Billy from Borneo (7)
A few restless days passed. Billy didn´t see his mother in all this time but he did see Scaffold and Oran outside the caged hospital. It seemed as if the apes that take everything were giving them fruit outside of the prison type hospital too. They would often stay for a chat and then flee quickly into the forest if any hairless ape approached.
Finally the day came when their mother was released. She still looked a bit battered but apart from that she was fine. They hung around together every day in the pen, eating and waiting to see Oran and Scaffold. They were content but they understood that they were completely at the mercy of these strange apes whose temperament was as unpredictable as the wind.
Weeks passed like this. They all grew bored of the routine but they accepted it and came to need it. It was around this time that Billy realised he could sort of make out what the hairless apes´noises meant. He tried to imitate the noises but it just came out like gibberish. Then he figured out a way of getting his ideas across to his captors. He would draw pictures in the ground. There were plenty of sticks lying around. These apes were helpful and in a strange way he thought they wanted to be orangutans, perhaps that was why they hung around so much. Maybe if he taught them how to find food in the jungle and make great leafy beds in the trees they would teach the orangutans how to farm. It worked for the hairless apes, why wouldn´t it work for them?
So every day when the apes came into the pen he got a stick and tried to draw his ideas out in the clay. It was difficult. He was never very good at drawing. They ignored him.
This continued for a week. Then his father and mother joined in. Whenever the guards came into the pen they all drew the same plan out in the clay. The guards ignored them too.
They took some convincing but eventually and perhaps only out of sheer boredom, all the people of the forest started drawing the plan in the soil whenever the hairless apes came in. The guards just scratched their heads in wonder. Everyone was about to give up. This continued for about a month and the guards scratched their heads for a month. Then one day the people of the forest just stopped drawing. They would huddle together as if trying to think of a way to escape this luxury jail. But Billy kept drawing and it was Billy´s picture in the sand that made the strange ape with the four eyes suddenly announce to all in the pen.
“I have a great idea. It looks as if they are trying to plough the land in here. Let´s teach them how to farm.”
Half of the orangutans ran over to say thank you and take the fruit she and the guards were giving them. The other half which included Billy´s dad, stayed away. They waited for the guards to leave before grabbing the fruit. They still didn´t trust them and they were beginning to think that the farming idea might lead to slavery.