11 THE GIANT GORILLA

CHAPTER 11 THE GIANT GORILLA But before we could get back to finishing our book we had to clean up the mess the monkeys had made. Finally, after about a thousand million trillion gazillion years, we had everything back to normal and were ready to start work again. I had just finished writing the words, "Once upom another time," and Terry had just finished pointing out that I had misspelled "upon" again when the table began shaking.

"Quit shaking the table!" I said. "I'm not shaking the table," said Terry. "I thought you were shaking the table." "I'm not shaking the table!" I said, as the treehouse began to sway. "Quit swaying the treehouse!" said Terry. "I'm not swaying the treehouse," I said. "I thought you were swaying the treehouse." "It's not me," said Terry. "I think it's that giant gorilla down there."

"But why would a giant gorilla be shaking our tree?" I said. "Beats me," said Terry. "It's not like it's a banana tree." "Of course!" I said. "That's it! To the gorilla it is a banana tree...a giant banana tree!" "Huh?" said Terry. "Isn't it obvious?" I said. "The giant banana we catapulted must have landed on a distant tropical island...

where the giant gorilla lives... and it found the giant banana and ate it... mmm... ba-na-na! and loved it so much that it made a boat out of the giant banana peel...

and used its giant nostrils to track the giant banana's scent all the way back here... Hmm... ba.na.na. and is now shaking our tree in the mistaken belief that it's a giant banana tree." "It seems a little far-fetched," said Terry. "All that trouble for a banana?"

"A giant banana," I reminded him. "With extra giant-banana flavor." Just then we heard the unmistakable roar of a giant gorilla that has traveled across the ocean in a giant banana peel boat in search of giant bananas. "I think you could be right," said Terry. "It would certainly explain why it's here, shaking our tree. What are we going to do?" "Give it more giant bananas, of course!" I said. "We can't!" said Terry. "The monkeys broke the banana-enlarger!" "Can't you fix it?" "Maybe, but it would take too long!" said Terry. "They've completely pulled it apart!"