Throw Me Up, Papi

A little girl monkey gets thrown up by her Papi.

Once there was a monkey family. They liked to do monkey things, including hang, climb, jump, eat, scratch, eat, groom and play hide-and-seek, among other things. There was a Papi monkey, a Momma monkey, a little girl monkey and a little brother monkey.

Well, one day, the little girl Monkey asked her Papi to throw her up.

“Sure,” said the Papi monkey as he picked her up off the floor.

“Here we go,” he said, and he threw her up a little bit.

“Thanks, Papi,” said the little girl monkey. “Can you throw me higher?”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t want you to hit the ceiling fan.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Let’s go outside,” he said. So they went outside.

They arrived at the middle of the front yard and he picked her up again.

“Here we go,” he said.

And he threw her up as high as the roof of the house, where she saw a ball that had gotten stuck last year. And then she came down, right into her Papi’s arms.

“Thank you, Papi,” she said with a smile. “Can you throw me up higher?”

“Well,” said Papi looking up to the sky. “I’m sure I can.”

So he picked her up and threw her up in the air.

She passed the top of the house, and then sailed all the way to the top of a tree, where she saw Momma Bird in her nest with her little baby chickies. They waved to each other, and the little girl monkey fell back toward Papi Monkey, past the top of the house with the ball, and safe into Papi Monkey’s arms.

“Thank you, Papi,” she said. “Momma Bird’s eggs hatched.”

“Oh,” said Papi Monkey, “that’s wonderful.” And he yelled up to the top of the tree, “Congratulations Momma Bird!”

“Papi?” asked Little Girl Monkey. Do you think you can throw me higher?”

Papi Monkey looked up into the sky.

“Sure,” he said. And picked her up, this time making a grunting noise as he threw her high up into the air.

She passed the top of the house and the top of the tree and flew all the way up until she was inside of a cloud, then she came back down. She waved to Momma Bird as she passed her, saw the ball on the roof, and fell safely into Papi Monkey’s arms.

“Thanks, Papi,” she said.

“You’re soaking wet!” he said as he put her down. “I guess that cloud was full.”

She looked up at him with big monkey eyes.

“You want to go higher don’t you?” he asked her. “OK, come on.”

This time, he made a loud straining noise as he threw Little Girl Monkey really, really high.

She flew right past the top of the house and the top of the tree, and shot right through the cloud, getting all wet again. Then, she was as high as airplanes fly, and an airplane flew by. Just as it flew by, Little Girl Monkey looked inside and saw Little Boy Alligator sitting in his seat, reading a book.

Little Boy Alligator looked up and saw her, and Little Girl Monkey showed him the sign for “I love you”, just before beginning her descent.

She fell through the wet cloud, past Momma Bird and her little tiny chickies, past the top of the house, and safe into the arms of Papi Monkey.

“Thank you,” she said to him. “I saw Little Boy Alligator reading a book.”

“Wow,” said Papi Monkey. “I guess you can probably see everything from up there.”

She kept looking up to the sky. Papi Monkey was squinting his eyes and doing some sort of calculation in his mind.

“Hey,” said Papi Monkey. “You wanna go one more time?”

“Higher?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said.

He took her in his hands and crouched way down, and then sprung her up super high into the air.

She sped past the ball on the roof, barely saw Momma Bird, only got a little damp through the cloud, flew right past where the airplane had been and higher, and higher, until, “POP!” She squeezed out of the Earth’s gravitational pull, and she was in space.

She was aimed right at a star. It didn’t take too long to get to the star, and when she got close enough to touch it, she found that it was a little loose, so she tugged at it a little, and plucked it out of it’s little space. It was like pulling a loose button out of one of those comfy chairs that are decorated with buttons.

It was very pretty, so she put it in her pocket.

She turned around and could see the cloud, and the tree, and the house, and she could just barely make out her Papi waiting for her with his arms stretched out wide.

She pointed her body toward the Earth, and Papi in particular, and began to swim in that direction.

Before she knew it, she was being sucked into the Earth’s magnetic force, and she was suddenly speeding toward the ground.

She passed the place where the airplane had flown by, she puffed right through the cloud, saw that Momma Bird was putting her tiny little chickies to sleep, didn’t even think about the ball on the roof, and fell safely in the arms of her Papi.

“Thank you, Papi,” she said. “I brought you a star.” She said as she pulled it from her pocket.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s beautiful, sweetie. Thank you. Now let’s put you to bed. It’s getting late.”

“OK,” she said with her eyes almost closing.

He carried her in, leaning her over so Momma Monkey could kiss her forehead. Papi took the star out of his pocket and gave it to her. Momma Monkey smiled as she looked at it.

He the carried Little Girl Monkey into her room and put her on her bed. As he covered her up with the blanket, Momma Monkey tiptoed in and slipped the star under the pillow.

She was sound asleep.

The next morning, Little Girl Monkey popped out of bed. Her first thought was to look at the star again.

“Papi, Papi,” she called out through the house as she ran. She finally found him in the garage making sure the battery connections on the riding lawnmower were secure.

“Papi,” she said excitedly, catching her breath. “Where’s the star?”

“Oh, hi sweetie,” he said as he moved his cheek close to her.

She got the hint and gave him a kiss.

“I gave it to Momma,” he said. “But she put it under your pillow. I thought you would have felt it when you woke up.”

“Thanks Papi,” she said as she ran back inside.

She looked under the pillow, but it was not there. She looked behind the bed, under the bed, under the blanket, under the mattress, under the rug, in the closet, down the hall, in the living room, the kitchen, in Momma’s apron pocket, everywhere. She asked her Papi and her Momma if they had seen it, but they had no idea.

She even went outside, climbed the tree and asked Momma Bird if she had seen it. She hadn’t.

She went inside and started looking in places where she hadn’t looked earlier.

Then she found it. Little Brother Monkey had it in his mouth.

“Oh, no,” yelled Little Girl Monkey. “Momma, Brother’s eating it. He’s gonna ruin it.”

“Oh, we don’t eat stars,” she said as she approached Little Brother Monkey and held her hand out for him to spit it out. “Spit it out, please,” she said calmly.

He did.

“Here’s your star, sweetheart,” Momma monkey said. “Go clean it off in the sink.”

Little Girl Monkey had the most grossed-out expression on her face. She may have gagged a little, but she took it from her Momma. She was barely holding it with her index and thumb. And a large drop of slobber dripped off of it just before reaching the sink.

“EWWWWWW,” she complained.

She turned on the water and washed it and washed it. It seemed to be washing quite well. She could still feel some crumbs or cereal or something on it, so she kept on washing. She wasn’t noticing that she was actually wearing it down to where it was getting smaller and smaller. When she finally realized it was a quarter of it’s original size, she yelped.

“Oh, no! It’s getting smaller.” Then the star, which had become nothing more than the size of an unpopped kernel of popcorn, slipped out from her fingers and is clinked down the drain.

Little Girl Monkey cried and cried. She wasn’t angry with her little brother, he didn’t know any better. She was just sad that she couldn’t show her Papi again. She was sure he would want to see it again.

Well, the rest of the day was normal. They ate lunch, and Little Brother took a nap with Momma. Papi went outside to work on the rope bridge for the tree house.

She decided to draw a picture of the star to give to her Papi.

When she was done, she went outside. Papi was sitting down on the ground looking up at the tree house.

She stopped in the middle of the yard and looked up to the sky. She could see the little empty space where the star had been the day before, along with a little cluster of stars right next to it.

“Papi,” she said. “Do you think you can throw me up today?”

Papi Monkey smiled at her.

The End