The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
by Hugh Lofting
The Fourteenth Chapter: Chee-Chee's Voyage
When he reached England and tried to get off the ship, the sailors saw at last that he was only a monkey dressed up in girl’s clothes; and they wanted to keep him for a pet. But he managed to give them the slip; and once he was on shore, he dived into the crowd and got away. But he was still a long distance from Puddleby and had to come right across the whole breadth of England.
He had a terrible time of it. Whenever he passed through a town all the children ran after him in a crowd, laughing; and often silly people caught hold of him and tried to stop him, so that he had to run up lamp-posts and climb to chimney-pots to escape from them. At night he used to sleep in ditches or barns or anywhere he could hide; and he lived on the berries he picked from the hedges and the cob-nuts that grew in the copses. At length, after many adventures and narrow squeaks, he saw the tower of Puddleby Church and he knew that at last he was near his old home.
When Chee-Chee had finished his story he ate six bananas without stopping and drank a whole bowlful of milk.
“My!” he said, “why wasn’t I born with wings, like Polynesia, so I could fly here? You’ve no idea how I grew to hate that hat and skirt. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. All the way from Bristol here, if the wretched hat wasn’t falling off my head or catching in the trees, those beastly skirts were tripping me up and getting wound round everything. What on earth do women wear those things for? Goodness, I was glad to see old Puddleby this morning when I climbed over the hill by Bellaby’s farm!”
“Your bed on top of the plate-rack in the scullery is all ready for you,” said the Doctor. “We never had it disturbed in case you might come back.”
“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, “and you can have the old smoking-jacket of the Doctor’s which you used to use as a blanket, in case it is cold in the night.”
“Thanks,” said Chee-Chee. “It’s good to be back in the old house again. Everything’s just the same as when I left—except the clean roller-towel on the back of the door there—that’s new—Well, I think I’ll go to bed now. I need sleep.”
Then we all went out of the kitchen into the scullery and watched Chee-Chee climb the plate-rack like a sailor going up a mast. On the top, he curled himself up, pulled the old smoking-jacket over him, and in a minute he was snoring peacefully.
“Good old Chee-Chee!” whispered the Doctor. “I’m glad he’s back.”
“Yes—good old Chee-Chee!” echoed Dab-Dab and Polynesia.
Then we all tip-toed out of the scullery and closed the door very gently behind us.