THIRTEEN AGAINST ONE

Believe it or not? For the past month, we have this group of not so friendly and not so civilised minkies dropping by. The other group which we considered civilised wouldn't even touch our potted plants except banana trees that fed them with young shoots and fresh new stems.

I saw an sms sent by Zaza..."Today we have different groups coming that sent everything flying from the shelf in the garage and ransacking things that are not crossing their paths. They look so fierce".

"Don't worry Ja, they are probably the new group that have just finished a new course next door, (at the training centre) in hooliganism and gangsterism"
"How do we tell if they are from different group? They look the same?"
"Of course you could. The other group has bigger mothers which carry little tots almost every other month. And they are quite polite".

Would you believe it or not? These fresh graduates, went berserk with things they just discovered in our garage and next door. Things came crashing down to the floor include bottles of battery water, car cleaning kits, engine oil, newspapers that were three feet high and of course the rusty mousy trap that has got moldy salted fish in it. Newspapers were there in case we could catch the newspaper collector that drove by at the speed of the lightning. Each bundle would earn us 5o cents, depending how big the size of his hand is.

After that part, the gala has not ended yet. Came the smaller ones, climbing the clothes hangers outside. They apparently snatched a few of our helper's clothes and strewn them all over the place. One bright pink blouse caught one minky's attention. It went up the tall tree outside my bedroom (the tree is outside our compound but the branches came down and over to my bedroom window) and excitedly trying to put it over its head. Then came down again still wearing it over its head...funny? Yes, but she was fuming and bemused.

While this other minky was busy with the pink blouse, a handful of them were seen going through my potted plants excited and aggressively. They broke most plants...in their pursuit to catch a huge toad that has been hibernating in my pot for so long. So amused was I that suddenly when they stopped, only realised, the toad was in its hand. It tried pulling the legs apart. Now that was not funny. The toad must have been in agony. But I couldn't help. Who would want to go out amidst wild monkeys who were overwhelmed in excitement.

The toad which was slippery, finally fell to the ground where the suds from the washing machine flow. The pain and fiercely harrowing experience must have scared the toad out of its life. The trauma sent his bruised body to another hide out which was not far from the other pot. When I counted, there were thirteen monkeys that were after one miserable defenseless toad.

Meanwhile a score of them were at my rooted plants in another plot. The plants were bent to the ground as they helped themselves to the ants eggs that were glued to the stems. Then another portion was attacked. They snapped some of my red and yellow helliconias. Eating them up and left the hard potions on the ground. There was a great fiasco going round that day.

Some big ones, came to the table which we put outside, jumping and pushing plastic chairs, up and down then up again like some kind of happy play ground. A huge one went up the grill to the sliding door and shook it so hard that the sound was similar to some demolition works that went on when the new road was reconstructed a few meters from here.

Now it is bit quiet but we still receive them from time to time. The decent group, just climb up and sit on the window ledge watching the food on our meal table.

The people from Jabatan Perhilitan came by a couple of weeks ago and we observed some of them are getting into smaller groups. Life with them around would be rush, rush, rush to our clothes lines and shutting the windows to avoid enforceable encounters with them and of course the flees they carry on their back!

This post was first published on the 12th July...