Monkeys In The Classroom

“Class 4B! Keep quiet!” Our mathematics teacher, Mr Chan shouted. Mr Chan was a tall and thin man who was very strict with us. He spoke to me “Now, Jane, tell me how to find the area of triangle ABC!”        I felt someone poking my elbow and I woke up from my sleep. As the Mathematics lesson was boring, I had day dreamed and dozed off “Huh? What happened?” I whispered. My friend, Sally who had poked me, whispered to me quietly “Find the area of triangle ABC!” My quick mind worked and I said “The answer of triangle ABC is ... erm ... 96!” Mr Chan said that my answer was correct and he gave us some problem sums to be done in our workbooks. Mouseover to hear ...        As Mr Chan was giving out the workbooks, five monkeys scampered into the classroom one by one. I thought that I was seeing things and rubbed my eyes. But I still saw monkeys and I knew that it was not my imagination. The monkeys looked mischievous and playful! They ran around the classroom. One of them snatched Sally’s textbook and threw it onto the ground. Sally gave a shriek and looked terrified. The second monkey took the dustbin and threw it on the ground. Mr Chan was angry with the monkeys for interrupting his Mathematics lesson. The third monkey grabbed Samin’s hair and pulled it. Samin screamed in pain. As John loved monkeys and had read about them, he knew that the monkeys were rare and endangered and could have escaped from the nearby zoo. He told the girls, who had all climbed up on their tables for fear of the monkeys, not to be afraid of them. Some of the girls were even crying and wailing.        John ran out of the door to telephone the zoo. As he was running, he bumped into Mr Lee, who was our headmaster. Mr Lee had come because of the noise that we were making. The third and fourth monkeys saw him and scampered up his neck. They pulled his nose and hair. Mr Lee told us to be calm. Just then, we saw a man wearing a cap coming into the classroom, followed by John. The man was wearing a white tee-shirt with the words “Zoo” on it. We knew that he was the zoo-keeper. He told us to call him Mr Tan. He looked at us and smiled.        Mr Chan told Mr Tan to take the monkeys away. Mr Tan took out a whistle from his pocket and blew it. Strangely, the monkeys walked towards Mr Tan and went into a big cage that he had brought with him. The monkeys were then brought back to the zoo.        As some students were bitten by the monkeys, they were hospitalised for two days. Classes were cancelled that day. We cheered joyfully and went back home as happy as larks.

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Written by Melissa Loo Pri 6/1, 2002 Zhangde PS