The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys (3 page)

The night was blacker than any other I had ever seen. Hard as I strained to see, there was not even the tiniest pinpoint of light apart from the far-away glimmer of stars. The sky itself, though, felt oddly close – almost as if it had fallen down on top of me, settling like an enormous black bedspread all around me and trapping me beneath it with the creatures of the night. Without chemicals to blur the edges of my awareness, my terror now took on an even more desperate quality than the night before. It was the noise again, the incredible volume and range of noises, which I knew, because I’d heard grown-ups talking about them, must come from the jungle beasts that came out at night. And they did that, I knew, because hidden by the dark it would be easier for them to catch their prey.

I had searched around as the blackness had swooped down to claim me and found a small patch of bare soil, unadorned by plant life, that sat within the base of a wide-trunked tree. Here I sat, and as the air grew thicker and murkier I curled myself once again into the tightest ball possible, my back against the reassuring solidity of the bark and my arms wrapped protectively around my bent knees.

I felt strongly that I needed to keep still and quiet. Like in a game, I told myself. A game of hide-and-seek. If I kept very still and didn’t make a sound, then the creatures of the night wouldn’t know I was there.

But their presence was terrifyingly obvious to me. I could hear so many different sounds, and many were close by. I could hear the same rustlings that I had made as I trampled through the foliage. Scurryings, too – the sound of small animals moving by. And then a crack. A loud crack, frighteningly close to where I cowered. The crunch of something crisp – dead twigs? – being trodden on. The noise moved around me. Whatever it was, it seemed to be circling me, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Could it make me out clearly with its big night-time eyes? And what were those swishing sounds that seemed to follow it? A tail? Was it a child-eating monster? Could it smell me?

I tried to make myself smaller. I wished so much for a cage that I could scuttle inside. A cage that would protect me from slashing claws and biting jaws. Or a light. How I longed for my mummy to bring a light that would scare the monster away.

But then something must have startled whatever it was that stalked me, for there was a rush of small sounds as it darted away, and I felt a blessed moment of relief. But it wasn’t to last. As the night wore on and I lay in my tight ball inside the tree trunk, my lack of vision merely served to terrify me even more. Frightening though it may have been to see any jungle creatures close up, I decided that not being able to see them was even worse. As it was, I could do nothing but flinch and quake in terror as creeping things crawled up and down my limbs, tried to explore the contours of my face and crept inside my ears. I longed for sleep like I had never longed for anything before, because no nightmare, however scary, could possibly be worse than the nightmare I was trapped in right now.

*

The same sun, with the same strength, shining down from the same dazzling blue sky, greeted me again the next morning. It had taken time to convince myself that I should open my eyes. In the comfort of semi-consciousness, I could almost believe that the warmth was that of the blanket on my bed and the sun was streaming in through my bedroom window. But the sounds of the waking jungle quickly dispelled that notion and dragged me cruelly back to reality.

I cried again inside my tree trunk, my throat sore and rasping, my belly aching to be filled with food. But I could only cry for so long. And who was going to hear me anyway? I rubbed the backs of my hands across the puffy surface of my tear-stained face, and as my eyes cleared I thought I saw a butterfly.

I looked again. No, not one butterfly. There were lots and lots of butterflies, in all sorts of different colours, all flitting just above my head. They were fussing around the petals of beautiful pink and white flowers hanging down on lengths of green stem that seemed to start high in the trees. They were mesmerising, and as the jungle floor steamed and made mist all around me, every scrap of my attention was held.

But the pain in my stomach wouldn’t let me rest for long. I was hungry and I needed to find something to eat. But what? There were pods on the ground that I carefully inspected. They smelled good and even made the air around me smell fragrant, but they were coal-black and wizened, and I had only to snap one to see that these pods were very different from peas. Did peas grow here? Or corn? Perhaps I could find some. I got up then and began to explore my surroundings, only this time in a very different way.

Being so young, I was unaware that I could be poisoned by any of the strange plants, berries and fruits I could see. I didn’t want to eat them simply because they looked alien and unappetising. I could see nothing in the undergrowth that was familiar to me.

Once again my thoughts returned to my predicament. If I could find nothing to eat, then I would starve very quickly. And then, as I knew from stories I’d seen in picture books and the things I’d heard grown-ups say, I would die and get eaten by animals. But it seemed that there was nothing here for me to eat. And not wanting to die and be eaten by animals, once again I decided I could not stay where I was. Today I would walk. I would walk and keep walking. If help didn’t want to find me, then I would have to find it. I resolved to continue for as long as my legs could support me, which would hopefully be long enough for me to find a human being who would give me food and take me back to my parents.

I set off once again through the impenetrable thickets, with no plan other than to get away from where I was. After all, the two men had run into the jungle with me, so if I walked for long enough then I must surely get out.

Most of the time I couldn’t see further than the mesh of leaves in front of me and my skin was soon protesting at another round of scratches, as the branches I’d displaced sprang back viciously to punish me for disturbing them. It was hot and claustrophobic inside the eerie green bower, and it wasn’t long before my quest for food was forgotten. As the trees dripped above me and the mists rose and vanished, a new sensation overtook my previous raging hunger. I realised I was incredibly thirsty.

But how would I find water? I had no idea. Though everything around me seemed glossy with moisture, finding water to drink seemed impossible. I began scanning my surroundings with a keener sense of purpose. Where would I find water to drink in such a place?

I looked for hollows in stones and crevices, and scoured the forest floor for puddles. Copying the insects that buzzed and whirred in every direction, I peered hopefully into every kind of flower until finally I came across a plant with coiled, almost cup-shaped green leaves, edged with hairs. If they looked like cups, I reasoned, they might act like cups too, and, sure enough, when I peered into the interior of one of them, I saw a small pool of liquid reflecting up at me.

Feeling almost as if I had discovered a secret treasure, I pulled the cone of the leaf towards me and leaned into it. I then let my parched lips touch the glimmering surface. It felt like heaven, and I’d soon tipped the leaf carefully up and deposited the rest into my mouth. The water tasted odd. It was like drinking soil. But I didn’t care. My thirst was quenched for a moment.

And it wasn’t long before I was able to satisfy it even more. I found a tiny stream, the water trickling and splashing over rocks, and this time when I drank, it was cold and clear and pleasant. But my stomach was not to be fooled. I soon felt it grumbling and complaining, and renewed my focus on finding something to eat as I walked.

What I found was not food, but a parrot. Weak as I was with hunger, I was still entranced by it. Blue and green and yellow, and around the size of a large squash, it sat on a low branch, chattering to itself. It was reassuring, the way it sat there so boldly, just watching me, and I instinctively wanted to get closer. I reached a hand out. Perhaps it would come and sit on my finger, as the confident village parrots sometimes did.

But I was wrong. No sooner had I got within touching distance than it leaned towards me, squawked loudly and sharply bit my thumb, before flapping off in what looked like great annoyance. I looked down at my thumb, which was now throbbing painfully, and at the sight of all the blood dripping across and off my palm I burst into hot, self-pitying tears again. In years to come – decades to come – that moment would be dear to me, because I would recognise it as being key to my survival. I’d been so shocked that a beautiful creature like this might want to harm me, but it was that same shock that would form the basis of what would perhaps be the greatest lesson I could learn. That this was not a man-made place, full of pretty domesticated animals. This was a wild place, and wild animals would kill to survive. As it was, I just traipsed on, dejected.

My spirits, however, soon lifted. It was shortly after the unfortunate encounter with the parrot that I noticed a change in my surroundings. The undergrowth seemed to be thinning a little. My thumb, which had been pulsating with discomfort, was forgotten, and I pushed back the ever-decreasing barricades of branches with a real sense that I might be about to escape. On and on I went, scrambling with ever more urgency as it became obvious I was reaching some sort of clearing. And the closer I got, the more my eyes seemed to confirm it. I was getting ever bigger glimpses of the jungle giving way to what looked like open space.

This must be it! So intent was I on reaching the edge now that I didn’t care how many irritable boughs and saplings lashed out and whacked me. And it was with a sense of elation that I finally burst through, to find myself at one side of a small area of grass. But my joy was cruelly short-lived. No sooner had I escaped than I saw that on the other side of the scrubby, withered circle of grass was undergrowth just as impenetrable as that from which I’d just emerged. I’d come so far! I had walked for so long! I was exhausted, still starving, and there seemed no escape route. I had, I knew for certain, just walked further into the jungle.

Why? I thought. Why, why, why, why had this happened? Why hadn’t my mother come to find me? What had I done to deserve this? And if this was a punishment for something I’d done wrong, then what was it? I looked down at my dress, which had once been pure white with pink flowers and was now a ragged grey thing, stained with soil and blood. I had no shoes and my bare feet were worn, cut and filthy, and both my stomach and mind cried out hopelessly. I slumped down into a pitiful heap on the ground, smelling the grass in my nostrils and the ever-present tang of soil. I could think of nothing else to do but just lie there and weep. I wanted home, I wanted my mother, I wanted to be comforted and cuddled. But I had nothing and no one to cling on to.

I curled up there, on my side, for what seemed an eternity, and I might even have fallen asleep for a bit. Certainly, it seemed I was experiencing nightmares. Strange jungle sounds made me jump, and loud whoops and calls seemed to taunt me. I could hear the sound of branches thwacking, grasses moving, sharp snaps and thumps.

All I wanted was to die. But eventually my hopelessness and fear turned to hunger, and the sheer physical ache from deep down in my stomach made me accept that I wasn’t going to die any time soon.

I opened one eye, just a little bit. The sunlight still bathed me. I opened it a bit more, my sightline tracking straight along the ground. And what I saw almost stopped me from opening it any further. So I closed it and, as gently and noiselessly as I could, turned my head to face the other way.

A tiny peek from the other eye confirmed I hadn’t dreamt it. I had company. In fact, I was surrounded.

All trace of sleep had gone now, and as I opened my eyes fully I realised I wasn’t just surrounded, I was being watched. All around me, at a distance of several paces, were monkeys. Motionless and afraid again, I tried to count them. Now I was nearly five, I could count up to ten, and it seemed there were lots more than that number ranged around me, and perhaps more behind me, out of sight, which scared me even more.

But as I watched them, and they watched me, I felt my fear ebb a little. They looked like a family. Though they were all different sizes, they looked related. Big ones and little ones. Old ones and young ones. All with the same chocolate-coloured fur and paler belly, and ranging from what looked like the size of a small dog to no bigger than the parrot who’d bitten me. I knew they were wild animals and, after my experience with that parrot, I couldn’t trust them, but some sense made me feel they wouldn’t hurt me.

That feeling didn’t last. After a short time, one of the monkeys left the circle and began to approach me. He was one of the biggest, with a coat that was greyer than the others, and there was something about the way he loped towards me so boldly that made me think he was the one who ran the family. Afraid again now, because I didn’t know what he might decide to do to me, I shrank back into a ball, trying to make myself as tiny as possible, tucking my head tight to my chest and hugging my arms around my knees.

I was just about to squeeze my eyes shut when I saw him reach out a wrinkly brown hand and, to my surprise, with one firm push, knock me over onto my side. I quivered on the soil, tensed for the second blow that was surely coming. But it didn’t, and after some seconds I dared open one eye again, only to find that the monkey had lost interest. He’d now returned to the circle, squatted back on his hind legs and resumed watching me, along with all the others.

It wasn’t long, however, before a second monkey – another of the bigger ones – began walking towards me. It approached slowly on all fours but without a trace of uncertainty. This time I instinctively scrabbled to my feet, but as soon as the monkey got to me it reached out, grabbed one of my legs and yanked it from under me, causing me to fall back on the soil again with a thump. I curled into a ball again but felt the animal begin to dig around in my hair and move its leathery fingers over my face. Now I was frightened and wriggling, trying to free myself from its questing fingers, but, like the other monkey, it seemed to have decided I was a plaything; once again, I was firmly pushed over.