Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 1-2 | Page 166

The Never-ending Journey
Diocesan Girls' Junior School, Au, Chapelle - 11
A
fter the Journey to the West, Sun Wukong has never stopped his work in finding suitable people to
help spread the word of the Buddha. The people who have performed the most kind-heartedly,
was Whitney.
‘Whitney?! Where are you off to again?’ Her mother’s strongly Chinese-accented voice rang out through
the house like a bell. ‘Just off to Aunt Florence’s, Mum.’ ‘Okay, and by the way, we’re going to India next
week!’
Whitney froze, she turned, ran back up the stairs and flung herself onto the sofa. ‘Okay, I’m not going to
Aunt’s, you can tell me all about it.’ Since India was full of animals, Whitney had been dreaming about
going to India since she was a little girl, this was definitely a dream come true!
All night Whitney tossed and turned. She was way too ecstatic to do anything else. A week came and went,
and the day she had long awaited came. She was leaving for India!
The three-and-a-half-hour-long flight was pure torture for Whitney. All she could think of was the
intricately-designed Taj Mahal she would get to visit and the temples she would get to go to. However,
what she anticipated the most were the monkeys. They were all over the place in India! Enamored with
animals since she was a toddler, she was a member of the SPCA and a major advocate for animal rights.
At last, she and her family landed. After all that immigration work that seemed to last a century, her journey
of India had officially started!
The next few days, Whitney visited bazaars, street markets and temples. She saw tens and thousands of
monkeys on the streets and even fed one on the bank of the River Ganges! On her last night, she and her
family watched an extravagant monkey show which beat all of what she had seen in her entire trip.
Monkeys balanced on top of one another until they reached the ceiling and walked the tightrope. Unwilling
to leave without at least touching one of the monkeys, Whitney snuck backstage and into the ‘monkey
area’.
What Whitney saw shocked her. She had been expecting to see monkeys in enclosures well-fed and
pampered; instead, she saw monkeys whipped and chained up, their “beds” looked like they hadn’t been
cleaned for years! Slowly, she crept towards the nearest monkey, its long tail waving, beckoning. She softly
caressed its face and it seemed to realise she meant no harm.
‘Come on,’ Whitney whispered, ‘Let’s get you out of here.’ The monkey stared at her uncertainly, as if to
say, ‘What about my owners?’ ‘Don’t worry about them,’ she said, more confidently than she was.
Slowly, she crept, leading the monkey behind her, to the exit. Somehow, she and the monkey, which she
decided to name Bon Bon, managed to covertly leave the area. She contemplated her options out in the
open air. She Googled ‘ monkey sanctuary’ on her phone and found one within a 5-kilometre radius. ‘All
right, Bon Bon, let’s go!’ she said, and with the monkey, she set off towards the darkness.