Monkey (7 page)

Hung lifted his face from the dirt and glared at Malao, his eyes still crossed.

Malao's face hardened. He walked over to Hung and spoke in a shaky voice. “Roll over.”

Hung shook his head.

Mong sighed and walked over to Malao's side. He swung one enormous leg back and kicked Hung hard in the ribs with his heavy boot. “The one who defeated you fair and square said
roll over.
Do it. Now.”

Hung groaned and rolled over. Malao grabbed one of the pouches hanging from Hung's sash. He opened it, peeked inside, and threw it to the ground. Then he grabbed another, and another, throwing each to the ground after opening it. Malao peeked inside the next pouch and grinned. He tied the pouch to his own sash and turned to Mong.

“I will leave Hung his life and take this prize instead,” Malao said in his best grown-up voice.

Mong smiled. “Thank you, little one.”

Malao lowered his head and shrugged.

Mong knelt down to Malao's height. “I suggest you leave the area immediately, my little friend. I don't think I'll be able to stop Hung once his eyes straighten out.”

Malao looked at Mong and nodded. Mong nodded back.

Without a word, Malao leaped onto the nearest branch and headed for the treetops. He looked back to wave goodbye to Seh, but all he saw was a flash of blue silk.

T
he sun was still high in the sky when Malao stopped next to the stream and climbed down from the tree-tops. He squatted and cupped some cool water in his aching hands.

As he drank, Malao thought about Seh and the bandits. He hoped Seh knew what he was getting himself into. That was a rough bunch. Mong didn't seem too bad, though.

Malao scratched his head.
How many times have I seen Mong at Cangzhen?
he wondered.
Four? Five?

Malao remembered that Mong had always come alone, but that didn't make his visits any more justified. After all, he was a bandit. A very successful bandit.

Malao couldn't believe how much gold the bandits
had. He couldn't imagine where they got it, let alone what they might do with it. Even though monks weren't supposed to have an interest in material things, Malao had never been able to keep his eyes off anything made of the precious metal. It hypnotized him. Several of the pouches Hung carried had been filled with gold, and Malao had had a hard time throwing them aside. He didn't know why, but he felt he should take only one pouch from Hung, and it should be something useful.

Malao untied the pouch from his sash and sat down on the stream bank. He dumped out the contents. There was a loud
CLINK!
and a brief spark as a firestone and a metal strike bar collided on the firm earth. Gold was nice to look at, but these items would be a lot more comforting on chilly evenings. More important, he could use them to start a fire for cooking. That is, if he ever managed to find something to cook.

Malao rubbed his stomach. He was hungry.

What can I eat?
he wondered. There wasn't going to be any fruit for many more months, and plants were just beginning to poke up through the soil. Monkeys ate things like tree buds this time of year, but that wouldn't work for him.

Frustrated, Malao stood and kicked a small pile of leaves beneath a large tree. His toes dug into something soft and slimy. He grinned.

Lunch!
Malao thought. He leaned over and carefully pushed the leaves aside. His heart leaped as he uncovered a cluster of mushrooms.

All Cangzhen monks learned which plants and
fruits were safe to eat, and mushrooms were no exception. Some types of mushrooms could make you sick or sleepy. Others were lethal. Great care was taken to make sure only the safe ones were served at the Cangzhen dining table. Malao was often recruited to scour the forest floor in search of mushrooms. He was confident these were not only safe, they were delicious.

In a flurry of leaves and flying dirt, Malao picked several handfuls and set them aside. Then he rounded up enough dry twigs and tinder to start a small fire with his new firestone. Once the fire was going, he found two long sticks about as big around as his little finger and carried them to the stream, along with the mushrooms.

Malao dunked the long sticks in the stream. He would use them as roasting skewers, and he didn't want them to burn. Sticks freshly broken off a living tree would have been better because they wouldn't burn as easily, but he didn't see a need to damage a perfectly good tree just to make his life a little easier.

When the sticks were sufficiently wet, Malao stuck one end of each in the bank and began separating the large mushroom caps from their stems. He rinsed each cap in the stream before sliding it onto a skewer. The stems he tossed into the flowing current.

In no time, the mushrooms were roasting over the open flames, filling the air with an irresistible aroma. So irresistible, in fact, that Malao soon found he had a visitor. The white monkey.

Malao saw the monkey high in a nearby tree. It was
staring at him with its single eye. A clump of matted hair and dried blood was stuck to one side of its head.

Malao did his best to ignore the creature, but it kept staring. He knew monkeys normally ate mushrooms, so he assumed it was hungry. It was probably in pain, too. When Malao was down to his last two mushroom caps, he spoke to the monkey.

“Would you like some?” Malao asked. He stepped away from the fire and held out the stick. To his surprise, the white monkey scurried down from the tree and cautiously approached him.

Malao stood perfectly still, his arm outstretched. He had seen firsthand what kind of damage the monkey could do when it wanted to take a stick from someone.

The monkey gently took the far end of the long mushroom skewer and slowly pulled it from Malao's hand. Malao expected the monkey to race off into the trees, but it didn't. It sat down and began to eat the remaining mushrooms.

Unsure of what to do next, Malao just stood there. When the white monkey finished, it politely handed the skewer back to Malao. Malao couldn't believe it.

He had an even harder time believing what happened next.

The white monkey moved closer to him and rose up on its hind legs, its right hand extended. Malao reached out, too, and the monkey grabbed his hand. The monkey pulled Malao's hand to its nose and took a deep breath.

Malao kept his eyes fixed on the monkey's mouth. He knew what lay behind those lips. The monkey's mouth began to part, and Malao fought the urge to yank his hand away. Something deep inside him told him to leave his hand right where it was. He was glad he did.

The white monkey planted a kiss on the back of Malao's hand, then released it and raced back up into the tree. A moment later, the monkey returned with the decorated stick from Cangzhen in its teeth. It dropped the weapon at Malao's feet and scurried off into the treetops.

Night had settled in, and Malao found himself still on the ground near the stream. He was too tired to try to locate a suitable tree to spend the night in, so he curled up at the base of a small willow. The low-hanging branches made him feel safer. He'd waited and waited for the white monkey to return, but it hadn't. He was disappointed. He thought he had made a new friend.

Malao began to wonder what it would be like to go through life without any friends. He decided it might be a lot like going through life without any family. What a horrible thought.

Malao twitched. He suddenly realized
he
might go through life without family or friends. After all, he was completely on his own now. Grandmaster was dead and his four brothers were scattered without any sort of plan to get back together.

What if something happened to me right now?
Malao wondered.
Would anyone ever know? Would anyone even care?

A story drifted into Malao's mind. A tale from the famous Shaolin Temple, whose former members had founded Cangzhen Temple more than a thousand years earlier.

The monks at Shaolin had a long history of building pagodas to honor the remains of people important to them. It is said there was a special pagoda at Shaolin much smaller than the rest, built to honor a small boy. Legend had it the boy was helping the cook one day, but he failed to show up for the evening meal. During dinner one of the monks found a strange bone in his soup, and the monks realized what had happened. The boy had fallen into the enormous pot they used to cook the soup. The monks were so upset they built a pagoda to honor the boy.

Malao used to think that was the funniest story he had ever heard, and he used to retell it all the time. But none of his brothers ever laughed. He was beginning to understand why.

Something else Malao used to joke about no longer seemed funny. It was the Forgotten Pagoda, which was located within the Cangzhen walls near the front of the compound. Malao used to think it was hilarious that somebody had taken the time and energy to build it hundreds and hundreds of years ago but today no one remembered who was buried inside it. That wasn't funny, Malao now realized. That was sad.

I should have helped Hok bury Grandmaster in the tree,
Malao thought.
A living pagoda—that's what Hok had called it.

Tears welled up in Malao's eyes. He had never mourned anyone before because he'd always snuck away from the few burials that had taken place at Cangzhen while he was growing up. He decided it was time he learned how to mourn someone. After all, who would bother to mourn him if he didn't care enough to mourn anyone else?

Maybe Hok could help me?
Malao thought.
Unless …
Malao shook his head.
Unless I offended him so much that he doesn't want me around anymore.

Malao began to shiver uncontrollably. Inside his head, it seemed like he was sliding down a steep, muddy slope in the middle of a thunderstorm. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make it back to the top. He just kept slipping down, down, down. All he could think about was the family he didn't have—

Or don't have yet?
he realized.

The rain began to slow in Malao's head. He remembered what the bandit Hung had said about finding his parents or maybe an uncle. Hung had been joking, but what if it were true? What if he did have some family members alive somewhere?

Malao took a deep, cleansing breath, and his shaking subsided. The prospect of new family members was exciting, but he still missed his old family. Even though his brothers picked on him a lot, they would always stick up for him when things turned bad. Just
like Seh had done. Malao thought it might be nice to join Seh, but he knew that was impossible after what had just happened with Hung.

I'll go back and join Hok then,
Malao decided.
I'll apologize, and maybe he'll understand. That is, if I can find the way back to Cangzhen. …
Malao shook his head.
Why didn't I pay closer attention when I ran off?

Malao felt thunderclouds begin to roll inside his head again. He closed his eyes and did his best to clear his mind with one of the meditation exercises Grandmaster had taught him, just like Hok had suggested. It took some time, but he eventually managed to push everything out except a single question that had been in his head much of the day. A question that somehow still made him think about family.

Who was the man called Monkey King?

He just couldn't remember.

Malao yawned. At least he had managed to sweep most of the clutter from his head. He was beginning to understand why the older monks enjoyed meditating so much. It was very relaxing. With his mind almost empty, sleep soon overtook him.

As usual, Malao's night was filled with vivid dreams. Dreams of slippery slopes and monkey kings. Dreams of pagodas and soup pots.

And a particularly vivid dream about a large snake slithering over him, coiling itself tightly around his body as it swallowed his face.

M
alao woke in the dark, barely able to move, barely able to breathe. A firm hand covered his mouth and nose, and his arms were pinned to his sides. He twisted and turned and kicked and bit—but it was no use. His opponent always seemed to be one step ahead of him.