The Monkey and the Drum

Once upon a time, deep in an overgrown forest, there lived a clever and cunning monkey. She was also always a little angry. One day, she was eating a ripe purple fig high up in a tree when a long sharp thorn pierced her tail.

“Ouch! Owie zowie zowie, gosh that hurts!” screamed the monkey, so loudly that nearly all of the ripened figs fell from the tree in fear.

She tried and she tried, but she couldn’t pull the thorn out on her own. It hurt too badly and it was too big for her little hands. She rushed to a nearby human village in the valley to ask someone for help. “Their hands are much larger than mine,” she thought hopefully.

She wandered the muddy streets until she stumbled upon a workshop. “I bet someone in there could help me!” she thought with relief, before going inside. She looked around and saw trinkets and things of all shapes and colours. This shop could help her, she was sure.

“My friend,” she said to the man behind the work table, “Please help me! There’s a sharp thorn in my tail,” she bent it to show him, “Ouch! Owie zowie zowie! And I can’t get it out.”

The craftsman was a kindly sort of man and happy to try to take care of her thorn. But as he was pulling the thorn out, the monkey winced and jerked her body, and the man’s knife slipped off of the edge of the table.

Just like that, a piece of the monkey’s tail dropped on the ground. Plop.

“OWIE ZOWIE ZOWIE!!!” The monkey screamed her lungs out. “Put my tail back together right now! ” Unfortunately, the startled craftsman couldn’t do anything but wring his hands and weep into…