Free Monkey Wars by Richard Kurti Page B

understand.
    Eventually they made it back to the gully where Mico helped Papina slip into the water.
    “Thank you,” she said quietly.
    “I’m sorry…for everything,” Mico whispered.
    But both knew the guilt and the blame lay elsewhere.
    Then as Papina turned to go, Mico blurted out, “Tomorrow there won’t be as many patrols.”
    Papina looked at him uncertainly.
    “They’ve finished the night exercises for a while. Perhaps…perhaps you could tell me what life used to be like in the cemetery?”
    Papina knew that Twitcher would be furious, but she couldn’t let go of this last remaining thread that connected her to her father.
    Sensing her confusion, Mico reached out and touched her hand gently. “I’ll protect you. I promise.”
    Despite everything she’d been told about the langur, Papina believed him. “All right, tomorrow.”
    Then she turned and waded along the gully into the darkness.

“I t’s madness! You can’t go back!”
    For once Twitcher didn’t hide behind a wry comment; he told Papina exactly what he thought. But she had already made up her mind; seeing the tree-lined avenues in the cemetery, rich with the distinctive sweet mosses that grew on the tombs, was like paying tribute to her father, and that felt good.
    In any case, she told Twitcher the monkey she’d met was nothing like the langur thugs that everyone described; Mico could easily have betrayed her, but he hadn’t.
    “Exactly!” admonished Twitcher. “That’s how cunning they are. He’s probably trying to lure us
all
back so he and his pals can finish us off!”
    Papina shook her head. “Spare me the hysterics. It wasn’t like that.”
    Twitcher growled impatiently and darted down an alley behind the trolleybus depot. They were nearly back at Temple Gardens now and he was starting to regret ever helping Papina. She was just the sort of monkey to have memorized the route from one outing, just the sort of willful character to attempt the journey on her own.
    And that was exactly what happened.
    —
    The following night, Papina steeled her nerves and set off on the lonely journey across the restless city that was struggling to sleep under a blanket of humid air. Her courage was rewarded—before long she found herself by the feeder pool in the cemetery wall.
    This time there was no hesitation—she dived straight into the water, swam through the submerged hole and emerged into the gully…to find Mico already waiting for her.
    He was determined that Papina should come to no harm, and had secretly found out from his father’s counting stones about the rostering of the guards and the new schedule for the night exercises, so he knew exactly which areas of the cemetery to avoid.
    As Papina shook the water from her fur, she tossed Mico a glistening pebble. “We used to hide them at the bottom of the pool. I thought you might like it.”
    Mico turned the pebble over in his hand, admiring the flecks of color that glinted in the moonlight.
    “My father would really love you!” he smiled.
    And so began a secret friendship.
    Mico and Papina started to meet every night, and she told him all about how life used to be when the cemetery had been home to the rhesus. As they stole around the dark paths she showed him the tomb where she had grown up, and the trees where her father had taught her to climb; she recounted how the Great Vault used to be a huge adventure playground, and she smiled wistfully as she remembered the long afternoons spent playing there, chasing shadows and digging up ants just for fun.
    At other times, unable to roam for fear of running into the night patrol, Mico and Papina would stick close to the gully, which is when she told him all about the carved monkeys.
    “The one covering its eyes is my father,” she explained. “So that he doesn’t see where I’m going when we play hide-and-seek. The monkey covering its ears is me, stopping anyone from grooming my ears because I’m so ticklish. And this one is my