Good Morning, Gorillas - Mary Pope Osborne [5]
Jack stepped back again.
The gorilla kept stepping forward. Jack kept stepping back until he had stepped out of the clearing.
But the silverback kept coming. Jack stumbled back through the brush until he came to a thick wall of plants.
The gorilla kept coming. Jack couldn’t move back anymore.
“Uh … hi,” he said nervously. He held up his hand. “I come in—”
Before Jack could say “peace,” the giant gorilla went crazy. He hooted and leaped to his feet.
Jack crouched down in a panic.
The gorilla kept hooting. He grabbed a tree limb. He shook it wildly. He ripped leaves from branches.
He gnashed his teeth. He cupped his hands. He beat his chest.
WRAAGH! he roared. WRAAGH!
The gorilla dropped on all fours. He charged back and forth past Jack. Then he threw himself on his belly. He began bashing the ground with his palms. He bashed and bashed and bashed.
Jack scrambled on his hands and knees over to a tree. He hid behind the trunk, hugging his head.
He waited for the maniac gorilla to find him and tear him to pieces.
The pounding ended. There was silence … a long silence.
Jack opened his eyes. He peeked around the tree. The silverback was sitting on the ground. His lips were curved in a smile. He looked pleased with himself.
Was his whole act a fake? Jack wondered.
Jack didn’t know whether to be scared or to laugh. The only thing he did know was he still had to get to Annie!
Jack pulled out the research book. He found the gorilla chapter again. He read:
To safely get close to gorillas in the wild, it’s wise to act like a gorilla yourself. Crouch down and rest on your knuckles like a gorilla. Keep your head down and act friendly!
Jack packed up his research book. He put his pack on his back. Then he went down on his knees.
Jack took a deep breath. He smiled a friendly smile. Pressing down on his knuckles, he moved out from behind the tree. His fingers hurt as he walked on them.
The silverback grunted.
Jack didn’t look up. He kept smiling a friendly smile as he crawled through the brush toward the clearing.
When he got to the edge of the clearing, he glanced back. The giant gorilla was following him. He was frowning, but he didn’t seem about to attack.
Jack kept going. He moved into the clearing. Then he stopped.
More gorillas were waking up. A large gorilla hugged Bu-bu as if to comfort her.
When Bu-bu saw Jack, she screeched joyfully.
All the other gorillas turned to look at him. They made nervous sounds.
Jack’s heart pounded. But he just smiled his friendly smile and kept crawling. He crawled around the gorillas and over to Annie.
“Wake up!” he said, shaking her.
Annie yawned, then opened her eyes.
“Oh, hi!” she said.
“Are you okay?” asked Jack.
“Sure,” she said. She sat up and looked around. She gasped.
The gorillas were staring at Jack and Annie with bright, darting eyes. The silverback stared the hardest.
“Oh, wow!” said Annie. A joyful smile crossed her face. “Good morning, gorillas!”
Annie kept smiling at the gorillas. “Wow!” she said. “Wow, wow, wow.”
“Didn’t you know you were sleeping next to them?” Jack asked.
“No!” she said. “When you didn’t come back, Bu-bu led me here. But I couldn’t see anything. It was too dark.”
Just then, Bu-bu left her mother’s arms and bounded over to Annie. She climbed into Annie’s lap and hugged her.
Another small gorilla left his mother and ran over to Annie, too. He was about the size of a two-year-old kid.
“Ho, ho!” he said. He gave Annie a playful poke.
“Ho, ho yourself!” said Annie. “Is Ho-ho your name?”
She tickled Ho-ho. She tickled Bu-bu, too. The two small gorillas made laughing sounds and fell onto their backs.
The two mother gorillas laughed, too. Huh-huh-huh, they said.
Jack felt a little jealous. He wanted the gorillas to like him as well. But he didn’t know how to join in the fun. So he just sighed and pulled out his notebook. He added to his “gorilla behavior” list:
Suddenly, he heard a low growl.
He looked up. The silverback had moved closer to him. He was glaring.
“That big guy doesn’t understand what you