So Much for Monkey's Sugar Rush

Sometimes I really I wish I don’t have a phone.

Throwing the blanket off my body, I grab at my phone on the nightstand and snap at the caller, “What?”

“Yo,” Gregory answers from the other side, which makes me drop my head onto my palm in defeat.

I suck in a breath, but then decide not to yell. “Bye,” I say before hanging up, collapsing back onto my bed again. I’m just about to stuff a pillow against my ears when my phone starts ringing again. And again.

Groaning, I sit back up and chuck my pillow across the room in annoyance, letting it hit the floor. I snatch at my phone, “I SWEAR, Gregory monkey, when I see you at school on Monday-“

“Come over to my house. I need you to help do something,” Gregory replies casually from the other side of the phone while chewing on something.

I stare deadpan at the air for a few seconds, before shaking my head in utter confusion, “What the heck am I, your servant?”

And as expected, Gregory ignores my statement and resorts to his usual bartering, “Mhmmmm…..” he chews louder, making me wanna yell at him through the phone. After a few hmm’s and mmm’s, he finally offers, “Ten packs of Loacker wafers. How about that? You like ‘em, right?”

My eyes spring wide open and I sit up straighter, “Ten packs of Loacker?”

“Yer,” he slurs deliberately.

I plop back down onto my blanket heap, swinging my leg over the bed as I weigh my choices. It couldn’t be that boring over at the monkey’s place, right? I could go help him with whatever that monkey-ish task is, and get ten divine packs of Loacker, or I could sleep in and help Mom flip pancakes later.

“Gimme ten minutes,” I reply, rubbing at my sleepy eyes as I crawl out of bed.

“Ass over here in five minutes,” Gregory orders before hanging up on me, leaving glaring at my innocent phone.

It took me ten minutes to get ready, five minutes to walk to his house, and five whole minutes punching on the doorbell next to his iron sliding gate, with no one to open up. I leave him the tenth voicemail, “I SWEAR to God I’m gonna pluck out your monkey tail if you don’t open up this very nanosecond!”

Another five minutes gone, and I’m still in my original position, under the sun punching on the probably broken doorbell. I scoff at the gate, and laugh dryly at myself. Gregory you monkey.

Deciding to send him a last warning voicemail, I growl into the phone, “Know what? That’s it. I’m breaking into your house now and I’m gonna kill you.” With that, I shove my phone back into my jeans pocket and begin pulling myself up and over his gate.

When I finally reach the top of the gate, I make the mistake of looking back down. “Shit! Oh god, oh god,” I force my eyes shut, trying to block out the daunting image before me. That monkey, I SWEAR.

Sucking in a deep breath, I fumble around with my eyes closed, groping for a good grip on the top of the gate and sprawling my hands as wide as possible all over, before I swing my legs slowly over the gate. I try to take another calming breath, but realise I can’t even breathe. If someone just so happens to get the gate moving now, it might be the end of my life.

“The fudge! What you doing!” Gregory’s voice comes from below, causing me to yelp in shock and fall over the top of the gate, my body hitting the ground in an excruciating thump.

Pain shoots through to my bones and I yell up at him rubbing my arms, “Should be what the fudge YOU doing inside? I’ve been waiting for how long? Ten freakin minutes! You monkey.”

Gregory pulls his face into a guilty wince and kneeling down, he pokes at my shoulder timidly, “Ooooh, that must’ve hurt a lot, huh?”

What?

I punch at his shoulder hard, “Are you joking? I think my bones just shattered into a million pieces!”

“Greg, is that your friend?” Gregory’s mother calls from the door, a filled jar in her hand.

Gregory pushes himself up, saying, “No. She’s the doggie I found in the neighbouring drain yesterday. Cute, eh?”

I scramble to a stand and fix my hair, about to greet his mother when she seems to remember me again. Gregory’s mother smiles in realization, “Ah, it’s Sandy. Well hello again. Come on in.”

Gregory cuts in, complaining, “She always bullies me in school, Mother!” I elbow him in the ribs, making him groan in pain, while his mother just laughs and disappears from the doorway.

“What’s it you want me to do anyway? Projects again?” I give him a sideways glance, my brows raised.

Gregory whistles while messing up his hair, “I’ve bought a couple tees, and I need you to help cut ‘em into singlets. Oh, and draw a few designs too.”

I close my eyes in case they’re gonna pop out in surprise. I shake my head, opening my eyes again, glaring at him, “You don’t know how to cut tees?”

Gregory flashes me a stern look and starts walking towards his house, “Shut up and just do the work, Swiss Roll.”

I cross my arms, put off by his rudeness, “And do you really think that messing up your hair act looks cool on you? FYI, it just shows that there’s really a monkey gene in you, cause you look like one when you do that,” I say.

Without looking back, Gregory gives me a rock sign, chirping, “You’re lucky I’m in good mood today.”

Good mood, huh? We’ll see about that at the end of the day.

His house is huge, not that I’ve never been here, but sometimes it’s hard to get used to something not in your league. We climb the stairs to his room, with him slapping the wall mindlessly along the way and me marvelling at the frames of pictures on the wall.

“There you go,” Gregory tosses a couple of tees in my face right when we reach his room. His bedroom looks more like a mini living room, with a TV and couch and a spacious mahogany table, where video games and DVDs are strewn all over haphazardly.

I pick up his tees, wrinkling my nose, “You sure you trust me with these? If you get to my nerves, I might just tear them up or draw a monkey face on ‘em.”

Gregory chucks two small boxes of fabric crayons onto the desk. He reasons, “You won’t, cause they’re damn expensive. Now chop chop. Cut em up.”

I glance down at his new weird tees. One flashes the words “BOW, MOFOS” and a black one says “Bad Boys Day”. I snort in disgust, but Gregory’s too busy over at his computer setting things up to notice my reaction. Picking up the scissors on the desk, I make a move to start the cutting when a sudden loud burst of music causes me to jump in shock. And when I say loud, it’s not booming loud, it’s eardrum-piercing loud.

“The HECK, Gregory!” I yell over the music.

Instead of turning it down, Gregory starts bobbing his head as if his life depends on it and belts out discordantly, “EXCUSE ME IF MY HEAD IS TOO BIG FOR THIS BUILDING….IMMA COCKY PRICK…YOUR COCKS ARE SLICK!”

My jaw drops to the floor and I bellow over the song, “Volume DOWN, you MONKEY!”

Gregory throws me the rock sign again, yelling, “Who you dicks try to kid!”

This. MONKEY. BAMPOT.

I dash over to the speakers, making an attempt to unplug them from his computer but he’s agile enough to stop me- well, monkeys are agile- Finally turning the music off, Gregory exclaims, “WHAT?”

I gape at him, “Were you trying to DEAFEN me? And what are you freakin doing? Stop bobbing your head like a loon, you’re not a woodpecker.”

Ignoring me, Gregory turns his attention back to the computer and before I even get the chance to go back to cutting, he’s got a louder Jason Derulo’s song playing.

I bang the scissors against the desk and scowl at him, while he, on the other side of the room, continues with his head-bobbing, totally oblivious to my angry stare.

“It’s too hard to sleep, I got the shit, on the floor….” he monkey-dances around while singing.

I roll my eyes, and shout over the song, “It’s SHEETS, not SHIT, you pea-brained MONKEY!”

I watch as Gregory whirls around yelling out the lyrics and doing his air drums and head-bobbing thing.

Holy. Monopoly. Something’s very wrong with this monkey. Dancing to music is not weird, but bobbing your head aggressively as if you’ve just had a sugar overdose is weird.

It doesn’t take long for my awe to wear out, so when I’m done gaping at him, I try to pull my attention back to the cutting again, which is pretty hard with the music blaring and the monkey singing the wrong lyrics.

It’s already fairly impossible to focus on my work that way, and to make things worse, Gregory doesn’t seem to want to slow down anytime sooner cause when Carly’s ‘I really like you’ starts playing, he begins to twerk around the room shamelessly.

My stomach flips over in utter disgust and I grab at my head, watching him move around. Oh god. Shutting my eyes, I bang my head against the desk repeatedly. I did NOT just see that inhuman scene.

I whip my head up, just to see him taking it to a more hyperactive level, and that’s when I couldn’t stomach it anymore. “Stop that, Gregory,” I turn my head away, feeling my consciousness waning. “No, no, no, oh god, would you STOP doing that!”

The music died down as I rest my head tiredly on the table, my hand holding my stomach in case my intestines decide to jump out. After composing myself, I lift my head from the table, and see that Gregory’s still clapping to the music, except this time he has his earphones on, and he’s seated in front of his computer, not twerking around.

I huff, and giving him an evil eye, I go back to cutting his tees. And that’s when my intestines really feel like they’re dropping out. I gape at Gregory’s new singlet in horror.

I pinch at my own cheek.

Oh shit, this is not a nightmare. Shit, shit, shit. My life is so over.

I gulp before taking a better look at my own work of art, alias, Gregory’s new singlet. It is a singlet….but I’ve cut it the wrong way, hence making his new tee into a female singlet. Told him not to distract me by playing loud music and doing a half-tango round the room. Now look at this.

Shoot, shoot, shoot.

“What’d you do to my tee now?” Gregory lifts his brows suspiciously, pulling out his earphones and starting to walk towards me.

I’m done. I’m so done.

I crumple up the singlet into a mass of ball and hide it behind my back while retreating to the bathroom. I might have that slim chance of survival if I make it to there and manage to lock it up.

“What’d you do?” Gregory holds his chin higher, his apparent good mood obviously pulverized.

I offer him a shaking smile, retreating faster.

Gregory makes a sudden start, diving for the singlet in my hand and I, suddenly overwhelmed by a colossal wave of nervousness, throw the singlet over my head towards the bathroom behind without looking.

Gregory and I both snap our heads to the flying singlet, which is airborne for a second…..before it gravitates, plopping right through the toilet bowl, and into you-know-what.

Sandy Baker is officially dead that very minute.