Code Name Bananas

“HEE! HEE! HEE!”

If you have never seen a gorilla laugh, it is a wonderful sight to behold!

They rock their heads back, they bare their teeth and thump the floor.

THUMP! THUMP!

“HEE! HEE! HEE!”

“HELP ME!” cried Sid, still lying on the floor.

The boy unhooked the man’s trousers, and then climbed through the window. He helped him up…

CLINK! CLANK! CLUNK!

…and slowly the pair approached the gorilla.

“BURP!” she burped again.

The boy caught a waft.

“POO!” he moaned. “Gorilla burps smell BAD!”

“Wait until you smell what comes out of the other end!” remarked the old man. “That really pongs!”

“HA! HA!” laughed Eric. Anything to do with bottom burps always made him chuckle. “So how are we going to get Gertrude back to her cage?”

“Mmm,” said Sid, surveying the scene. The gorilla looked perfectly content gulping and guzzling away.

“BURP!”

This one was pongy enough to sweep you off your feet.

“I’ve got an idea!” exclaimed the boy. “If Gertrude followed a trail of raisins here, she might just follow a trail back!”

“BINGO!”

The boy beamed with pride, before looking around the snack shop for more bags of raisins. Unfortunately, Gertrude had already demolished all but one. Eric seized the last remaining bag and waggled it in front of the gorilla’s face.

“Gertrude!” he said in a sing-song voice that everyone adopts when talking to animals. “Yummy scrummy raisins!”

“Let me see if I can get this door open!” said Sid. He didn’t want to risk his trousers coming down and the world seeing his bottom again. The man found the spare key on the shelf and unlocked the door.

CLICK!

“DONE IT!” announced Sid, turning back to Eric and Gertrude.

“RAISINS!” called out the boy. “Nice juicy raisins!”

With that, he scattered some raisins in the gorilla’s path.

Just as Eric had thought, Gertrude stood up, and began lolloping towards them, picking each one up and munching it down.

MUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH!

Eric smiled. His plan was going exactly to plan! He scattered some more raisins all the way to the door. Sid stood proudly saluting by the door, ready to open it like a doorman at a posh hotel.

“This way, madam!” he chirped as he swung the door open.

What none of them realised was that standing on the other side of the door was… BATTER!

The old soldier squeezed the trigger on his rifle, ready to fire…

* It means underpants. Please see your Walliamsictionary.

“NOOOOO!” screamed Eric, jumping between Gertrude and the rifle. He knocked the gun out of Batter’s hands as he did so.

BANG!

A shot rang out. The bullet exploded through the snack-bar roof.

BOOF!

“WHOOP!” cried the gorilla.

Gertrude was terrified and charged at Batter.

Their heads clonked together.

DOINK!

Both fell to the ground, knocked out cold.

“What on earth did you think you were doing, boy?” shouted Sid.

“I was just trying to save Gertrude!” protested Eric.

“You could have got yourself killed! Killed!”

“I’m sorry.”

“And now we are in deep, deep doo-doo!”

Eric looked down at the pair sprawled on the ground.

“Do you think they are all right?” he asked.

“Gertrude or Batter?” asked Sid.

“Well –” the boy hesitated – “I was thinking of the gorilla!”

“Come on! We need to sort both of them out!”

That is what they did. They found a large wheelbarrow, normally used to ferry dung around the zoo.

“Ladies first!” announced Sid, and with great effort they lifted Gertrude into it. She was wheeled back to her cage, which they thought was the safest place for her despite the damage to the roof.

First, Sid and Eric untied the rope, and then attached it to the top of the roof. Next, using the branches of a nearby tree as a pulley, they hoisted the top of the cage back into position. Then, to stop it from falling down again, they tied it off round the trunk of a tree. To hide the damage, they put some hay and twigs around the top of the cage so you couldn’t see where the roof had been torn off.

Finally, they wheeled Gertrude into her cage, gently lifted her out of the wheelbarrow and set her down on a bed of straw.

The gorilla snored away.

“ZZZ! ZZZZ! ZZZZZ!”

“She looks peaceful when she sleeps,” remarked Eric.

“Let’s get out of here before she comes to,” replied Sid. “That was a nasty bump on the head! She might wake up in a foul mood!”

“Gertrude’s never in a foul mood.”

“No, but we’d be safest on the other side of this cage. Come on!”

The boy gave his friend a goodnight kiss on her forehead, just like his mum and dad used to do to him.

“Sleep tight!” he said.

By the time they were out of her cage, dawn was rising over the zoo. With the sun up, Eric and Sid could see plumes of thick, black smoke rising up all over London. This must have been one of the worst nights of bombing in the war so far. Night after night, building by building, London was being flattened. If the explosions of the bombs didn’t bring death and destruction, then the blazes they caused would.

So many buildings in London would now be nothing but a blackened shell. Looking up at the sky above inked with smoke, Eric felt lucky to be alive. Although he was meant to be tucked up in bed at his grandma’s house, perhaps the zoo was the safest place to be, after all.

Now Eric and Sid had to act fast. Soon, more and more people who worked at the zoo would be arriving. They would be asking questions as to why the nightwatchman was sprawled out on the ground.

When they finally got back to the snack bar to deal with Batter, the man and his rifle were nowhere to be seen.

“He’s gone!” called out Eric.

“Oh no I haven’t!” said Batter as he stepped out of the shadows.

“You two are in

ginormous

trouble!”

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