The Monkey’s Heart

There once was a monkey who lived in a tree that was right next to a
big, deep river. And do you know who lived in that river? I’ll give you some hints: It was big and green. It had short legs and a long tale. It had a big jaw and sharp teeth. It was a crocodile, a hungry crocodile. The crocodile saw the monkey eating
figs every day from the tree. She thought that the monkey must have a
very sweet heart from eating all that sweet fruit. And so she wanted
nothing more than the EAT THE MONKEY’S HEART!

But how could the crocodile eat the monkey’s heart when the monkey
always stayed high up in the tree and the crocodile was stuck low to
the ground on her tiny crocodile legs? The crocodile thought she
would be clever and trick the monkey. Here is what she did:

She swam over to the tree and called up to the monkey, “Hey Mr.
Monkey! Don’t you get tired of eating nothing but figs? Why don’t you
go over to the other side of the river where the mango trees grow so
you can eat some delicious mangoes?”

The monkey looked down from her tree and replied, “Silly crocodile,
don’t you know that monkeys can’t swim? I can’t cross the river to
get to those mango trees.”

Crocodile said, “I know very little about monkeys, Mr. Monkey. But I
know that mangoes are delicious and you would enjoy feasting on them.”

The monkey considered this and decided it was true. “Still, I can’t
swim, you crazy crocodile. How am I supposed to eat mangoes that are
on the other side of the river?”

“Well,” said the crocodile, “I’d be happy to take you over there.
Just climb on my back and I’ll carry you across the river.”

The monkey thought it would be very foolish of him to climb on a
crocodile’s back. After all, crocodiles have a lot of very sharp
teeth. But the monkey was truly tired of eating figs, so he decided
against his better judgment to trust the crocodile. He climbed down
down down from his fig tree and hopped on the crocodile’s back.

The monkey’s mouth watered in anticipation. “Super delicious
mangoes!” he thought.

The crocodile’s mouth watered in anticipation. “Yummy monkey heart!”
she thought.

When they were halfway across the river, she turned to the monkey and
said, “I have tricked you Mr. Monkey! I’ve taken you to the middle of
the river so you can’t escape. And now I’m going to drown you!”

“Drown me?” said the monkey. “Why?”

“So I can eat your sweet heart!” the crocodile said.

“My heart?” said the monkey. “You want to eat my heart?”

The crocodile nodded and started to dive deep into the water to drown
the monkey.

“But crocodile! Wait!” yelled the monkey. And the crocodile swam back
up.

“You should have told me you wanted my heart,” the monkey said. “I
left it up in the tree with the figs.”

“You did what?” said the crocodile.

“You are very clever to trick me, Miss Crocodile,” the monkey said,
“but you know very little about monkeys. We take our hearts out
whenever we leave our trees because we don’t want to lose them. If I
had known you wanted my heart I would’ve brought it, but now we have
to go back to the fig tree so I can get it.”

“Oh goodness,” said the crocodile, “I do know very little about
monkeys.” And she proceeded to take the monkey back to his fig tree.
The monkey climbed back up the tree and the crocodile waited below
for him to return with his heart. After a few minutes she became
impatient and yelled up, “Why are you taking so long, Monkey? I’m
hungry!”

“Silly crocodile,” the monkey yelled back down, “you may have tricked
me, but I tricked you back. No animal can take its heart out of its
body! It was in my chest the whole time! And now I’m never going to
leave my tree to come down to the river again.”

And so the monkey never had delicious mangoes to eat, but he still
had his own sweet heart.