"So, you can wiggle your tail?" asked Marcus.
"Yeah, I think so." said Oliver.
"Okay, try doing some other things with it. You're going to be using it for the rest of your life now, and soon you'll wonder how you got by without it."
"Try to touch something with it!" said Tim, excitedly.
Oliver looked around and saw an action figure lying on the ground next to his new tail. He concentrated on his new appendage and slowly moved it towards the toy.
"Okay, now you have to pick it up with your tail." said Samson.
Oliver tried explaining the feeling to his parents a few hours later, but found himself unable to describe what it felt like to have a monkey tail.
"It was like having another arm, only one that I could move any way I wanted to. It was weird, but...I just knew how." Oliver told his parents.
"You've got it," said Jim. "Just put it underneath the toy. Your body knows what to do."
Oliver concentrated on wrapping his tail around the toy, and he realized that Jim was right. His tail wrapped under the toy. Oliver, without concentrating, lifted his toy up around his back and dropped the toy in front of him. He then lifted his tail up so that he could see it clearly. It was a long tail, and it was covered with a light coating of brown fur, the same color as Oliver's head. He touched his tail with his hand, amazed at how similar the two different appendages were.
"It sure came in fast." said Marcus.
"Faster than mine." Tim said, lifting his own tail up to study it.
"You should try swinging with it." said Samson. "It's so much fun."
"Swinging with it?" asked Oliver. "Wouldn't I be to heavy?"
"You don't know very much about monkeys." said Marcus.
Oliver watched as Marcus ran over to the jungle gym set up on the yard. He quickly climbed up to the top (too quickly for a normal boy). He wrapped his tail around the beam and jumped, dropped down and began swinging with his tail. The other boys followed suit, until they were all swinging from different places on the jungle gym, leaving Oliver watching on the ground.
"Hurry up, Oliver!" yelled Jim.
"I don't think I should." said Oliver. "It looks dangerous. I could get hurt, I mean, I only got injected a couple of weeks ago."
"Yeah, and it's about time you started having some fun!" said Tim. "C'mon, just try it close to the ground."
Oliver shrugged. If he was changing into a monkey, he'd better get used to this sooner or later.
He ran over to the jungle gym and climbed up a foot off the ground. He wrapped his tail around the metal beam as tight as he could wrap it.
"Now just slide off." said Samson. "Trust us."
Oliver closed his eyes, took a deep breath and slipped off the beam. He dropped down until he stopped in mid air. He looked up and saw his furry brown tail wrapped around the beam. He swung himself a bit. The guys were right, this was fun! Without thinking, he swung himself over the beam and climbed up to meet the rest of the monkey boys on the highest beam. After a few brief moments of swinging, he realized what he had just done.
"Good job, Oliver!" said Marcus. "You're really getting the hang of this."
The boys reached up to the beam to support themselves with their arms.
"I can't believe I just did that." said Oliver.
"Just wait," said Marcus. "It only gets better from here."