Free Monkey and Me by David Gilman Page A

light fitting and it would have to be something supernatural to turn it into a bone-crushing snake. By the time I told my brain to stop being so stupid I was at the top of the stairs looking down a long passageway that was big enough to have old pieces of furniture in it.
    Monkey was already halfway down the corridor,standing in the shadows. This is where my brain finally won because it was quite obvious that this passageway was the entrance to a monster’s tomb, and, if I walked on those creaking floorboards and opened any of these doors, creatures from another world were bound to devour me. I started singing in my head.
    When you walk through a storm,
    Hold your head up high,
    And don’t be afraid of the dark…
    Sing it louder, I shouted at myself without a sound. Try another song. Maybe it was better to sing something aloud.
    â€œHe’s got the whole world in His hands, He’s got the whole wide world in his hands…” That was more of a whisper than singing.
    By this time the monkey had scuttled back and tugged at my anorak. Then he ran off again, jumping on the tatty old sofas and chairs, making a real game of it. When your brain doesn’t work properly because you’re so scared, you have to try and see things for what they are. There was Monkey playing down the corridor of death. Right in front of the monster’s tomb. So obviously there was nothingscary down there. It was just me. Idiot me.
    I ran after him and watched as he disappeared through an open door. When I went in I saw that this was where he slept. A threadbare carpet covered most of the floor and an iron bedstead with a mattress was pushed against one wall. There was a stain on the other side where it looked as though a big wardrobe had once stood. Tattered curtains hung the length of the tall windows, which had wooden shutters closed across them. And, although they had been boarded up from the outside, there was a small side window where the wooden shutters had fallen off. This was high above the bedstead, and this is where Monkey jumped up onto the sill. This was his lookout! I climbed up after him and, standing on tiptoe on the bed head, I could just see out. It was high enough to stop anyone breaking in, but I could see all the grounds, the courtyard and the greenhouses and the track that led around from the main gates, although you couldn’t see the gates because they were hidden by all the trees. So from up here it looked as though there had once been a sweeping driveway that curved all the way round to the front of the house.
    This was where he must have been when Mark’sgang and I came into the house and we heard him scurrying across the upstairs landing. Bits of ragged curtains and cushions from chairs were on the bed and it looked as though he had made his own nest. This was his bedroom and he was sharing it with me. It was like a very special den. Him and me – our own HQ!
    I could imagine the house full of chandeliers, not just the old bits of wire that now hung down from the holes in the ceiling – and it was as if all those chandeliers suddenly came on all at once. Light glistened everywhere in my head because I knew that we were safe! If the monkey ran round without being scared then so could I. So I did.
    I aeroplaned along the monster passageway and ran down the stairs and then back up again – until I was so tired I nearly fell asleep. The Black Gate was my castle and I was the king. No one would come here, this was my secret place.
    The monkey chattered and bounced off the walls like a rubber ball and he could run twice as fast as me, but we ran together! By the time we got back to the big old greenhouse I was starting to shake. I shoved a banana into my mouth and drank somewater and then just lay back on the sacks. I had to have a sleep and just before I closed my eyes Monkey sat next to me.
    For some reason a name came into my head. It wasn’t very cool, it wasn’t very