The Greedy Monkey

“The Greedy Monkey” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Sanjivan Nair, SJK(T) Saraswathy, Kedah, Malaysia.

The Greedy Monkey

Once upon a time, there lived a monkey and a toad. They were best friends.

One day, the monkey and the toad wanted to steal some rice cakes to eat. They knew that all the families in the village were busy preparing rice cakes to celebrate the New Year.

The two friends talked about this for some time. In the end, they came up with an idea. They came down from the hill and went to the village.

The monkey and the toad reached the village headman’s house. The monkey hid behind the door while the toad jumped into the well not far away.

At that time, a servant of the village headman was busy cooking the rice cakes. She heard the sound of something falling into the well. She screamed loudly, thinking that her master’s son had fallen into the well.

The servant immediately left the wooden basins that contain the rice cakes on the table. She ran towards the well.

The monkey, who had been hiding behind the door, quickly entered the house.

He took a basin containing the rice cake and ran away towards the hill. Not long after, the toad met the monkey there.

The greedy and selfish monkey wanted to eat the rice cakes by himself. He does not want to share the rice cake with the toad. He told the toad that he will roll the basin downhill.

“Whoever succeeds in getting the basin first can have it all to himself,” said the monkey, smiling to himself.

“That is not fair,” said the toad. “I can’t run fast as you can.”

“You must race with me,” said the monkey. “If you don’t, the whole rice cake will be mine.”

The toad doesn’t have any choice but to agree to the monkey’s plan.

“One, two, three, run!” shouted the monkey as he rolled the basin downhill.

The basin began to roll downhill. The monkey ran as fast as he could and soon it was in front of the toad.

The rice cake suddenly fell out of the basin. It stopped rolling beside a big rock.

“Thank god,” whispered the toad. He stopped at the hillside and began to eat the rice cake.

The monkey kept running chasing the basin. When he reached the basin, he found it was empty. He was surprised and he climbed the hill once again. He soon found the toad eating the rice cake.

The monkey wanted to have a small part of the rice cake too, but he was too ashamed to ask for it. He regretted to cheat his friend and finally went away. The moral of the story is it does not pay to cheat another out of his share.