The Monkey’s Heart

We worked collaboratively to retell the story, adding more description than we found in the published version.  Let us know what you think!

Long, long ago on a hot blistering summer’s day deep in the jungle of India lay two colossal crocodiles as big as a giant, with stinky sharp teeth as sharp as a razor. It was afternoon, when noisy birds swooped in and out of the enormous swaying trees, dripping with healthy mangoes ripe and ready. The insects clicked, hummed and buzzed, air was thick with sound, yet floating up came a deep crackly voice: “Fish, fish and more dreary fish, that’s all we ever eat,” protested an angry Mrs crocodile. A split second later, something caught her eye. It was a plump, furry monkey tucking into a succulent mango. The juice dripped into the river. “OOOH! Look at that monkey, perched on that branch,” she whispered greedily to Mr Crocodile. “Get that monkey’s heart now!!!” she exclaimed.

Taking all afternoon to think of an ingenious plan in the dirty, boiling lake, finally he shouted: “I have a plan!” Then the crocodile asked the monkey if he wanted to come over for dinner in their boiling, outdoor, swamp home. Using his friendliness, the monkey shouted extremely loudly: “Yes that would be very awesome, thank you for asking,” and then the crocodile took the monkey over the exceedingly scorching lake to where his domain was positioned. The crocodile, who was very aggressive, started to sway side to side like a cute baby bird struggling to fly.

The crocodile, who was as mean as a bully, was terribly worried about the monkey trying to escape from his rough back as he continued down the sparkling river with tropical trees surrounding the scene. Then he would not be able to have a monkey’s precious heart for dinner, just fish, fish and more fish for the rest of their lives... “Excuse me, you are very unstable!” called the monkey loudly. As the hot blistering day continued, the crocodile was getting much closer to his evil mastermind plan of feasting on the monkey’s sweet, juicy heart. Then in the most surprising way the crocodile said in an evil, stern voice: “Did you really think that we would call a foolish monkey over for dinner? I just called you so my wife and I could eat your luscious, precious heart!”

Suddenly, the quick thinking monkey tricked the crocodile into believing that his juicy heart was hanging on a tall, lonely fig tree on the other side of the river. Before too long, they arrived at the bank. As the sly crocodile swam over to the fig tree, the monkey immediately jumped onto it. “Oi, you monkey, get back ‘ere NOW!” raged the livid crocodile up to the monkey, who had scampered hastily to the very top of the tree. With that, the slimy crocodile (who smelt of fish and old river-weed) up thrust the water around him until everything became total mayhem.

As the sun was sitting in the shimmering sky, the monkey (who was very wise) scurried up the rough, scratchy fig tree to get his ‘heart’. “Ha, did you really think I left my precious heart up here!” shouted the intelligent, cunning monkey loudly in surprise, shaking the delicate leaves of the tree. “I’ll never trust you pesky crocodiles again!” So from that scorching day forth the foolish crocodiles always had boring, plain fish (to them) and never tried to trick that wise monkey again. After that, the monkey vowed that he would never trust the sly crocodiles again.