How the Monkey Got a Drink When He Was Thirsty

Tonight’s story comes from Brazil, a huge country in South America. It has vast forests with towering trees, where monkeys chatter and swing from branch to branch all day long. And it has hot regions where the dry season goes on and on and the rain just won’t come.

Long ago there lived a very cheeky monkey. One day he was sitting high up in a mango tree, strumming away on his guitar. Just then a tiger came by and lay down under the tree to rest in the shade.

When the monkey saw the tiger, he couldn’t resist teasing him. He strummed his guitar and sang a song to make the tiger cross.

The tiger was furious. “Just you wait until I catch you!” he growled.

The monkey swung from tree to tree, hidden by the leaves, then climbed down and crawled into a hole in the ground. When the tiger came close, the monkey played and sang his teasing song again.

The tiger reached into the hole and caught hold of the monkey’s leg. The monkey laughed. “Oh, Mr Tiger, do you think you’ve caught my leg? That’s just a little stick!”

The tiger believed him and let go. The monkey pulled his leg back, crawled deep into the hole and called out, “Thank you for letting go of my leg, Mr Tiger. It really was my leg, you know!”

The tiger was madder than ever. He lay waiting outside the hole for ages and ages. But the monkey had found another way out long ago, and now he was sitting at the top of a tall tree, playing his guitar and singing to tease him again.

Then that year a great drought came. The sun blazed down and the rivers and streams dried up. In the whole forest there was only one watering hole left for the animals to drink from.

The tiger knew the monkey would have to come there sooner or later. So he lay down right beside the water and didn’t leave it for a single minute.

When the monkey came to drink and saw the tiger waiting, he was so frightened he ran off as fast as the wind. He waited and waited until his throat was parched, but the tiger still wouldn’t go away.

At last the monkey thought of a trick. He lay down beside the path and kept perfectly still, as if he were dead.

After a while an old woman came along with a basket on her head, and in the basket was a dish of honey. She saw the monkey lying by the path, thought he was dead, and popped him into her basket.

Inside the basket, the monkey saw the honey and was delighted. He opened the dish and rolled about in the honey until he was covered from head to toe. Then, as the old woman walked under the trees, he sprang lightly out of the basket and up into the branches. When she got home, the old woman found no monkey in her basket and only half a dish of honey.

The monkey picked leaves and stuck them all over himself. The honey held them in place. He looked like a walking bush, and nobody would have known him. Off he went to the watering hole. The tiger looked at him and didn’t recognise him. The monkey bent down and drank a long, long drink. The water was so cool and so good that he stayed too long. The water washed away the honey and the leaves began to fall off, one by one. The tiger saw, and knew him at once. The monkey only just got away.

This time the monkey was really scared. He waited a very long time before he dared go back. But he was so thirsty he couldn’t bear it. So he went to a tree with sticky resin, spread the resin all over himself, and stuck leaves onto that.

Back he went to the watering hole. The tiger saw the bush of leaves and thought: as soon as it goes in the water, the leaves will fall off, and I’ll catch him then. But this time the resin held the leaves fast, and the water couldn’t loosen them. Not a single leaf came off. The tiger decided he must have been mistaken, and that it wasn’t the monkey after all.

The monkey drank as much as he wanted, then strolled off home.

And from then on, every time he was thirsty, the monkey put on his coat of leaves stuck on with resin and went for a drink. Until the rainy season came, the rivers filled up again, and he went back to sitting in his mango tree playing his guitar, just like before.