Strangely, James' first couple of days as a monkey were the least bad. Once he had recovered from the initial shock and disorientation of being transformed it just felt like a case of quietly waiting it out to be restored to humanity.
Elspeth had seemed pretty optimistic about curing his condition at first and was surprisingly apologetic about what she had done to him. It turned out she had been planning to release him after a couple of weeks once she had tested a few spells and was now planning to do so as soon as she was able to reverse this one as a gesture of good will. He would be free!
After three or four days James started to feel a little more concerned about his situation. Elspeth didn't seem to be prioritising his restoration with the same verve as she had before and was paying him far less attention generally.
The reality of being a primate was starting to wear on him as well by this point. There really wasn't a lot for a monkey with human intelligence to do in the small cottage. Elspeth preferred to put him out in the garden while she worked on her spells during the day but he felt just as out of place there.
The neighbours kids found him to be a cute little novelty, leaning over the fence making monkey noises to get his attention and throwing bits of fruit at him in the expectation he would eat it off the floor.
The diet was another thing that was starting to grind him down. He didn't even like bananas and Elspeth offered him nothing else. And when he needed to relieve himself he was again expected to just do so in the garden with the kids next door often pointing and laughing at the spectacle. After a while he barely even cared.
And all this time spent pointlessly as a monkey was time the rest of the human world was moving on without him. Would his job still be tbere when Elspeth finally undid her spell? What of Nicola? Was she faring any better than him?
After another few more increasingly frustrating days of the same tedious routine Elspeth came out in to the garden, called James down from the tree he had been climbing (it was about as much fun as he could have) and ushered him inside. James bounded in after her as quickly as he could - was she ready to restore him?
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to admit defeat in my attempts to reverse the spell I put on you" she announced sympathetically. James screeched in dismay.
"I'm truly sorry" the witch continued "I never intended for this to happen. Which makes the next thing I have to say sound even harsher"
James froze in horror - worse was coming?
"I'm afraid it just isn't practical for me to keep you here in the cottage like this. I'm going to have to make some arrangements to find you a more suitable home. Again, I'm truly sorry this has happened, but we have to make the best of a bad situation.
James was too stunned to even make a sound as Elspeth left the room to find a new home for him.