Siegfried was an unusual monkey.

   He and his mother had a small tree top apartment overlooking a very nice monkey playground on the Upper East Side of the jungle.  His troop, consisting of eight aunts and uncles and thirteen cousins, all lived in the apartments around him.  Siegfried’s father no longer lived with them. He left when Siegfried was only a baby to join the circus as a clown.  But that’s not what made Siegfried so unusual.

   Siegfried’s cousins loved to swing around the treetops, searching for their next adventure and gorging on bananas all day long.  Siegfried on the other hand didn’t.  And that’s what made him so unusual.

   Siegfried’s idea of a perfectly perfect day was to lay quiescent in the sunlight at the very top of the canopy and think.  There was only one thing in particular that Siegfried thought about the most, his favorite food: strawberries.  And that’s what else made Siegfried so unusual.

   Strawberries, unlike bananas, did not grow abundantly in his jungle.  In fact, Siegfried had to travel a great distance to the next jungle over before he was able to find any.  His troop thought he was crazy, because not only did Siegfried love strawberries, but he hated bananas (it was the texture).  He wasn’t sure where his love of strawberries came from, for he didn’t remember having any since he was a very young monkey.  Whatever the reason, his love for strawberries and hatred for bananas had stayed with him for as long as he could remember.

   When he was younger, Siegfried used to malinger when it came time to collect bananas for dinner.  He would run around the top of the canopy until he was very warm and sweaty so his mother would think he was ill.  However, most of the time she knew just what he was up to and would castigate him.  But that never stopped him or his dream to one day live among the strawberries. 

   This day was not different for Siegfried.  Right after breakfast, during which Siegfried conveniently had a headache, he climbed to the top of the canopy and stretched out on a comfortable branch in the sun.  Down below he could hear the laughter of his cousins as they swung from vine to vine.  As he listened, his mind wandered, landing, as it so often did, on strawberries.  Today, however, was not going to be like every other day.

   As he lay there dreaming, something came out of nowhere and hit him.  He got up feeling very confused.  Another!  He looked around again and saw his cousins winding up to throw another banana at him.

   “Stop it!” he cried.

   “What are ya doin’, Siggy?  Dreamin’ about your stupid strawberries again?” one of his cousins taunted.

   “So what if I am?  I’m not hurting anyone, so leave me alone!”

   "You’re so weird!  If you love those dumb strawberries so much why don’t you just leave to get some and don’t come back?” another cousin teased again, throwing another banana at him.

   “Maybe I will!” Siegfried stopped, for a sudden thought had hit him almost as hard as the bananas.  “Yeah, I will!  I’m leaving and there’s nothing that’s gonna stop me!” he averred.

   With that, Siegfried jumped down from his branch, leaving his cousins at the top of the canopy scratching their heads.  Would he really do it?

   He would, and he did.

   Knowing however that his mother had hegemony over him and would think his sudden quest nothing but a capricious idea, he would have to sneak away.  But he didn’t care; the thought of finally living on his own in a place that wouldn’t discriminate against his food passion was exhilarating!  So exhilarating in fact that he forgot about the journey ahead.

   Since he was a baby, his mother had warned him of the malignant journey from their jungle to the next.  She told him terrifying stories of wild beasts that could climb trees and horrible animals that could soar from tree to tree faster than he could swing.  All of these thoughts caught up with him as he raced closer and closer to the jungle line.  He paused for only a moment.  His mind was too occupied with thoughts of a beautiful strawberry strewn forest to stop.  He zealously swung from tree to tree, unable to stop himself or his smile.

   He stopped only once during that day to eat, since he had skipped breakfast, stuffing his stomach full of leaves.  The wind whistling through his fur grew steadily cooler and cooler as the day grew later and later.  Before he knew it, Siegfried had reached the jungle line, just as darkness was fully settling in.  He knew his mother would be worried, but he resolved to send her word as soon as he reached his destination in his new home. 

   As he searched for a comfortably high branch to sleep in for the night, a noise reached his ear.  He stopped.  It was unlike anything else he had ever heard before, and he most definitely didn’t like it.  He listened more closely, hoping it was a one-time deal and he would never hear it again.

   “Raaaarrrrr!”

   There it was again!  Terrified, Siegfried dashed further up into the canopy, hoping the dense leaves would obfuscate him from whatever was lurking below.  All those thoughts of tree climbing beasts that he had pushed aside earlier came crowding back into his mind again.  The higher he climbed, the more he hoped the beast couldn’t climb that high.

   When he reached the top, his fears ebbed only slightly, for now he could see the stars.  And with the stars, he could see the giant beasts swooping around in the air above him.  His mother had been right! They were everywhere and they would kill him by the end of the night!  He huddled closely into the niche created by the tree trunk and a large branch, unable to sleep for the entire night.

   As morning approached, Siegfried emerge, red eyed, but definitely still alive.  As soon as he downed a few leaves, he headed off again in the direction of his beloved strawberries.  Though he wanted to put as much distance between him and the jungle line as possible, he would not let anything stop him from reaching his goal: those deliciously red strawberries.

   The day wore on slowly and he was so tired. He couldn’t move nearly as quickly as the day before.  But Siegfried kept going, obsessed with finding the strawberry jungle.

   And suddenly, without warning, it appeared.  Siegfried stopped swinging immediately, unable to move for love of what lay before him.  There, hanging from every tree for miles around, were large luscious strawberries.  And hanging from every tree, next to the strawberries, were monkeys, just like him, eating contentedly.  He walked slowly from one branch to the next until he reached the first bunch of strawberries, unable to believe it.  But as he reached out one furry hand to the juicy fruit, it became real.  There, in his hand, he held the reification of everything he had dreamed about his entire life.  As he put the strawberry to his mouth and bit down, the wonderful flavor filled his entire body with a sense of placidity. 

   He had found them, he had found his home and he could not have been happier.

(All stories are copyrighted to the Collaborative Learning Center and are not available for redistribution without explicit conset. For more information please e-mail PapeD@ripon.edu. The 100 Words Projcet is property of the Collaborative Learning Center, Ripon College, Ripon WI. All rights reserved.)