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One particular night after a failed attempt to poke the moon Frank’s sleep was startled by a most peculiar thing. She had just lain down and her last thought had been on how tired she had been. She hadn’t even gotten under her covers, she had just fallen face forward onto her made bed in her nightgown, Bandy clutched in her hand and pressed between her chest and her bed. Her eyelids felt swollen and heavy when she heard an odd sound outside.
Being a small child she was accustomed to hearing odd sounds outside while trying to sleep, however tonight’s sounds were different. Tonight’s sounds did not stir her brain to sights of monsters or ghouls. Tonight’s sounds her sounds of sneaking and hiding, like the tiptoes of the stealthiest thief. Not wanting to alert such a thief to her knowledge of their presence Frank kept her eyes close and continued to remain still, but clutched her secret key hard in one hand and Bandy harder in the other.
Frank listened to the sneaking sounds outside for several more moments until she was quite sure that the sneaker was outside her window, it was then that she made her move. Yawning and rolling over in the sleepiest of manners she stretched and pulled the quilt that she lay on over her body. As she did so she opened one of her heavy eyelids just a crack and looked at the great locked window in the far wall. To her surprise she saw no sneaking figure in the window; neither did she see a lurking monster, nor a floating ghoul. But in the middle and bottom most panes she was a tail; and not a bushy tail like a squirrel, not a wagging tail like a dog either. She saw a long curving tail with rough shiny hair and a thick tuft on the very end. It swayed there for a moment and then disappeared as a tiny furry arm rose into sight and grabbed the window frame, followed quickly by the head, torso and body of a small monkey!
Frank was so excited that she forgot to pretend to be asleep, she frantically wiggled her toes (a nervous habit of hers), she grinned wide and rubbed the key in her hands. Slowly and deliberately she moved her leg off of the bed and placed her foot on the floor. Her other leg followed suite and she slid onto the ground so smoothly that the monkey noticed no movement in the room. Quietly she crept across the floor to the window, carefully avoiding where the moonlight splashed onto the rug in the shapes of the window panes. When she got to the wall next to the window she very slowly stood up straight and with one arm clutching the bookcase nearby leaned her other arm quietly towards the lock, key in hand. She stealthily placed the key into the lock and prepared for her move. If she was quick enough to surprise the monkey then she would have a most spectacular new friend, or at least an exotic pet for the other children to covet. She took a deep breath and in one fluid motion turned the key, threw open the great window and dove at the monkey who lightly leapt to the stone rail of the balcony, which Frank ungraciously stumbled into. Breaking her fall with her palms she rolled over onto her back, one foot still inside the window, the other inconveniently folded beneath her. She looked up and saw a hairy little face leaning over from the railing and staring upside down into her own. It cocked its head and glanced up to her chest where it spotted Bandy. Bearing its teeth the monkey swung a little arm down and snatched the precious fabric scrap from Frank’s chest before disappearing over the railing and into the night. Frank panicked and shot up, hitting her head on the open window as she rose. Not wanting to lose both of her treasures in the same night she frantically grabbed the key from the window’s lock, slammed it closed and dove onto the sloping roof after the thieving creature.
Frank scrambled down the steep roof, lost her balance and fell sliding towards the edge, where she caught herself with her feet on the gutter. Looking up she caught a brief glimpse of her furry mark scampering down the trellis and through the yard towards the edge of the deep forest behind her house. She quickly followed down the trellis as well, but paused in the middle of the yard. She had never been very far into those woods, and certainly not at night without a lantern or light of some sort. Seeming to notice his pursuer had stopped early, the monkey halted at the edge of the woods. He looked back at Frank and waved Bandy in a taunting manner and bounded off, disappearing into the dark folds of the forest night. Without thinking Frank furrowed her brow and ran on towards the trees, not hesitating a moment before plunging forwards into the dense line of trees.
The night was heavy around Frank as she opened her eyes wide to capture as much of the moonlight as possible. The forest air was dark but surprisingly clear and her eyes adjusted to the lack of light quickly. She walked straight ahead at a very brisk pace for several minutes, following the loud sounds of the small animal crashing through the brush ahead. She was concerned that she might lose him, but more she was perplexed by his behavior. Weren’t monkeys more comfortable in trees? Why was this one leading her on a wild goose chase through the thick brush on the forest floor when he could easily take to branches and lose her indefinitely? She pushed through small bushes and past saplings for ten good minutes, but after a while the brush began to thing out and the tree trunks grew wider and older. After running for fifteen minutes or so Frank stopped to breath for a moment, she looked around. She had never been this deep into the woods before. Mist clung to the bases of many large trees which reached up into the dark and spread their enormous twisting branches into each other to form a forest ceiling high above the ground below. Frank felt as if she were on the floor of some great cavernous natural cathedral. For a moment she marveled at the layers of intertwined branches above her head, woven into several layers of roof for this cathedral, lit by the large bright moon above, peaking through the holes on that ceiling. But she was reminded of her goal in these dark trees as she saw the little animal silhouetted against the light of a large clearing far ahead. Realizing that she could never catch the little monkey unless she had certain element of surprise she moved ahead quietly, moving quickly and lightly from tree to tree, always with her eyes on the little thief in the light ahead. She moved closer and closer to scoundrel until there was just one tree between herself and the animal, which squatted on its haunches on the very edge of the clearing, looking at Bandy in his little hands on the very edge of the moonlight. Frank paused a moment before jumping out from behind the tree, pouncing and landing nearly on top of him, causing him to panic and screech loudly as she grabbed her father’s precious old bandanna from his furry clutches. Smiling triumphantly she stood and tied Bandy around her little waist like a sash, the dark red splashed around her now dirty white night gown’s middle, the free ends of the knot floating in the light breeze from the clearing. The little monkey seemed perturbed that she had reclaimed her treasure from him, but at the same time excited. He jumped about from side to side screeching and hooting and flailing his arms about, gesturing across the clearing as if to signal Frank or someone else across the clearing. Confused by the animal’s strange behavior Frank took a step back away from the moonlight where the frantic monkey danced, and looked up across the long clearing when something caught her eye. Far across the clearing at the opposite edge of the woods, just within the edge of the moon’s illuminating reach, a large heavy chain emerged from the dark forest ceiling and ran down the trunk of a particularly monstrous tree to an enormous metal anchor, which laid heavily against the trunk of the tree. Frank could barely see the big anchor, but there was no doubt that it was there, sitting just across the field so out of place, like a seashell far from the ocean. And just as the full strangeness of the sight washed over her she felt a strong hand clasp to her mouth with a wet rag and another large hand grab her by the waist and ease her to the ground as a strong tingling scent relaxed every muscle on her bones. And from the dry forest floor her eyes fell heavily shut as she watched a large dark figure tying her limbs as she quickly passed into blackness.