Free Monkey Business by John R. Erickson

can’t say I liked the taste of it very much, but I either had to swaller it or drown.
    I swallered and then did some serious burping.
    The monkey pitched the empty bottle over his shoulder and gave me a smile. “Now! Eef thees ees poison, you weel die and Pasha weel watch.”
    For some reason, I started laughing. “No, it ain’t pashion, Poisha, just a little old bottle of soda pop. You’ll see, won’t he, Djrover?”
    â€œHank, you’re sure talking funny.”
    â€œHuh? Spick up, son, you’re mumbering. Say, did anyone ever tell you that you have two heads and two faces? ’Cause you do.”
    â€œHank, are you feeling okay?”
    â€œHuh? Never fell better in my whole life, Djrover, just seeing double, izall.” I turned my bleary eyes to Pasha. “You know what? You look juss slike a monkey to me.”
    His eyebrows shot up and a grin curled on one side of his mouth. “Eet ees not poison. Eet ees something else.”
    â€œYou better believe it, Charlie, and I don’t belief yer monkey enough to djrink one lum wum wugg lum.”
    He grabbed my tongue, pulled it out with one hand, and spanked it with the other. “I am not a minkey, you weel not call me a minkey, but I weel drink one nevertheless.”
    Whilst I was getting my tongue sorted out and stuffed back into my mouth, he reached in, got the second bottle, twisted off the cap, turned it up, and chugged it down.
    He pitched the empty bottle over his shoulder and it crashed into a thousand pieces on the floor. He burped and shook his head.
    â€œEet does not work for me. I feel nothing. Now I weel find something else to itt.”
    He turned back to the refrigerator and fell into the second shelf, amongst the fresh spinach leaves and radishes from Sally May’s garden.
    I thought that was about the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I laughed like a fool, so hard I stumbled into the kitchen table and, well, sort of knocked the jelly jar and sugar bowl off on the floor.
    Old Pasha climbed out of the spinach and came up wearing a big silly grin. “Eet ees ver-ry strange, thees soda pop stuff.”
    Oh, I howled at that! Laughed like crazy, right up to the moment when the first egg hit me between the eyes. “Hey, are you throwing eggs at me? Somebody around here’s throwing . . .” SPLAT! “. . . eggs at me.” SPLAT!
    â€œI deed eet!” Pasha laughed. “’Twas I who threw theem.”
    â€œWhy, you sorry outfit,” I was laughing so hard I could barely talk, had egg dripping down into my eyes. “I’ll fix yer wagon.”
    I swept my paw through the jelly that had spilled on the floor and rubbed it into Pasha’s face and hair. Howling with laughter, we wrestled around, rolled into the refrigerator, and somehow managed to collapse a couple of shelves, which explains how a gallon of milk ended up spreading across the kitchen floor . . .
    Drover was about to have a seizure. “Oh my gosh, Hank, no, stop, the floor, Sally May’s going to kill us all!”
    â€œOh dry up, you little squawk box, she’ll never suspect a thing.”
    Pasha and I ended up on the bottom shelf, with our arms around each other’s shoulders. We had become the best of friends, is what had happened, in spite of the differences between us.
    He gave me a crooked smile. “I haff a confession to make. I am really a minkey, not a Pasha. In circus, I do treeks and beg for money. I am only a beggar minkey.”
    â€œNo kiddin’? Well, I have a confession to make too. I’m really a dog but I love this monkey business. I also love to sing, and I have an idea for a song about monkey business.”
    His eyes lit up. “You like to sing, yes? Maybe we sing together, yes?”
    â€œYou got a deal, pardner! Come on, Drover, let’s tune up and knock the socks off of this song.”
    Drover had placed one paw over his eyes. “Hank, Sally