When Glumdalclitch went out one day, she left me in my bedroom box in her room.
She thought I would be safe there, but it turned out to be a very dangerous place.
As the day was warm, Glumdalclitch had left the big windows of her room and the door of my bedroom box open.
Suddenly, I heard something come through the open window.
Looking out from my box, I saw a monkey hopping around the room.
It was as big as an elephant I had seen in Africa.
The monkey belonged to one of the kitchen workers and had seen me before.
I had not liked the way it had looked at me then.
The monkey looked into my box.
I was so frightened that I did not think to hide under the bed out of sight.
The monkey chattered excitedly when it saw me.
Then it put its paw through the doorway to try to catch me.
I kept moving around, but the monkey was fast and grabbed me.
"This is the end of me," I said to myself.
"I will soon be a meal for this monkey."
To my surprise, the monkey was gentle.
It held me closely against its chest.
"Perhaps it thinks that I'm its baby," I thought.
When I struggled to get free, the monkey held me more tightly, so I kept still.
With its other paw, the monkey stroked my face lovingly.
At that moment, Glumdalclitch opened the door of the room.
The noise of her key in the lock frightened the monkey.
Still holding me, it jumped onto the windowsill.
Then it climbed out of the window.
Glumdalclitch ran to the open window and started to scream.
"Help! Help!" she cried.
"The monkey has stolen Grildig and is going to hurt him!"
A minute later the whole palace was in an uproar.
Everybody was shouting at once.
The monkey had climbed up onto the roof, at least three hundred meters above the ground.
I saw many people gathered in the garden below and pointing up at the roof.
I was so high that I almost fainted in fear.
"The monkey is killing Grildig!" someone shouted.
"Grildig is going to fall off the roof!" cried another.
Glumdalclitch was sobbing and had her hands over her eyes.
She did not want to see my horrible death.
By this time, some servants had brought ladders and had climbed onto the roof.
The monkey held me calmly in one paw and took something out of its mouth with the other.
It was some food, and the monkey tried to put it into my mouth.
It really did think I was its baby!
"Yuck!" I said. "Get that away from me.
I don't want your chewed food."
Below, people started to laugh, but I was terrified of falling off the roof.
"Save me!" I cried.
"We're trying to," called out one of the servants.
"But we don't want to scare the monkey.
If we do, he might drop you."
As the servants came nearer, the monkey finally put me down and ran away across the rooftop.
The servants carried me down to safety.
Glumdalclitch, still sobbing, put me to bed.
The next day, the king asked me about my adventure.
Then he said, "What would you do if an animal tried to grab you again?"
"It had better not," I answered in a strong voice.
"I'm not afraid.
Next time I will attack it with my sword!"
With a laugh, the king replied,
"Ah, I see that you are very brave when you are safe here with me."