Rana the frog was dozing in a swivel chair in front of his computer, when a sudden buzz on Skype woke him up.
“Rock! Let-it-be! We are getting a call from a client. Come on over to hear what he has to say!” he called out to his partners in Hopper, Hopper and Hopper Detective Agency.
The three sleuths looked at the monitor as Rana connected with the caller. They groaned when they saw three grinning faces of their old nemesis Asadu, Achchu and Pichchu. The rock-hopper penguin stared coldly at the three macaque monkeys.
“I hope you are not going to waste our time yet again.”
In response, Asadu shook his head and said, “Oh, no, no. We have a serious case to solve. Can you believe it? It’s a case of a missing mom!”
Rana grunted in irritation, “Children get lost, but moms don’t. So try your joke elsewhere. Good Bye, Asadu.”
Monkey-ing around
“Hey, hey, don’t go off. Look at what we have to show you! A cutie, cutie monkey baby,” exclaimed Pichchu. He held up a tiny milky-white furred infant monkey with large brown eyes.
Achchu tried to grab the baby from Pichchu. “He is so cute. Let me hold him. I will surely find his mom.”
Needless to say neither Achchu nor Pichchu was going to let go off the baby, which had started howling. The three detectives watched the scene with anxiety. They wondered who the mother was and how these three monkeys had found this baby. As if to answer their question, there came a loud growl from behind the monkeys and a long black arm tried to grasp the baby monkey. Asadu was the first to recover from the scare. He took a big stick to chase the long-armed, mean-looking black ape.
“Don’t touch the baby,” he scolded like a school teacher. “Who are you, anyway?”
The Hoolock gibbon raised his white eyebrows and bared his teeth to scare the rhesus. “Do you want to know who I am? I am the father of the baby. I am here to take him home.”
The macaques grinned. “Have you ever looked at your reflection? You are black-furred and scary-looking, but the baby is white-furred and so sweet,” Asadu retorted.
This naturally made the gibbon furious. He snarled and snapped, growled and grunted. He waved his long arms about to catch the monkeys, when a gentle voice called out from behind.
“Hoolock gibbon, you may go back to your tree while I bring Chickku back,” spoke the mother gibbon.
The detectives, who were watching the drama, were intrigued.
“Rock, don’t you think it’s strange? The father is black in colour, the mother copper tan and the baby all white — that is if he is their baby.”
Let-it-be chirped in with some info from the Internet. “It is strange, but true that the Hoolock infant is born white and then turns black if he is a male and light brown if female. Let us see if Chickku recognises his mother.”
Sure enough, Chickku squealed in delight and leapt into his mother’s arms and clung to her. Mother gibbon gave the three macaques a grateful look before she knuckle-walked back to her tree.
“Hey, we found the missing mom,” shouted the monkeys in joy giving each other a high-five.
Rana scowled, “You didn’t find the mom. She found you!”
