The Pet Sitter

by 3B Ethan Ho

The ad in the paper said:

Wanted: pet sitter

Need someone to look after little monkey Jolly

while I am away.

Willing to pay $400/day to the right person.

Four hundred dollars for looking after somebody’s pet!

‘Easy money!” I thought so I took the job. When I arrived at the house, a man gave me the keys. He then took his suitcase and left. I was left alone with Jolly.

“Just a monkey,” I thought, “they have those in zoos too.”   But you know, monkeys in zoos are locked up.  I immediately noticed the door swinging open because of the wind, and there Jolly went, as I chased after it.

After 15 minutes or so I got the little monkey back, and almost “stabbed” the door lock with the key, so anxious was I to get it back into the house.

“You… you sit there!”  I was furious.  Looks like the monkey wasn’t trained to listen to people.  You see, the pet owner’s house had fancy lights like chandeliers, and I could see why some lights were out.  The monkey almost brought down one of them.

“Get down now!” I was shouting like a barbarian or something, shouting up at “King Kong”.  But this time he listened, though he landed on my head and gave me a few scratches to my face.  Meanwhile, I noticed something on my head.  It was poop. He had pooped on my head!

Then I just yelled like a maniac.  I looked over to the neighbour’s place and saw an old man staring at me.  It was almost like he was saying, “Go see a doctor.”

I washed my head and began to leave.  I saw the monkey and almost kicked him - but I wouldn’t do that.  As a last resort, I saw a banana, and threw it at him like a boomerang.  Guess what, he caught the banana and started poking at the television’s power switch.  Then he just sat and watched television without any more fuss.

“Wow,” I thought, “You didn’t train him to obey, but you trained him to watch television.”

So, I put a bunch of bananas next to Jolly and left.  I left the keys under the “Welcome!” rug at the door. Not easy money, for sure.  Today hadn’t been ‘jolly’ at all!