroller.
The little boy’s mother started yelling. “Help! The monkey’s after my kids!”
The monkey dashed around. The zookeeper was now after him, shouting to the people in the crowd, “Don’t panic. Simio is not dangerous. Stay still and I’ll catch him.”
“There you are!” Mr. Newton came up to where Henry, Annika, Blake, and Benny were standing, watching the zookeeper chase the monkey. The rest of the tour group was with him.
“What is going on?!” Mr. Newton said. He shoved his glasses back up his nose and looked around. “Seems like we have monkey trouble. I can’t believe Simio escaped again. Zookeeper Frank told me that they found him over by the butterflies earlier today. We keep changing the cage door lock, but he opens it every time. Simio is a clever capuchin.”
“And a hungry monkey, too,” Benny said. He watched Simio take a bite of a little girl’s cotton candy. The monkey now wore a pink fuzzy beard.
“Maybe you should change his name to Houdini,” Henry suggested.
“Who-di-ni?” Benny asked.
“Harry Houdini was a famous escape artist and magician,” Jessie told him. “He could get out of any cage.”
“Funny,” Mr. Newton said with a small laugh. “That’s definitely a more fitting name than Simio. Simio is a scientific name for monkeys in Spanish.” Then Mr. Newton heard a shout behind him. “I better go help Zookeeper Frank,” he said.
Zookeeper Frank had Simio cornered by a rock. The zookeeper reached forward, but like lightning, Simio jumped up and scampered away. Frustrated, Zookeeper Frank told Mr. Newton to call the security office. “We need a tranquilizer gun,” he said.
“Oh no! You can’t shoot him,” Violet put her hands on her cheeks. “That would be terrible. Monkeys are my favorite! I don’t want to see one hurt!”
“It’s not so bad, Violet,” Henry said to his sister. “They’ll shoot him with a dart that has medicine on the tip. It’ll make Simio go to sleep. Once he’s sleeping, they can carry him back to his cage.”
“I don’t like that plan,” Violet said, shaking her head. “There must be something else we can do!”
They rushed over to Zookeeper Frank and Mr. Newton. All the other kids in the tour group followed them. When they got close, the children heard a woman’s voice over Mr. Newton’s walkie-talkie speaker. “Security,” a woman answered. “What’s the situation?”
While Mr. Newton explained to the security officer what was going on at the monkey habitat, Benny pulled off his backpack and set it down. “Zookeeper Frank? Do capuchins like fruit?”
“Yes, they do. Capuchin monkeys eat a lot of fruit. They also eat nuts, seeds, and even insects,” the zookeeper answered.
Benny pulled an apple out of his pack. He gave an orange to Henry and Jessie. Then passed a banana to Violet. “Maybe Simio will follow a fruit trail to his cage?”
“Great idea!” Zookeeper Frank told Benny. “If we can get him back into the cage, then we won’t have to tranquilize him.” He agreed to help the Alden children try their plan.
Henry unpeeled the orange and took a bite. He let the juice drip a little on his chin. “Yummmm,” he said in a clear, loud voice.
Jessie stepped closer to the cage. She opened her orange, too, and waved part of the peel. “Come and get it,” she said.
The monkey glanced from Henry to Jessie and back again. Then, slowly, very slowly, he stepped forward. Just a little.
“I’ll open the cage,” Zookeeper Frank told Benny in a whispered voice. When the door was open, he told Benny to stand next to the entry. Zookeeper Frank blocked the door so none of the other monkeys in the habitat could escape. They were all high up in the trees, swinging from limb to limb.
Simio took a bite of the orange Henry held in his hand and then jumped over the heads of Griffin and Matthew to where Jessie stood. Griffin took a quick photo of the little monkey.
“If he gets a hold of the orange, he’ll jump into a tree to eat it,” Zookeeper Frank told the children. “Don’t let him have the whole thing.”
Simio licked at the orange tightly held in Jessie’s hand. “He likes it,” she whispered.
Violet stood a little closer to the cage door, eating a bite of banana.
Bored with Jessie’s orange, Simio leapt toward Violet. His sudden move surprised her, and she very nearly dropped the banana.
“Just hold tight,” Zookeeper Frank told her. “Simio might be very energetic, but he’s also very friendly.”
Violet held out the banana as far as her arm could stretch.
One bite of the warm yellow fruit, and Simio was off again. He returned to Jessie’s orange.
“Wrong way!” Benny told the monkey. “Come get the apple.”
It was as if the monkey understood what Benny had said.
Simio took one more nibble on Jessie’s orange. Then he jumped through the crowd. He went back over the twins, passing by Violet and her banana. Finally, the monkey dashed right up to Benny and put out two paws, asking for the red fruit in Benny’s hand.
Benny pointed to a tree branch inside the cage. “Go sit on that branch. I’ll give you the apple.”
Simio leapt past Benny and sat down on the tree branch inside the cage, just like Benny had told him to.
“Yippee!” Jessie and Violet shouted.
Benny gave Simio the apple, then jumped out of the capuchin habitat. Zookeeper Frank immediately shut the door behind him. When the security team showed up with the dart gun, Benny said proudly, “The monkey emergency is already fixed!”
“Now, I’m going to figure out a way to fix this lock for good,” Zookeeper Frank announced. “Simio has had enough adventures!”
Mr. Newton came rushing forward. “You are an excellent assistant zoologist!” he said to Benny. Then he gave Benny a high-five.
Benny was smiling. “This is the most exciting job I’ve ever had,” he told Mr. Newton.
Mr. Newton led the group back to the red Educational Center barn. “It’s nearly three o’clock,” he told them. “Our first day of touring is over. When you come back tomorrow, I’ll make sure we see the baby monkeys and the rest of the newborn animals. Don’t forget your cameras,” he added. “And if you didn’t buy one today, you can bring five dollars tomorrow.”
“But what about my missing camera?” Blake asked.
In the confusion of the monkey escape, no one had reported if they’d found it or not.
Shoving his glasses up on his nose once again, Mr. Newton sighed. “We didn’t find it,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I knew it! My camera was stolen.” Blake moved away from Mr. Newton and marched up to Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. He pointed toward the lunch cooler where Sophie and Annika were collecting their bags. “I think Annika should be the number one suspect!”
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