Terminal Chaos, A Monkey Story

The untold story of what really happened on the first day at Heathrow Terminal 5

TERMINAL MADNESS

Just to quickly re-cap, for the new people, Seamus Monkey left the zoo when it closed down in 2003 and lives in a house in England with his inventor brother Norman, and their cousin, a scallywag called Raffles.  Between them they lead interesting, yet carefree lives and go on many adventures.  Raffles also has a pet bird-like thingy called El Greco.  Recently they were joined by a camel called Steven who doesn’t talk and was made invisible in an experiment gone wrong.  Not that it seemed to bother him much.  Anyway, that’s everybody met everybody, on with the story.

One Sunday evening Seamus and Raffles were watching the new reality TV show, Songs of Praise Antiques Roadshow  Idol On Skis, while Norman was working in the kitchen.  Since his shed disappeared he had to do all his inventor work on the kitchen table, which caused a bit of a mess. Seamus turned the telly volume up because of the racket Norman was making with drills and tools.  He wished Norman would just build a new shed.

“Norm, lad, you nearly done for the night?”

“What?  Aye, nearly done mate.”

“Good because you are making an awful racket and we’re trying to watch the telly here.” Said Raffles, feeding crushed digestive biscuits to El Greco on the palm of his paw.  The little bird-thingy picked them up with little squeaks of happiness.

“Right, lads watch this.” Norman called.

“Watch wha- .. “

SHOOM!!  A suitcase appeared on the coffee table between Seamus and Raffles.  El Greco squeaked with fright and hid behind Raffles shoulder, shaking.

Norman stuck his head round the lounge door “Yes!  Successful test.”

Seamus was stunned.  “Norman, how the flipping heck did you do that? I mean what did you do?”

Norman looked very pleased with himself.  “Seamus, Raffles, I have invented a machine that will revolutionise the way we travel.  No more lost luggage problems.  Now we can just instantly teleport them to the airport you are flying to.  It’s called the Telenorm.”  He produced a machine that looked like an oversized remote control with a mobile phone sellotaped to it.

The other two monkeys held it and marvelled at all the buttons and screens.  It really did look the business.

Raffles went over to the suitcase and picked it up, it certainly felt real and light.  Yes this was a great piece of kit.  Norman went back into the kitchen and groaned.

“What’s up mate?” Said Seamus
“Open the suitcase, will you?”

Raffles opened the case slowly.

“Is it empty?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because all the clothes and stuff I put inside it is still in the kitchen, that’s why.”

“Oh..”  Raffles saw what he meant now.

“Well never mind I am nearly there, it just needs a few adjustments that’s all.”

After a further hour of banging and drilling Norman took a break and sat down with the other Monkeys.

“Looking forward to tomorrow lads?”

“Oh yeah, bit nervous, you know.” Said Seamus.

All three Monkeys had managed to get jobs at Heathrow Airport’s new building, Terminal 5, which was due to open tomorrow, on their first day.  Oh and the Queen was coming to open it, no pressure there, then.

They would start bright and early tomorrow morning, and it would be a great opportunity for them to finally earn some money.  This was why Norman was working on the Telenorm, if he could prove his invention worked he would be rich and famous.  He just needed to get it sorted first.

Later on Seamus and Raffles got an early night.  El Greco went to sleep on his cushion in his cage, and Norman stayed up to work on the Telenorm.  Steven the invisible camel stayed up to keep him company.  Eventually he called it a night and went to bed, they had a big day tomorrow.

Seamus woke up early, surprised to find himself wearing Norman’s old cardigan.  He didn’t remember wearing that to bed..  He checked Raffles room, and saw the monkey snoring away with a sock on each ear.  Clearly Norman had been working long into the night.

Anyway he put the kettle on and woke the others up.  Norman looked more tired than most.

“So what time did you come to bed?” Asked Seamus

“I am not sure but it was late, I tried experimenting on teleporting single items of old clothing, but most of it disappeared.” Yawned Norman.

Raffles came down to the kitchen still wearing Norman’s socks on his ears.  El Greco woke up and went into fits of squeaky giggles at Raffle’s ears.

“What’s he laughing at?”

“You’ve got my socks on your ears.”

“You what?”

“I said YOU’VE GOT MY.. Hang on.” Norman pulled the socks off Raffles ears.

“Norman, what were they doing on my ears?”

“Probably keeping your ears warm.”  Said Norman, putting his socks on his feet.

Steven the invisible camel slept in the lounge, usually on the couch, although you couldn’t be sure until you sat on him.

So the Monkeys and their entourage of pets got dressed, locked the door and caught the morning bus to work.

Heathrow Terminal Five certainly looked impressive, it was all new and shiny, with gleaming floors, shiny doors and modern television screens.  The workers all had clean new uniforms.  It all looked very exciting.

They found the supervisor, who looked a bit stressed already, even though he had only been there half an hour.  He led them into his office and sat them down.

“Right, good morning to you three.  As you know we are a bit busy this morning so I will keep this quick.  Which one of you is Seamus?”

“I am.” Said the eldest Monkey.

“I am putting you on the human check-in desk.  You will be looking at passports, checking in bags, and directing customers.”

“Norman?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“You will be on animal check in.  As you know we have  a lot of animals in and out of the country.  Your job will be to get them on the right flights and help them with checking in and any documents they may need.  You are also in charge of their meals.  You got that?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Finally, Raffles?”

“Yes Sir?”  Said Raffles, with a wriggling El Greco in his inside cardigan pocket,  He pretended he had an itchy shoulder to hide the birdy-thing.

“I am putting you in charge of baggage handling.  You drive the truck, get the bags off and onto the conveyor belts.  Any lost bags are your responsibility, got it?”

“Aye Righto.”

“Well then lads, I have got to go meet the Queen now.  You will find your way around  Oh and Norman, Lord Winalot, the Queen’s Corgi, will be getting a tour of the animal check-in around ten o’clock ok?”

And with that off he went out the door, clearly a busy man.

Seamus, Norman, Raffles and Steven the invisible camel had a look around the terminal to try and find where everything was.  It was massive and very busy.  They split up and went to their work areas.  Steven decided to go with Norman

Seamus found his desk at airport check-in ready with a huge queue already forming and got his rubber-stamps and pen ready.

Norman had a similar job, only with animals, but not as busy as Seamus, and he gave a more personal service.

Raffles went out into the cold morning air and found the keys to his truck, with a list of all the planes coming and going that he had to transport luggage for.  Judging by the list this would take ages, surely there was a quicker way?

Seamus turned the desk sign from Closed to Open and greeted his first customer of the day, a lady from China.

“Good morning madam, passport and ticket please?”

She handed them over.  Name, address in China, all good.  The ticket had today’s date, cool, cool.  He stuck her bags on the scales and stuck a label to them before loading them onto a conveyer belt.  He then pointed her to the sign that led to her plane. Simple as pie.

Norman started well, too.  He had a pile of veterinary certificates, and one had to be handed to a Tiger, currently sat in his cage on a big 747 plane, leaving for Mumbai in half an hour.  He went over to the plane, showed his identification badge, that proved he worked there, and went down to the cargo hold.  He pulled back a curtain and was greeted by a huge snarling Tiger!

“RRooooooaaaarrrr!!” Growled the Tiger, then it noticed who it was. “Blimey, Norman, sorry mate, I thought you were a human there for a second.  What are you doing here?”  Tarquin Tiger had been at the same zoo as Norman back in the old days.

“Oh I work here, mate, just started today, it’s not a bad job so far.  I like your cage.”

“Yeah, you know me, always travel first class.  I never trusted those chairs with little seatbelts.  Too small.”

“So where are you off to?”

“Mumbai in India, I am filming the new James Bond film.  Bond gets dropped into this pit with a hungry Tiger, that’s me, and he has to fight me off with an electric toothbrush that doubles as a chainsaw.  I pretend to die, and we use lots of ketchup for blood, it’s great fun.”

“So what’s he like, the new 007?”

“He is brilliant, much better than that Irish bloke, a really good laugh.”

“Ah, good good.  Well anyway here’s your vet certificate, and do you want a magazine or anything?”

“No, I am fine with my iPod thanks.”

“OK well, you have a good flight then ok?”

“Yeah thanks Norman, good luck with the job.”

“You too mate, have a nice flight.”

And off he went.

Raffles had met his co-worker, an Indian fella called Harish, who gave him a quick lesson on how to handle the airport trucks.  His first job was to bring a trailer over from Gate 1 to Virgin Atlantic flight VA112 which was about to land.  He went trundling over to his location and waited.  And waited.  He found a paper to read while he waited for this plane to touch down.  He was just getting to the problems page when he saw, in the rear-view mirror a huge plane about to land right behind him.  He dropped his paper and floored the accelarator, wheel-spinning his way off the runway.  The plane roared to a halt and Raffles saw the pilot in the window making rude finger signs at him.  Sorry, lads, is was his first day.

So anyway him and this Harish fella unloaded all the suitcases and bags onto the trailer and drove them over to the conveyer belt.  From there they unloaded all the bags and cases on to the belt.  It was actually back-breaking work.

Meanwhile, Seamus was getting busier and busier.  He had a flight leaving for Dublin in five minutes and about ten of the passengers were missing.  He showed his supervisor the list.  “Ah the leprechaun gang, you had better go check the bar, they’re usually in there around this time.”

So Seamus left his desk and made his way over to the Heathrow lounge bar.  As he got closer he could definitely hear some kind of party going on.  There was singing, clapping, somebody trying to play a guitar, and loads of cheering.  Seamus got to the door and looked around.  They were leprechauns alright, the little people of Ireland, all drunk to the gills on Guinness and having a heck of a party.

Seamus didn’t know how to get their attention so he tried banging a glass against the table.  “Lads!  Your flight to Dublin is leaving in five minutes you had better get a move on!” He yelled over the noise.

The first leprechaun staggered over to him “Ah, howya, listen, Monkey fella, we will be over in a while, we just want to have a few more drinks first.”
Seamus Monkey groaned “You don’t have time lads, you need to get moving now.”  But the leprechauns went and carried on with their party.

Seamus spoke again “Lads!  They have free drink on the plane, lots of it!”

The first leprechaun came back over “Well why the devil didn’t you say so?  Let’s go lads.”

And off they staggered, all twelve leprechauns, a few irish girlfriends, all their bags, and some leprechaun playing a drum all the way to the gate, and all very drunk.  The first leprechaun was half carried by Seamus.  He introduced himself.  “I am Seamus O’Reilly, I see you are called Seamus too.  Any Irish connections there?”

Seamus Monkey remembered his name was written on the badge he had to wear. “Yeah, I was born in Dublin zoo, my family moved when I was very young.  I have always wanted to visit there.”

“Ah it’s a great place, you would love it.  Lots of pubs.” Said the leprechaun.  Seamus led his noisy little green procession through the terminal.  Suddenly the leprechauns spotted something ahead they didn’t like the look of.

“Lads, look, there is an Orange parade coming towards us, everybody get ready for a fight!” Yelled Seamus O’Reilly.

The other leprechauns dropped their bags.  Some cracked their knuckles, others took off their coats, others got into a boxing stance.  This looked like it could be trouble.

Seamus Monkey took another look at what had made them so agitated. “Ah lads, don’t be worrying about them, that’s just the Easyjet staff coming off their shift, have a better look.”

The leprechaun rubbed his blurred eyes and took a closer look “Ah, I see your right there.  Emergency over lads, lets have a pint to celebrate!”  And he turned to go back to the bar.

“No, no, no you have to catch the plane, don’t worry there is drink onboard, you just get on the plane.”  Said Seamus, dragging the little green fella over to the gate for the Dublin flight.  He got them through security and on to the plane in the end.  He had to help the stewardesses get them sat down though.

Eventually he made his way back to the door of the plane and waved them off.  “Goodbye lads, have a safe trip home!”  And when they had taken off it was time to meet the others for lunch.

The Heathrow airport staff cafeteria is a big place with fifty tables and all different kinds of food and drink.  Seamus found Norman and Raffles sat at a table near the front.  After he ordered a banana sandwich and a glass of coconut milk he went to sit down next to them.

“Howdo lads, how are you both getting on then?”

Raffles just finished his burger with chocolate sauce. “Not bad matey, these trucks drive rather well.  The guy I work with is alright, nice fella.  But this business of shifting suitcases is knackering my back in, can I borrow your Telenorm?” He looked over to Norman.

Norman looked a bit unsure “Well, you can borrow it but I am not sure about how well it works, I still had a few issues with it when I went to bed.  But here, take it anyway.”  Norman handed over the bulky remote device.

Seamus finished his banana sandwich quickly, he was a hungry Monkey.  “So how did you get on with the Corgi dog fella?  Lord Winalot?”

Norman looked up “Oh him, yeah he was fine.  I gave him a bit of a tour around the back areas and said hello.”

Meanwhile Steven the invisible Camel was nibbling bits of fruit and biscuits off the buffet.  When nobody was looking he had a sniff inside the big soup pot.  He had a sniff, ahh tomato, his favourite.  He took a few quick slurps… OUCH it was really really hot and he sprayed it all over the next table!  The woman sat there got sprayed in red liquid, and was left looking like Carrie out of a Stephen King film.  Steven tottered out of hitting distance and sat down next to Norman.

After lunch everybody went back to work.  Steven decided to go with Seamus for a change.

Raffles went back to the baggage section and had a look at the Telenorm.  He pressed a few buttons, selected a suitcase, checked the label for where it was meant to be going to, typed MILAN into the Telenorm and pressed SEND.  The suitcase glowed with a red light, then an amber light, then finally a green light and disappeared.  Magic!  That saved a lot of lugging about.  He repeated the process with the next dozen cases.

Norman was dealing with his first complaint of the day from three small dogs.  They were unhappy with the in-flight meal.  One of them was a vegitarian, and one was a sockitarian, she only ate socks.  So Norman had to go down to one of the little shops in the terminal and buy a pair to keep her quiet.
Raffles was all done now, all three thousand bags sent to their airports, via the Telenorm, now he just had to wait for the phone call to say they had arrived.  Harish showed him his collection of things he had taken out of the suitcases that people shouldn’t have been bringing into the country.  Guns, big knives, dutch biscuits that seemed to make you hungrier, that kind of thing.  He pulled out his favourite, an Uzi-Suzi sub-machine pistol, like the one Arnold Stallone used in that film, ‘Arnie and the big machine gun‘.  It was truly a beauty, and Raffles loved posing with it in the mirror, he looked well hard!

“Tell you what,” said Harish “I will get a few cans and we will have a shooting things competition.”  He came back a minute later with three cans of coke.  Then he drove his little truck over to a huge petrol tanker and set them up in a pyramid on top of each other.  Then he drove back over to Norman.

“Right then, bet you can’t shoot the first one off the top?”

“Bet I can!”

“Go on then, lets see you.”

Raffles took aim with the huge weapon, looked down the sights, took aim and pulled the trigger.

POW! The top can disappeared in a shower of twisted metal.

Raffles grinned.  “That’s one to me then.”

Harish took the smoking rifle and loaded another bullet.  He turned around and fired the gun over his shoulder while still facing away from the petrol tanker..  POW! The second can we shot to pieces.  “Beat that.” He said.

Raffles thought this was awesome.  Right then… “OK fella, now you have met your match!”

Raffles then turned around, bent over and aimed the gun upside down between his legs. Up was now down and down was now up.  Only somebody forgot to tell Raffles.

He pulled the trigger. POW BOOOOooooooommm!!! Actually boom doesn’t even cover it.  It was more like KER-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

The petrol tanker exploded in a red hot fireball that went up in the sky and landed back down in fiery twisted metal.  For a minute it rained sparks and pieces of tanker.  Raffles and Harish dropped the rifle and ran with all their might round the other side of the building and pretended to be busy.  After a cup of tea Raffles got the Telenorm out to show Harish.  “…and this sends the case full of clothes to any destination you may pick.  It will make our job so much easier when we finally get it working right.  But you see this button I am pressing here?  Well that teleports the clothes out of the case and on to your body..”

In the terminal Seamus was having a few complaints.  People kept complaining that their bags kept disappearing into thin air.

Then some man turned up in a dress.  “Excuse me, “ He said “Can you tell me why I am wearing a dress?”

Naturally Seamus didn’t have an answer for that, was this a trick question?

Seamus gave a confused smile “I don’t know, sir, why are you wearing that dress?”

“Because, you silly monkey, it just appeared over my own clothes in a big flash!”

“I see..” Seamus said, not entirely sure where this conversation was leading.

The man walked off in a big huff.  Further back in the queue were even more people strangely dressed.  A man wearing a bikini top over his t-shirt, another man wearing a pair of trousers over his arms, and a woman with an inflatable rubber ring over her dress.  All of them said the same thing.  These clothes just kept appearing on their bodies in a flash of light.  Oh no, it must be the Telenorm going wrong.  And to make matters worse, Raffles had it.

Down in the baggage storage room Raffles noticed that a few of the bags he had Telenormed to other countries had re-appeared, some were open and empty.  Hmm… this may be a problem.

Harish was wading through bags when he heard something.  “What dat tick?”

“What’s thick?”

“No, no, what’s that tick tick sound?”

Raffles went through the bags till the noise got louder and louder.  Then he saw it!  A bag with an alarm clock attached to three sticks of explosive dynamite!

“OOoooohh ‘eck!”  Raffles This was very very serious!  He called the others on his mobile phone.  “Lads, get down here, we have a Monkey code red emergency!”

Seamus and Norman were glad to get away from all the complainers and ran through the crowds to the cargo section where Raffles was waiting for them.  He had already sent Harish to go find a policeman.

The Monkeys had a quick emergency summit.  “Right lads, don’t panic, what do we do?”

Norman spoke up first “We have to tell everybody to get out, first, then we have to disconnect the bomb from the alarm clock.”

Seamus agreed “Right Norman, you are the clever one so you have a look at this bomb, I will get the people to leave.  We have a few minutes yet before it explodes.”

He went to the tannoy microphone on the wall and pressed the speak button.

“Erm.. Excuse me people, we have a big bomb that will go off in a few minutes, would you all mind clearing off?”

Because nobody spoke English, nobody moved.

“No really…erm… big el bombo… explosio..muchos..muchos.. Look just go will you?”

“Ere, give me that.” Said Raffles and put the microphone to his bum, and gave a really loud eggy fart.

Blimey!  The whole terminal cleared faster than you could say evacuate.  Everybody ran, nobody wanted to be on the business end of one of Raffles farts.

The two Monkeys went back over to Norman who was examining the bomb, with Steven, his faithful invisible camel watching over his shoulder with concern.

One minute left on the clock.

“What do you think Norman?” Raffles asked.

Norman was a very clever Monkey but he didn’t know much about bombs.  He did have one idea though.

“Raffles, have you still got the Telenorm?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Give it to me, mate.”

Raffles handed it over and Norman started pressing the buttons.  He then pointed it at the bomb.

“Where are you going to Telenorm the bomb to?”

“The middle of the Bagdadistan desert.  It will go off in the middle of nowhere. We just have time.”

The bomb glowed red… then yellow… then green… and disappeared in a flash.

The Monkeys opened their eyes and looked, phew it had gone.  They breathed a sigh of relief.

Ticktickticktick…

“Why can I still hear ticking?”  Said Raffles.

They looked around.  Oh no! There was the bomb, over in the corner, the Telenorm had only moved it around the room.

Five seconds….

The Monkeys ran over to it, Norman fiddled with the Telenorm controls.

Suddenly the bomb started moving of it’s own accord.  It flew up in mid air and started shaking.

Steven the invisible Camel had it between his teeth,  he knew what he was doing.  He chewed the red wire and rattled the alarm clock as hard as he could.  Maybe he could dislodge the clockwork.

He shook it and bit it.  Bit it and shook it..

Three seconds… two… one….  Riiiiiinnggg!!!

The alarm clock rang just as Steven bit through the red wire and the dynamite dropped away, landing harmlessly on the floor.

Phew!  It was really safe this time.

Within a few minutes the police had arrived, led by Harish.  They took away the bomb, except for one stick of dynamite that Raffles hid in his pocket.

The Monkeys were given the rest of the day off to recover from the fright.  The television people came in to interview them, and they all got on the evening news.  None of the TV people would believe that they were saved by an invisible Camel, even when Steven licked the camera lens.

The following week they were taken to Buckingham palace, and presented by Lord Winalot, the Corgi dog, to the Queen herself.  She shook their hands and presented them with a medal of bravery.  In return she got a wet face from Steven.  He had never licked  a Queen before.  The owner of the airport, Sir Branston-Pickle gave them a round-the-world ticket each to go wherever they wanted, anytime.  They were also given a million quid by the Queen.

So when they finally got home they made a cup of tea and got a map out.  Where would they like to go next?

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of the Monkey’s adventures.


By the way they have a Telenorm going cheap, £14.99 if you want one.  It still doesn’t work that well though.
THE END