Monkey Business by Anna Wilson

adopted and
I
thought—!’
    Zed took a step back and held up both his hands in his ‘cool it’ gesture. ‘Whoa, take a chill pill, man!’ he cried. ‘You’ve gone, like, bright red.’
    Dyson came in and jumped up on Zed, and set to enthusiastically licking him all over his face.
    ‘I am NOT going to COOL IT!’ Felix was yelling. He didn’t care if he had gone multicoloured rainbow: how could his uncle do this to him? He had never been this angry with Zed,
ever. ‘I thought you were the person who got it! No one else in my family ever understands how much I love animals. And you PROMISED I could have an animal for my birthday! YOU
PROMISED!’
    Zed brushed Dyson off him and shook his head in bewilderment, his mouth opening and closing just like Jonah the goldfish did that time Merv tipped him out of the tank to see what people meant by
the expression ‘a fish out of water’.
    Silver put a hand on Zed’s arm and gave him a look that said, ‘I’ll take things from here.’
    ‘Felix,’ she said gently. She crouched down until she was at the right height to talk to him face to face. ‘Zed knows he’s mucked up. And he’s really sorry . .
.’
    Felix didn’t care that Zed was sorry. He didn’t care that Mum was looking at him from the doorway of the kitchen. He didn’t care that Merv had just mooched his way downstairs
to lean against the wall and enjoy the spectacle, smirking. Felix didn’t care about anything.
    ‘Zed?’ Silver prompted.
    Zed took Felix into his long gangly arms and squeezed him into a bear hug. ‘Aw, don’t cry, little dude,’ he mumbled into Felix’s hair. ‘Silvs is so right. I’m
totally sorry. I didn’t realize you thought this adoption was, like, for real.’
    Silver said, ‘What say we go out for pizza and we talk about it, hey?’
    Zed held Felix away from him and chucked him under his chin, using a thumb to wipe away a couple of stray tears. ‘Silvs always knows how to make things right – what do you say,
man?’
    Felix looked up at his uncle. He felt watery and weak from all his shouting and crying. He knew deep down that Zed had not meant things to turn out this way. And he still had enough faith in his
uncle to hope that he had a solution to the situation. Felix managed a smudged smile and nodded.
    ‘Marge! We’re off out to Veggie Heaven for pizza. I’ll sort this, no worries!’ Zed yelled in the direction of the kitchen.
    Silver winked at Felix and grinned.
    At least that was one good thing that had come out of the evening, thought Felix. He wouldn’t have to eat the stew Mum was cooking, which was beginning to smell a bit like Dyson’s
food would if you tried to heat it up.
    ‘Wow, Veggie Heaven, what a blast – for
nerds
,’ sneered Merv, slouching his way back up to his room and slamming the door. Seconds later music was pounding through the
floorboards and making the pictures on the wall shake in their frames.
    ‘MERVIN!’ Mum wailed.
    ‘Come on,’ said Zed, throwing Felix a friendly punch on the shoulder. ‘Let’s split while the going’s good.’

12
PLANS
CHANGE
    The thing about being with Zed and Silver was that the minute you were around them life immediately looked and felt a whole lot warmer and glowier. Even going to Veggie Heaven
was fun, and Felix wasn’t exactly what you would call Keen On Vegetables. But Veggie Heaven wasn’t all nut roasts and bean burgers and tofu Bolognese. They did the most amazing pizzas
on the planet with such a rich gloopy tomatoey sauce (with No Bits) and so much stringy chewy cheese and such a mountain of tangy black olives (which are too delicious to count as vegetables), that
really it didn’t feel like you were eating anything remotely healthy. Felix was soon stuffing his mouth full of steaming pizza, sauce dripping down his chin, and his brain in complete and
utter Neutral. Silver prodded Zed, and Zed shuffled awkwardly.
    ‘The thing is, right, there’s adoption and then there’s