Teboho's Daring Move

• Phoebe Sampson, Grade 3
• Short Story
• 2012

Teboho’s Daring Move
By Phoebe Sampson

My name is Teboho and I am a vervet monkey. I live in a huge, leafy, green tree in a camp which humans call the Okavango Delta, in Botswana. I spend most of my days having fun and playing with my friends and relatives. We love swinging playfully from branch to branch and hanging off one another like trapeze artists in a circus. All this swinging and exercising makes us very hungry though, so we sometimes find a nice, shady branch in a tree and snack on flowers and leaves. When humans come to the camp, we like to get their attention by showing off with our swinging and our tricks. All of this showing off makes us more hungry than usual and lately I’ve noticed that the humans eat food that looks and smells a lot more delicious than boring, old leaves. Each day when the humans would eat, I would edge closer and closer to their mouth-watering food. The humans would take turns trying to scare me away! But, it’s not my fault! The food looked and smelled amazing and they were tempting me by eating it right in the middle of my natural habitat! I was starting to get a reputation as a very cheeky monkey, but I was really getting sick of tasteless leaves and flowers! Can you really blame me?

One day, as I was sitting high on a shady branch chewing on a bland leaf, I spotted a very small human, who was not that much bigger than me. She was sitting alone at a table and the smell of her lunch was wafting up into my nostrils. I thought, “This is my chance!” I couldn’t take it any longer. I crept along the branches slowly, getting lower and lower down the tree. I sneakily leapt onto the ground and then made a run for her lunch. The little human squealed and shouted “My pizza! The monkey’s got my pizza!” I raced back to the tree and began climbing it as fast as I could, while an enormous human with a low voice began waving his arms and bellowing at me, “Hey! Get out of here!”

This was a very risky move and I must admit I was terrified that the huge human might catch me…but the prize was worth it! My new favourite food is what humans call “pizza!”