The Curious Monkey and the Wedge
Chapter 1: The Busy Construction Site
Once upon a time, in a village surrounded by tall, leafy trees, there lived a kind merchant named Ramesh. He wanted to build a beautiful temple for everyone in the village to enjoy.
“We need the strongest wood and the best workers!” Ramesh announced cheerfully.
Soon, the construction site was buzzing with activity. BANG! BANG! BANG! went the hammers. THUD! THUD! THUD! went the heavy logs as they were stacked high.
“Careful with that beam!” shouted Masterji, the head carpenter, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“Yes, sir!” replied the workers as they lifted and sawed and hammered all morning long.
High up in the enormous banyan tree that grew beside the construction site lived a family of monkeys. The youngest monkey was named Chiku, and he had the brightest, most curious eyes you’ve ever seen.
“Ooh! Ooh! Look at all those humans working so hard!” chattered Chiku, swinging from branch to branch. “What are they doing down there?”
“They’re building something special,” said his wise grandmother, Nani. “But remember, little one, we must never interfere with their work. That’s not our business.”
“But Nani, I just want to see—” Chiku started to say.
“Promise me, Chiku,” Nani said firmly, holding up her wrinkled finger. “Promise you’ll stay in the trees when the workers are around.”
“I promise, Nani,” Chiku nodded, though his curious eyes kept darting toward the construction site below.
Chapter 2: The Lunch Break Adventure
Every day at exactly noon, a loud bell rang throughout the village. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
“Lunch time!” called out Masterji. “Everyone take a break. We’ll return in one hour!”
The workers put down their tools, dusted off their hands, and walked toward the village to eat their meals.
As soon as the last worker disappeared from sight, Chiku’s eyes lit up like sparklers on a festival night.
“Now’s my chance!” he whispered to himself, completely forgetting his promise to Nani.
WHOOSH! Down from the tree swung Chiku, landing right in the middle of the construction site.
“Wow!” he gasped, looking around in amazement. “Look at all these wonderful things!”
He picked up a hammer. “So heavy!” THUNK! He dropped it immediately.
He poked at some nails. “So shiny and pointy!”
He examined the measuring tape. “What does this stretchy thing do?” SNAP! It rolled back up so fast it made him jump.
Then, in the corner of the site, Chiku spotted something very interesting. It was a huge log of wood, but it was different from all the others. This log had a big crack down the middle, and stuck right in the crack was a triangular piece of wood.
“Ooh! What’s this?” Chiku’s tail twitched with excitement. He had never seen anything like it before.
Chapter 3: The Dangerous Discovery
Chiku hopped closer to examine the strange sight. The log was as big as a boat, and the crack ran straight down the middle like a river. The triangular piece of wood—which was actually a wedge—was jammed tightly in the crack.
“Hello there, little wooden triangle!” Chiku said, talking to the wedge as if it were a friend. “What are you doing stuck in this crack? Are you hiding? Are you playing a game?”
The wedge, of course, didn’t answer. It just sat there, holding the two halves of the log apart.
Chiku climbed up onto the log and sat down, his legs dangling on either side of the crack. The wedge was right there in front of him, just begging to be touched.
“You look lonely in there,” Chiku said, reaching out with his little paw. “Maybe you want to come out and play?”
Just then, his monkey friends came swinging down from the trees.
“Chiku!” called his friend Bandar. “What are you doing?”
“I found this interesting wooden triangle!” Chiku replied excitedly. “I think it’s stuck, and I want to help it get free!”
“Chiku, you shouldn’t touch that!” warned his friend Kapi. “Remember what Nani said about not interfering with the humans’ work!”
“But look how sad it looks, all trapped in there!” Chiku insisted. “It will just take a second to pull it out!”
“Don’t do it, Chiku!” all his friends called out together. “Come back to the trees!”
But Chiku was too curious to listen. His paws were already wrapped around the wedge.
Chapter 4: The Big Mistake
“I’m just going to wiggle it a little bit,” Chiku said, starting to pull gently on the wedge. “See? It’s not dangerous at all!”
The wedge barely moved. It was stuck very tightly in the crack.
“Hmm,” Chiku muttered. “Maybe I need to pull harder.”
GRUNT! He pulled with all his might, but the wedge stayed put.
“Come on, little triangle! Don’t be shy!” Chiku said, now pulling so hard that his face turned red.
His friends watched nervously from a safe distance. “Chiku, please stop!” they pleaded. “Something bad might happen!”
But Chiku was determined. He wrapped his tail around the wedge for extra grip and pulled with every muscle in his small body.
CRACK! The wedge moved just a tiny bit.
“Aha! I almost got it!” Chiku cheered. “One more big pull should do it!”
He took a deep breath, positioned himself more firmly on the log, and gave the wedge the most enormous pull he could manage.
Suddenly… CRACK! WHOOSH! SLAM!
The wedge popped out completely! But something terrible happened next.
Without the wedge to hold them apart, the two halves of the log snapped together like giant wooden jaws. And poor Chiku’s leg got caught right in the middle!
“OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!” screamed Chiku, his voice echoing across the construction site. “Help me! I’m stuck! It hurts!”
Chapter 5: The Rescue
Chiku’s friends came running immediately.
“Oh no! Chiku, what have you done?” cried Bandar.
“We tried to warn you!” said Kapi, tears in his eyes.
“Pull me out! Pull me out!” Chiku wailed, struggling to free his trapped leg.
All the monkeys tried to help. They pulled and pushed and tried to pry the log apart, but it was no use. The log was too heavy and too tightly closed.
“What’s all that noise?” came a voice from the distance.
It was Masterji, the head carpenter, returning early from lunch because he had forgotten his water bottle.
When he saw the monkeys and heard Chiku’s cries, he immediately understood what had happened.
“Oh my goodness!” he exclaimed. “You poor little fellow! You pulled out the wedge, didn’t you?”
Chiku nodded miserably, tears streaming down his furry cheeks.
Masterji called to his workers. “Come quickly! We have a monkey in trouble!”
Soon, all the workers had returned. They worked together to carefully place a new wedge in the log and slowly, gently, open it up just enough to free Chiku’s leg.
“There you go, little one,” Masterji said kindly as Chiku’s leg came free. “But you’re hurt. Let me help you.”
The kind carpenter cleaned Chiku’s injured leg and wrapped it with a soft bandage.
“This will help it heal,” Masterji explained. “But you must be more careful. That wedge was there for a very important reason—to keep the log from closing while we work on it.”
Chapter 6: The Lesson Learned
Chiku limped slowly back to the banyan tree, supported by his worried friends. When Nani saw him coming with his bandaged leg, she knew exactly what had happened.
“Oh, Chiku,” she said sadly, gathering him in her arms. “You forgot your promise, didn’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Nani,” Chiku whispered, hanging his head in shame. “I thought I was just being helpful, but I made everything worse.”
“What have you learned, little one?” Nani asked gently.
Chiku thought for a moment, his leg still throbbing with pain. “I learned that… when we stick our noses into things that aren’t our business, we can get hurt. And we might even cause trouble for others.”
“That’s right,” Nani nodded. “The humans know what they’re doing. That wedge wasn’t stuck—it was exactly where it needed to be, doing exactly what it was supposed to do.”
“I should have listened to you,” Chiku said. “And I should have listened to my friends who tried to warn me.”
“The most important thing,” Nani said, stroking his head lovingly, “is that you’ve learned your lesson. Curiosity is wonderful, Chiku, but we must be curious about the right things, in the right way, at the right time.”
Chapter 7: A New Beginning
Over the next few weeks, Chiku’s leg healed completely. Every day, he and his friends would watch the construction work from high up in the banyan tree. They could see the workers using wedges to split logs, and now Chiku understood how important and dangerous these tools were.
“Look,” Chiku would say to his younger cousins who came to visit. “See how carefully the humans work? They know exactly what they’re doing. We should admire their skill from up here, where we belong.”
One day, Masterji looked up at the tree and waved at Chiku. “How’s your leg, little friend?” he called out.
“All better!” Chiku called back, carefully staying on his branch. “Thank you for helping me!”
“You’re welcome!” Masterji smiled. “I’m glad you learned your lesson. You’re much safer up there!”
When the beautiful temple was finally finished, the whole village celebrated. Chiku and his family watched the celebration from their tree, feeling proud to have witnessed the creation of something so wonderful.
“Aren’t you curious about the celebration?” Nani asked Chiku teasingly.
Chiku grinned and hugged his grandmother tight. “I am curious, Nani. But I’m curious enough to enjoy watching from here, where I belong.”
And from that day forward, Chiku became known as the wisest young monkey in the whole banyan tree—not because he knew everything, but because he knew when to keep his curiosity in check.
The Moral of The Story
Sometimes our curiosity can get us into trouble, especially when we interfere with things that are not our business. It’s always better to admire from a distance and let others do the work they know how to do.
Observer Voice is the one stop site for National, International news, Sports, Editor’s Choice, Art/culture contents, Quotes and much more. We also cover historical contents. Historical contents includes World History, Indian History, and what happened today. The website also covers Entertainment across the India and World.
