I always forget. I apologize, old man. Really.” Looking at me, Buddhu explained, “He is not allowed to laugh. Strict instructions by the doctor. It’s frightfully bad for his tibulooloo. And his right frontal uvulala. His patété too.” At a gesture by the owl to the constable’s throat, the monkey added, “Also, his nasoforeignix.”
I’m no doctor, but I wasn’t sure any of those things were actual body parts.
“I have a condition!” sniffed the constable. “And, sir, you have to let the suspect answer the question! We’ve talked about this before!”
“Correct! Indeed! You are utterly and most totally righty-ho-ho!” The monkey cleared his throat and climbed down off the rikshaw onto the ground. He bobbled his head a little left to right, losing a bit of his original accent. “Thik achhe. Thik achhe. Please, deep pranayama breaths, in and out through your nose. In for four, hold for four, out for four,” he said in a pseudo-deep Amber-the-community-center-yoga-teacher voice, demonstrating as he did so. “All right, then, carry on. Proceed.”
“How about this one? It’s much harder. That was just a warm-up anyway.” The constable gave me a hard stare, ignoring Buddhu’s advice about deep breathing. “Why”—flip—“are”—flip—“bananas”— flip—“never lonely?”
The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but an overexcited Captain Buddhu shouted out, “Because they love a good party!”
“Oh, Captain, my captain!” groaned the constable. The owl spit out another disgusting furball.
The monkey, who seemed to be chewing on one of the auto rikshaw pom-poms, snapped, “All righty! All righty! Don’t get your government-issued knickers in a bunch!” Then, to my annoyance, the military monkey swung himself onto my shoulder and started picking through my hair. But he had—maybe by mistake—told me the answer to the question.
“A banana is never lonely because they’re always in a …” I started, but Buddhu interrupted me with a loud laugh.
“I haven’t said the punch line yet!” I hissed.
“Arré, hurry up, then!” the monkey retorted. “What’s taking you so flimflamming long?”
Now the owl joined the monkey, and both animals were perched on my shoulders, picking through my hair.
I took a big breath, trying not to be irritated. “A banana is never lonely because they’re always in a bunch.”
“Lucky guess,” the policeman groused, even as the monkey collapsed in a fit of laughter, actually falling off my shoulder.
“In a bunch!” he snorted, rolling around and clutching at his stomach. “Oof! Orré baba! That’s a good one! In a bunch! Like his knickers!” His tiny claws digging into my shoulder, the owl squawked and flapped his wings as if laughing too.
“Sirs! I am prohibited from vocalizing my mirth! Think of my condition!” The constable’s face looked puffed and red, and even his eyes had begun to water, as if he was holding in a laugh with huge effort. “Just consider my cardiothorazine! Think of my duodenumnumnum!”
“Wait, wait! Please, at least one more question for the suspect!” The monkey Buddhu snorted from the dusty ground, where he was still laughing and wiping his eyes. “I’m worried she’s a security risk!”
It was obvious he wasn’t worried about any such thing and just wanted to hear another banana-related joke, but the constable had other ideas. Or maybe he just wanted to protect his internal organs from his laughing disease.
From the breast pocket of his uniform, the constable pulled out an even tinier notebook than the first. With a dramatic gesture, he turned the notebook toward me and began flipping through it. On each page was a badly drawn stick figure with crooked eyes, an off-center nose, and, from what I could tell, only one ear. But as the man flipped the pages, it looked like the stick figure was not just growing taller but also dancing.
“Very … uh … artistic!” I said. “I like how it looks like he’s moving.”
“My style is influenced by an artist from the 2-D dimension,” said the policeman as he kept flipping the pages. I could tell he was pleased.
“Oh, I know!” I remembered some pictures I’d seen in art class about a painter who put people’s eyes where their noses should be and stuff like that. “Picasso!”
“Ehhh!” The policeman made a sound like a buzzer. “No, it’s Van Gogh! Can’t you tell? That’s why there’s only one ear!”
I exchanged confused looks with Buddhu, wondering if this had something to do with the security question. The owl made a series of loud burbling noises. I was pretty sure he’d fallen asleep on my shoulder. I couldn’t help worrying if he’d poop while he was perched