Nikita stood on the couch cushion in the front house. She was at the window watching her big sister Anita swing on the makeshift wooden swinger their father had attached to one of the hanging branches of the tree that grew in the front yard of their house.

"Anita!" Mother's voice sounded from the front door, "Time to come inside" 

"Coming Mum," Anita shouted back as she got off the swinger and entered the house.

She went off to take a bath, while Nikita continued to look out of the window. Mother was now in the next chair stitching. A few birds fluttered by tweeting to each other, a dog down the road started to bark. The wind blew through the tree, shaking its leaves and making a rustling sound. Everything else remained quiet. 

Just then Nikita saw something move across the other side of the road. Its body was covered in fur that was the colour of green, with a long tail that was a mixture of orange and yellow. It jumped down from the pailing and started to walk to the edge of the road, its tail high in the air. It crossed the road walking towards their house.

"Mummy,Mummy come quick" Nikita was now jumping up and down, "Look it is climbing the tree" 

Mother slowly rises from her seat, she goes to stand behind Nikita, parting the blinds with her hand to get a better look at what her daughter was on about.

"Mummy look!" Nikita squealed, point at the creature as she still hops about, "It's in our tree"

"Nikita please stop shouting" Mother says as she too watches as the creature sits on a branch and picks some fruit.

"What's it doing Mummy?" Nikita whispers, staying still only for a moment before she was bobbing up and down again.

"It's called a green monkey" Mother says bringing her face closer to the window, "It's picking the plums from the tree"

"We didn't have plums on the tree last week" Anita says appearing in her night-tee, "The tree was full of clusters of white flowers" 

Anita is also looking out of the window now. The monkey bit into a fruit then dropped the remains before climbing higher into the tree.

"Those white flowers as you like to call them are fruit blossoms" Mother says as the three of them continues to watch the monkey.

"Blossoms?" Anita asks

"Blossoms are fruit trees' way of growing fruit" Mother replies, "See how the monkey picks a fruit, takes a bite and then drops it?" She was pointing as she speak

"Most of the plums are young, which means that they have not ripen as yet"

"How do we know if it is ripe?" Anita asks

"We will know when the plum fruit has change its colour from green to yellow," Mother says, "The monkey tastes them to see if they are ripe, look some at the top have change colour" 

Nikita and Anita look up in the tree to see a few plums were indeed yellow. The monkey was making a meal of them.

"Then we pick them?" Nikita asks

"If the monkeys don't get them all first" Mother answers

"So first the blossoms change to fruit and then the fruit changes colour?" Anita asks

"Correct and if left alone, they drop to the ground after ripening" Mother states, "Now come along Nikita, it's time for your bath"

Anita stays at the window while Mother leads a bouncing Nikita away. After a few minutes the monkey jumps down from the tree, scurries across the road, climbs onto the truck parked in front of the neighbor's, then it goes onto the roof top and disappears out of view.

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Date Completed:
July 1st 2022

Word Count:
620

Contest:
May 2022: Flowers

Prompt:
There is secret magic in flowers. And sometimes, it changes things for the better...