Monkey Business

Monkey Business

The bell rung just after 4th period and that always meant recess. All of the kids that were itching to just run out to the playground, lined up in the hallway per the teacher's instructions to walk in a safe and orderly fashion.

I walked with the others all in a line towards the playground which was beyond the dusty softball field. As soon as we were near the basketball hoops, the teachers let us disperse and we all ran to the various places in the playground like the slide, the ladders, the jungle gym and the monkey bars. 

I hated those monkey bars. Everyone in my class could hang on those things , climb on top except me. I just couldn't do it, just like I couldn't run very well due to asthma. That always made softball hard for me.

Mainly what I did for recess was play pretend sci fi games with Brett and Barry around something that looked like an MRI machine.

Today, though, I stood in the middle of the playground and considered what to do. Neither of my two friends were there. Brett had just moved away and Barry was out sick and while I knew some of the kids, I didn't know them that well.

"Hey Lenny! Come on!"

I looked up to see a girl on sitting on top of the monkey bars waving to me. She had long, brown, wavy hair. I didn't recognize her , but this was recess and many classes were here.  

"Ummm..."

"Lenny, come on up! Keep me company! "

I walked up to the dreaded monkey bars and I stepped tentatively on the first rung of the ladder and looked up at her she was still there smiling at me for some reason.

"Come on! You can do it!"

For some reason, stepped on the second rung and then the third and then I was in reach of the row of bars.

She watched me while seemingly perched on top of the monkey bars like some old kung fu master.

"How do you know my name? Do you work in the office or something?"

She gave a light giggle and shrugged her shoulders. 

I grabbed the first bar with my left hand while holding on to the support post. Then, after looking at her again, I grabbed it with my right hand and I felt my body just hanging.

"Oh yeah, don't look down.  That's important!" , she said from her perch.

I looked up at her and I thought I would utter the obvious "easy for you to say" , but no words came out.

I swung body forward and caught the next bar with my left hand, then the right. I couldn't believe I was doing this. I swung again and caught the third rung.

"Great! Your doing great! Now swing your legs up between the bars and pull yourself up to the top!"

It was weird but I did as she said and soon, I was on top of the monkey bars!... with her. That was weird.

" Thanx for coming up! ", she said.

" Ummm, you're welcome. Thanks for helping me! So.... what's up? ", I said, shrugging my shoulders and looking at her brown eyes.

" Well, we are, silly! "

"Umm, yeah.. I ahhh , I don't think we ever met before... so...you want to play with me?"

"Yeah of course! "

"Why me?"

" Why not you? "

I shook my head. Maybe we were playing 20 questions and I was already behind. What kind of game was she playing?  She kept on smiling at me, like she's got me where she wants me. 

Oh no! Was she some kind of spider alien like from our sci fi games and the monkey bars were her web and I just walked into it. 

" Hey, you okay? "

" Yeah, " I said. " I'm just surprised that a girl wants me to play with them. Usually, I play some games with Brett and Barry but ...*

"But there not here. Yeah!". She smiled again at me and the softened her tone a bit more. It was nice , low and slow.

"You looked like you were all alone up there, so I picked you! We all need friends to hang out with every now and then, right and today is your lucky day!".

I nodded my head slowly. This whole experience felt really weird though, but I felt good in spite of it and I smiled.

She brushed her hair to the side and smiled again.

Just then, one of the teachers blew the whistle telling us that recess was over. We made our way down the jungle gym to the ground level and we made our way to the pavement to get in the line to head back. I turned my head around while the teachers were doing a head count, but there were so many of us, I couldn't find her in the line. 

The next day at recess, Barry came back and we decided that were going to have a game of kickball with as some of the other boys. A few girls joined in as well, but not the girl from the monkey bars. I shrugged my shoulders for a bit and continued playing kickball.

The next week everything was normal during the day and during recess. I still kept checking for the girl from the monkey bars but I never saw her. Ms. Palmer, my teacher seemed to notice and came over to me during recess.

"Lenny? Are you okay today?"

"Oh ummm yes, Ms. Palmer. I was just wondering where that girl was"

"Oh, what girl do you mean?"

"I never got her name, but she had me climb the monkey bars that day that Barry was out sick and the day after Brett left."

"Ah.. so you didn't have anyone to play with that day and she kept you company? What a nice thing to do.

I saw you on those monkey bars that day! Good job! You've come a long way in a short time! "

"Thank you, Ms. Palmer!"

She smiled at me and said "you're welcome " as I went back to the playground for more fun.

About a week later, Ms. Palmer introduced a new student to our class. I looked up while she was doing the usual introductions and I saw that the new student was the girl from the monkey bars and she was in a wheelchair! I couldn't believe it. It was her and yet…how?

Her name was Linda.

At recess time, I watched as Linda sat in her wheelchair while the others played. I decided to approach her.

“Hello!”, I said cheerily.

“Hello”, she replied with a slightly puzzled and blank stare. She cocked her head to one side as if she was searching for something.

“I'm Lenny, by the way”

She continued to stare at me and then finally cleared her throat and said, “yeah umm, have we met before Lenny? I don't know why but I am getting this super weird de ja vu feeling.”

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know but I can already tell that we’re going to be great friends!”