Roy DeSoto sniffed and wrinkled his nose.  "Hey, Junior!  Think your kid needs his diaper changed."

John Gage looked up from inventorying the drug box.  "Huh?" he asked, distracted.  Then he sniffed.  "Oh.  Yeah.  Say, listen, Roy, could you --"

"No."

"But --"

"No."

"Aw, man!"  Johnny sighed.  "You have so much more experience with this sort of thing than I do!"

"Yeah, I know."  Roy grinned evilly.  "Welcome to the joys of fatherhood."

"Yeah, yeah.  All right already."  Johnny closed the drug box, picked up the baby and lay him down on top of Station 51's rolling tool chest.  "Well, look, can you help me at least?"

"Help you how?" Roy asked suspiciously.  Long experience as Johnny's partner had taught him the folly of agreeing to anything unconditionally.

"Just hold his little hands for me, would you?  Otherwise he's apt to get hold of the . . . stuff.  And if he does, he'll throw it."

"Yeah," Chet Kelly added from where the rest of the shift stood in a group, well within the door of the day room.  "And then the stuff might hit the fan.  And that would be bad."

Now it was Roy's turn to sigh.  "Oh, all right."  He moved in and captured the baby's hands.  Johnny caught the little guy's ankles in his left hand and opened the diaper and both men reeled away, gagging, mirror images of disgust connected by their mutual grasp on the infant's extremities.  "Man!  That's foul!"

Quickly Johnny bundled up the diaper with its contents and dropped it into a waste can.  He reached for the diaper wipes as Mike Stoker, standing behind Chet, spoke up.

"You're going to change that trash now, right Gage?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Johnny said, irritated.

"And take it outside?" Mike persisted.

"And around the corner," Marco Lopez chimed in.  "And down the block."

"Man, drop it off at city hall," Chet suggested.  "Everything there already stinks so bad they won't even notice it."

"Ha.  Ha."  Johnny struggled to unfold a diaper one-handed and the other firemen drifted closer.

"So this is your kid, then, is it, John?" Chet asked.

"Very funny," Johnny said.  "Obviously it is not my kid."

"Oh, sure.  You say that now.  But wait until the paternity tests come back."

Johnny sighed loudly and raised only his eyes to meet his partner's.  Roy was carefully keeping his face very nearly straight, though his blue eyes danced with merriment.

"He sure has a hairy butt," Chet persisted.  "Does he get that from you, Johnny, or does he take after his mother in that respect?"

While the other firefighters laughed, Cap walked around them, regarded them from all angles and finally spoke.  "What I want to know," he said, "is exactly how you two twits got yourselves roped into this."

"Ah," Roy said.  "I'd just like to raise an important point here.  It is not 'you two'.  This would be Johnny.  This is all his thing.  I had nothing to do with it."

"It's all very well and good for you to say that, DeSoto," Cap said, "but from where I'm standing it looks like you're holding half a monkey."

"Yeah-ah!" Johnny chortled, then caught sight of his partner's face and quickly swallowed as much of his merriment as he could.

"I could let go, you know," Roy threatened.

"Are you sure about that?" Johnny teased him, nodding toward his hands.  As Roy was holding the baby monkey's hands, the monkey was also holding his, clutching his fingers tightly.  Johnny lifted him to slide the specially-made diaper under him and the baby pulled one foot loose, reached out and snagged his bottle off the tool box and stuck it in his mouth.  He wrapped his tail around Johnny's wrist, hoisted himself up between the two men and rocked himself gently.

"Okay," Cap said, "but you still didn't answer my question.  How did you wind up babysitting Bonzo here?"

Johnny sighed, the sigh of someone who was being extraordinarily patient, but only with great difficulty.  "First of all, it's not 'Bonzo'.  It's Beau B."

"Booby?" Chet chortled.

"No, it's not Booby!  Did I say Booby?  No, I did not.  You just heard 'booby', Chet, because you are a booby and you belong in the booby hatch!  His name is Beau B., which is short for 'Beau Brummel'."

"A diaper with a tail hole is the fashion statement this season," Roy put in, straight-faced.

"He doesn't have any viruses, does he?" Marco asked.  "Because that's something you've had problems with before, you know."

Johnny rolled his eyes.  "No, he does not have any viruses."

"So how did you wind up babysitting him?" Mike persisted.

Johnny took a deep breath and when he spoke again the other five firefighters joined in like a Greek chorus.  "There was this chick . . . ."

#-#-#-#-

Station 51 pulled up to the accident scene with the squad in the lead, as usual.  A station wagon and an El Camino sat at odd angles in the middle of the road.  Roy jumped down, grabbed the trauma box and went to check on the occupants of the station wagon.  Cap sent Marco to unhook the cars' battery cables while he and Chet started spraying the street down against the possibility of a gas leak.

Johnny fought to wrestle himself free of Beau so he could go help.

He finally got all the little simian's extremities disentangled from his arms, shirt and hair, stuck a bottle in the baby's mouth and left him lying on the squad seat with the window cracked to let in air.  Slamming the door, he blew out a breath and hurried after his partner.

In the station wagon Roy found a woman struggling to free herself from the seat belt while three children fussed in the back.

"Ma'am?  Are you okay?  Do you hurt anywhere?"

"No!  I'm fine.  I can't get loose to check on my kids!"

"I'll take care of them.  You sit tight."  He moved back and looked in the window.  Two girls, about seven and nine, saw him.  Immediately they unfastened their seat belts, crawled and slithered out the car window and launched themselves at him.  They wrapped their arms around his neck and wept on his broad shoulders.

"I was scared!" the little one wailed.

"I was more scareder!" her big sister sobbed.

Roy went into dad mode, rubbing their backs and talking softly to them.  "There there!  You're safe now.  No need to cry.  There there.  There there."

Left alone, the toddler boy released himself from his car seat, clambered over into the front of the car and bounced up and down next to his mother.  Eyes shining he yelled, "do it again, Mom!  Do it again!  Wham!  Pow!  Boom!  Do it again!  Do it again!"

Johnny stopped by them briefly to check that everything there was in hand.  "Ma'am?  You doing all right?"  He noticed a bump on her forehead.  "You got a headache?"

"Yes," she said, "I have three of them.  Haven't you noticed?"

He grinned at her.  "You just sit tight.  We'll get a guy over here to cut you out of that seatbelt and my partner here will take good care of you."  He glanced at Roy.  "Got everything under control?"

The smaller girl rubbed her face on his shoulder, wiping her nose on his shirt.  "Yeah," Roy said, "I can handle it."

With a nod, Johnny took the trauma box and left to check on the occupants of the other car.  He did not see, as he ran past the squad, a little face peering out at him forlornly.  The face disappeared.  The window rolled down and presently Beau B. reappeared diaper-first.  He lowered himself out the open window and went off in search of his temporary daddy.

In the El Camino Johnny found only one occupant, a middle-aged man clutching the broken remains of a bottle of Jack Daniels and glaring at the world peevishly.  Johnny set the drug box down on the hood, then climbed in the back seat and over so he could see the man's bleeding hand better.

"I know whash yoush gonna shay," the man slurred belligerently.  "Yoush gonna try to shay thish ish my fault.  You think I drunk.  I not drunk!  Ish that woman.  Drivin' round with all them kidsh.  Hadn't oughta be 'llowed!  Not my fault.  You copsh ish all the shame."

Johnny prised the broken glass from the man's hands and examined his bleeding fingers, looked around for the trauma box and found it out of reach.  "I'm not a cop," he said absently.  "I'm a fireman."

"You firemen ish all the shame," the man said, undeterred.  "I not drunk.  You hear me? I not drunk!"

Beau popped up on the hood of the car and peered curiously into the open trauma box.  He pulled out a paper-wrapped gauze 4x4, which was, coincidentally, just what Johnny needed.

"Hey, Beau!" Johnny spoke sharply.  "Give me that four by four!"

Beau looked up, then obligingly climbed into the car, wrapped his tail around the steering wheel and leaned over to hand Johnny the pad.  Johnny grinned his crooked grin at the little guy.  "Thanks, partner!"

The man looked at the monkey.  He looked at Johnny.  He looked at the monkey again.

"Okay," he conceded, "maybe I drunk . . . ."

#-#-#-#-

Johnny pulled into the hospital parking lot and stopped the squad beside the ambulance.  Roy helped the drunk out of the back of the ambulance and turned him over to an orderly, then came over to lean in the window.

"I'm gonna go in and get some supplies.  I won't be long."

"Okay.  I'll just wait out here for you."

"Good plan," Roy said.  "While you do you can slide over to the passenger side so we'll be ready to go if we get a call."

"Aw, man!" Johnny protested.

Roy gave him a mischievous grin and headed for the building.  Johnny slid over and leaned out the passenger window.  "Hey, Roy!  You got snot on your shirt!"

Roy grinned over his shoulder at his partner, rolled his eyes and disappeared into the building.  Johnny settled down to wait.

Beau was crouching on the floorboards at Johnny's feet and Johnny reached down to tickle him.  The little monkey slapped at his hand, then bounced up and down excitedly.  Grinning down at him, Johnny didn't see Cindy Casper approaching until the pretty young nursing student was standing beside the squad.

"Hi, Johnny!" she said.  "Whatcha doin'?"

He glanced up.  "Oh, I'm just playing with my monkey."

Cindy's face turned white and then bright red.  She backed away from the squad.  "Men!" she spat, turning on her heel and hurrying into the ER.

"Hey, wait!" Johnny called after her.  "What did I say?"  He thought about it and his own face flushed dark red.  He reached down and pulled Beau into his lap.  "You'd better come up here where people can see you," he said.  Sally Johnson approached from behind him and Johnny brightened.  "Hey," he said as she went by, "will you tell Cindy Casper that I've got a real monkey?"

She looked at him and answered without even glancing at Beau.  "Well, I've heard things, but I never repeat rumors," she said and disappeared into the ER.

Johnny slouched against the door, rested his arm along the windowsill and propped his chin in his hand.  "Everybody's a comedian," he groused.

By and by he saw Roy approaching down the hallway, inside the emergency room entrance.  He was ushering Dixie McCall and Cindy Casper along, tempering his long strides so that the two women could keep up with him.  He was talking, speaking as much with hand gestures as with words, and the opening door brought Johnny his voice in mid-sentence.

". . . while she's in the hospital.  So naturally, my partner, Mr. Softy here, agreed to baby sit until someone from her family could get here to pick up Beau."  Roy went around to the driver's side and paused there with his hand on the door handle.  Dixie and Cindy came up beside Johnny and looked in the window at Beau.

"Well!  Isn't he a little cutie?" Dixie said.

"You really do have a monkey!" Cindy exclaimed.

"Certainly," Johnny said.  "I'd hate to think that anyone has been saying anything to the contrary!"

"What did you think that Johnny meant?" Roy asked.

Cindy looked up at the senior paramedic.  Roy's broad, honest face was open and guileless, his eyes mildly inquisitive.  The nursing student turned bright red and began to stutter.  "I thought . . . I guess . . . I thought that he was . . . just . . . saying silly things.  To tease me.  I guess . . . I thought . . . ."

"Oh."  Roy twinkled his blue eyes at her.  "Johnny wouldn't do that, you know," he said kindly.

"No, I guess not."  Cindy's voice was sad.  She looked to Johnny shyly.  "I'm sorry I misunderstood you," she told him in a small voice.

"Aw, heck.  That's okay!" he replied.  "And you know, you can play with my monkey any time!"

Dixie had been peering suspiciously at Roy, trying to decide if he was really that innocent or if it was a sham (and, in fact, even Johnny had to look twice to be sure).  Now she turned a sharp gaze on Johnny Gage and he swallowed hard and sat up a bit straighter.

"Of course, I'm only going to have him for a few more hours," he added hastily.  "His person's brother is flying in from Chicago this evening."

"It's really sweet of you to take care of him," Cindy said.  She reached out hesitantly and Beau captured her hand, examined it carefully then laid his little head in her palm.  "Oh!  What an angel!"

"He's adorable," Dixie agreed.  "Unfortunately, we girls have work to do."

"Yeah," Roy agreed, "and we guys need to get back to the station."  He put away the drug box and climbed behind the wheel.

"All right, then," Dixie leaned in the window.  "Roy, you take care of yourself!  And as for you, John Gage," she gave the younger paramedic a penetrating stare, "you just be sure to keep your monkey out of trouble, Mister!"

Now it was Johnny's turn to flush bright red.  "Yes, ma'am!"

She nodded once, then she and Cindy disappeared into the building and Roy started the squad and headed for home.  As they went along, Johnny sat sideways in his seat, watching his partner and waiting.  They made it three blocks before Roy's eyes began to crinkle at the corners.  His shoulders shook.  He started to giggle and then he was laughing so hard that he had to pull over.  By and by he wiped his eyes, shook his head and looked over at Johnny, still grinning.

"Playing with your monkey!" he teased gently.  "And in public too!  What am I going to do with you?"

Johnny sighed.  "Okay, what's it going to take for you to not spread this story around?"

His partner considered it.  "Sorry, Junior," he said at length, "but I don't think that's going to work."

"What?" Johnny demanded, incensed.  "You're going to rat me out?  Some friend you are!"

"I don't mean that," Roy explained patiently.  "I mean that it doesn't matter if I tell anyone or not.  The story's going to get out regardless."

"How do you figure that?"

"Simple.  You and I weren't the only ones there.  By now the story's probably all over the hospital.  It's only a matter of time before one of the other paramedic teams hears it and then it'll be all over the fire department too."

"You think?"  Glumly Johnny considered Roy's logic and was discouraged to find no holes in it.  "So how long do you think it'll take?" he asked.

Roy pulled back out into traffic and as he did squad 110 roared up beside them.  Wheeler flashed his lights at them a couple times and Kirk leaned out the passenger window, scratched his own armpits and yelled, "oooo!  Oooo! Oooo!"  Roy checked his watch.

"About seven minutes."

#-#-#-#-

Roy backed the squad in and the two paramedics got out cautiously, expecting the engine crew to come out heckling them, but the apparatus bay was empty.  From the day room they could hear their stationmates' voices over a curious tapping sound.

"Come on, Marco!  You can do it!"

"Watch out for that --"

"Oof!"

"-- chair . . ."

Roy and Johnny exchanged a puzzled glance.  Johnny picked up Beau and they followed the sounds to their source.

In the kitchen they found the furniture rearranged into a sort of maze.  Marco had bandages on both eyes and was wearing a pair of dark glasses over them.  With the aid of a white-tipped cane he was trying to make his way through the maze.  Mike and Chet were cheering him on while Cap watched a stopwatch.

"Hey, guys," Roy said.  "What's going on?"

"Sensitivity training," Cap said.  "It's an exercise to help us understand things from a blind person's perspective.  Just the engine crew has to do it."

"They probably know that paramedics are already sensitive to special needs victims," Johnny boasted.

Chet snorted.  "You mean they probably know you wouldn't be any good at this," he countered.  "They probably figured, with your track record, if you tried this you'd wind up in intensive care -- again!"

"Oh, whatever," Johnny said, incensed.  "I bet I can beat your best time on my first try!"

"In your dreams," Chet scoffed.

Marco had completed his run and Cap was making a notation on his clipboard. 

"Come on, Cap," Johnny pleaded.  "Let me show this idiot how it's done."

Cap shrugged.  "If you want to try it, Gage, I don't see any harm in it."

Johnny handed Beau off to Roy.  Marco brought him the bandages, the glasses and the cane and they helped him cover his eyes.  He took up the cane and began making his way across the room.

Roy, standing against the wall watching and holding Beau, began to get a bad feeling about this.  There was something in the way the engine crew was snickering and exchanging knowing looks.  He glanced around and his heart dropped.  In the middle of the fire safety board there was a recently cleared space backed with dark red construction paper.  A banner over the empty space read, "THE DANGERS OF PLAYING WITH YOUR MONKEY".  Underneath it a smaller sign said, "His mother warned him!"

Roy turned back to the room just as Cap took a Polaroid camera from one of the cupboards and began snapping pictures of Johnny stumbling around the room with dark glasses and a cane.  Roy swallowed hard.

"Uh, Junior?" he started, but before he could say anything else Mike was at his side.

"Here, Roy.  Have a banana!"  He shoved half a banana into the senior paramedic's open mouth, then gave the rest of it to Beau.

Johnny turned to address the wall some three feet to Roy's right.  "What?  Roy?"

"He can't talk right now," Chet said.  "He has his mouth full."

"Well then, why did you say my name?  I mean, now that's just really thoughtless of you, Roy!  You know I'm trying to break Chet's record here and there you are distracting me just when I'm about to get to the end of the obstacle course.  Partners are supposed to look out for each other, not sabotage each other!  I mean, I just really can't believe you!"

"So were you planning on finishing the course anytime soon?" Marco asked.

"Yeah, yeah."  Johnny turned back to what he was doing and made his way, tapping carefully, to the opposite side of the room.  He pulled off the glasses and blindfold and turned to Cap.  "How'd I do?"

"Yeah," Chet chimed in.  "How bad did he do?"

Cap tipped his head to the side.  "Hate to tell you this, Kelly, but he still beat your best time by nine seconds."

"Yeah!" Johnny crowed.

"Luck," Chet sneered.  "Nothing but blind luck!"

"Blind luck," Johnny snorted.  "Your puns are as bad as your timing.  And it'd have been even more than nine seconds if I hadn't been distracted."  He glared at Roy.  "Man, what did you want, anyway?"  He walked over to stand in front of his partner.

Roy just stood and looked at him for several seconds with no expression, then he thrust the monkey into Johnny's arms.  "Your kid needs his diaper changed," he said, and turned and walked away.

#-#-#-#-

"You could have warned me," Johnny said.  They were coming back from a run that had been cancelled and he had launched again into a subject that he had belabored for the past three hours.

Roy sighed.

"I mean, I would have warned you . . ." he caught the look his partner was giving him.  "Eventually."

Beau B. scooted across the seat and pulled himself up to stand by Roy.  He laid his head on Roy's arm and patted the senior paramedic on the shoulder.  Roy grinned down at him.  "Thanks, buddy!"

Johnny grabbed Beau and pulled him back over onto his lap.

"What?" Roy asked, annoyed.  "Beau can't even be nice to me?"

"It's as much for your good as it is for mine," Johnny told him seriously.  "I mean, just imagine what the guys would say if they found out you'd been playing with my monkey!"

Roy resolutely turned his attention back to the road and there was, for a short time, a blessed silence in the rescue squad.  Then Johnny sighed and started in again.

"Man!  I'm going to be the laughingstock of the whole fire department!"

"Well," Roy offered lamely, "at least it's just the one department, right?"

At that moment a siren sounded close behind them.  Roy glanced into the rearview mirror and found that they were being followed by two motorcycle cops with flashing lights.  He pulled off to the side and the CHPs split and came up one on each side of the squad.  A cop he recognized as officer Jon Baker stopped beside the driver's window while his partner, officer Frank "Ponch" Poncharello sat on his bike beside the passenger door.

"Fellas?" Roy asked nervously.  "Is there a problem?"

"No problem, Roy," Baker said pleasantly.  "We just wanted to make sure that you were driving."

"Yeah," Ponch chimed in, showing a row of very white teeth.  "We heard Gage was going blind!"

Laughing maniacally, the two motorcycle cops pulled out and melted back into traffic.  Johnny leaned out the window and shouted after them.  "Ha ha!  Very funny!  Our engine crew already did that joke!"  As the squad started up again he looked over and found his partner chewing on his lower lip.  "Don't say it, Roy," he warned.  "Just . . . whatever it is . . . just . . . don't say it!"

#-#-#-#-

"Stupid teenagers!"

The funhouse manager stood in front of the two paramedics, inadvertently blocking their path as he ranted at them.  "It says 'kiddie slide'.  Right there!  You see that?  Right over the door it says 'kiddie slide'."

"Yes, sir."  Roy put a hand on the man's shoulder and gently moved him aside so that they could edge past.  They were standing on the top floor of the funhouse, four stories above the Harbor Street Pier.  In front of them were two trap doors, one labeled 'kiddie slide' and one labeled 'adult slide'.

From behind the kiddie slide door a muffled voice yelled, "get me out of here!"

Roy pushed the door open and shone his flashlight into a dark, narrow tunnel.  "Where does this come out?" he asked.

"This is the exit," the manager told them.  "These slides go down the outside of the building.  The adult slide is open the whole way down, but this one has a tunnel for the top three floors so the little kids won't get so scared and there are handrails so they can slow themselves down if they want to."

Nodding, Roy leaned back in the slide entrance.  "Son?  Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me how you're stuck?"

"Yeah!  There's a screw sticking out and my shirt is caught on it.  I tried to push myself back up enough to get loose, but I can't get enough of a grip on the rail."

"Okay, so if we can pull you up just a little, do you think that you can get it loose?"

"Yeah, but can you hurry?  All the blood is rushing to my head."

The two paramedics exchanged a look.

"You're going down the slide head first?" Johnny called.

"Well, yeah.  How else you gonna go down a slide?"

Roy and Johnny shrugged at one another.

"So are you gonna get this nut outta my funhouse?  He's holding up business, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah," Johnny said, annoyed.  "Don't worry, okay?  If we can't get him loose from in here our engine crew is standing by outside to help."

Roy was examining the situation.  Now he turned to his partner.  "He's in about six feet.  Do you think you could reach him if I hold onto your legs?"

Johnny looked into the opening.  "Yeah, I can do it man."

The manager snorted.  "Don't you get stuck."

John Gage, skinny as a snake, climbed headfirst into the slide opening.  Roy took hold of his feet and he slid down until he was touching the teenager's tennis shoes.  It was a tight fit, even for the younger paramedic, and he found himself hoping the funhouse operator hadn't jinxed him.

"Okay now," he said, "um, what's your name?"

"Danny."

"Okay Danny, I'm going to pull you up and you see if you can get loose of that screw, okay?"

"Okay."

Johnny pulled the kid back a little and the boy yelled, "got it!" his voice reverberating through the metal tunnel.  Johnny let him go and he quickly slid out of sight.

"Okay, Roy," Johnny said, "you can pull me back up now."

Roy tugged on his partner's legs and Johnny slid backwards a few inches and stopped.  "Uh, Roy?  Hang on a second.  I think I found another loose screw."  Roy released him, meaning to let him slide forward again, but Johnny didn't move at all.  "Uh oh.  I think I'm stuck."

"How are you stuck?" Roy asked.  "Can you reach it to work it loose?"

"No, man, I can't reach at all.  There's just no room in here!  It's my belt loop on the right side.  It's twisted around one of the screws that hold the rail in place.  I can just almost touch it with my hand, but not quite.  If I could reach my scissors I could cut it loose."

"He's stuck?" the funhouse manager demanded.  "Man, I don't believe you guys!"

Roy turned to him.  "You know, you'd ought to be glad that Danny and Johnny found these loose screws for you before some little kid got hurt on them.  Not only that, but the fact that there are screws working themselves loose means you've probably got some structural problems with the slide.  If too many screws come loose the whole thing could collapse.  Believe me, you wouldn't want to be standing in your shoes talking to me if one of my children was injured on that slide right there!"

The manager rolled his eyes and turned away.  "Yeah, yeah."

The HT on Roy's belt sounded.

"Engine 51 to HT 51.  The kid's okay.  You fellas about finished up there?"

Roy answered it.  "Uh, we've got a slight problem here, Cap.  Can you stand by for a minute?"

"What kind of problem?"

"Um, now Johnny's caught in the slide."

"Oh.  I should have guessed.  Engine 51 standing by."

"Johnny?"  Roy returned his attention to his partner, "I got an idea.  If you can reach your fly, you can slip out of your pants and go on down the slide.  Then I can get your pants loose and bring them to you."

There was a long moment of silence from inside the slide tunnel.  When Johnny spoke again his voice was low and deep.  "That is the worst idea I've ever heard in my entire life."

"Yeah, but --"

"You should slap yourself for even thinking something like that, Roy!"  Johnny's voice climbed steadily in pitch and volume as he spoke.  "After all the grief I've been getting over the monkey?  Let's just picture this for a minute.  There's our engine down there.  That means our engine crew is also down there.  Chet Kelly, Roy.  Chet Kelly is down there!  Not to mention the crowd that always gathers around a fire engine.  And here comes Fireman John Gage, headfirst down the kiddie slide at the funhouse without any pants on.  Picture that, Roy!  Better yet, don't picture that.  Don't even think it!  Not ever again!"

"Okay," Roy persisted, "I realize it would be embarrassing.  But what I'm trying to say here is, being embarrassed might be preferable to spending the rest of your life trapped inside this tunnel."

"Yeah?  Well that's your opinion.  Look, if you could just get me a pair of scissors I could cut the belt loop.  Could you maybe go down and throw them up to me?  If you could climb up the slide with them . . ."

"Four stories?  Sure, I'll just do that.  Johnny, I can't even get both my shoulders into this tunnel, even if I could climb up a four story slide!"

"Rescue firemen," the funhouse manager scoffed.  "The fire department should have sent me a couple of monkeys instead."

At that moment Roy and Johnny experienced one of those instances where the same thought struck both of them simultaneously and they both knew what the other was thinking.

"Roy?"

"I'm on it!  You okay if I let go of your legs?"

"Yeah.  I'm good.  Go!"

Roy released his hold on Johnny's legs, grabbed the toolbox they had brought up with them and shook the startled funhouse manager by the hand.  "Great idea!  Thanks!  See you later."

"Wait!" the manager called after him, "where are you going?"

Roy paused and looked back over his shoulder.  "I'm going to get a monkey!" he said.

#-#-#-#-

The engine crew was lounging around in the sunshine watching the kiddie slide for some sign of activity when Roy charged out the entrance door in the giant, smiling clown face and headed for the squad.

"You get him loose?" Cap called.

"Not yet, but I think we're about to."  Roy put his toolbox away in the open compartment, opened the door to the cab and picked up Beau.  He carried the little monkey over to the bottom of the kiddie slide, took a pair of blunt-nosed, angled bandage scissors from his scissors pouch and gave them to the little simian.  Beau took them obediently and stuck them in his mouth.  Roy set him on the slide and pointed up.  "Go up the slide!  Go to Johnny!  Take Johnny the scissors!"

Cap leaned over to speak quietly to his engine crew.  "Is it my imagination or is DeSoto over there talking to that monkey like he expects it to understand him?"

"Well," Mike observed quietly, "it's not really all that different from talking to Gage, is it?"

The four men snickered and settled back to enjoy the show.

"Johnny?" Roy shouted up the slide.

"Yeah?"

At the sound of Johnny's voice Beau perked up and looked around.

"Beau's got the scissors!  Call him now and see if he'll come to you!"

"Beau!  Here, Beau!  Come here, buddy!  Come to Johnny!"

With Johnny calling him and Roy urging him upwards Beau grabbed the handrails and made his way up the slide.  He reached the tunnel entrance and disappeared and the spectators watched with bated breath.  For a couple more minutes they could hear Johnny talking to the monkey, then he called down, "okay!  I'm loose!  Here we come!"

The slide shook slightly, then started to shiver and then Johnny emerged from the tunnel.  He was lying on his stomach with Beau riding on the back of his head.  The monkey's tail was wrapped around Johnny's throat.  His back feet had a firm grip on the young paramedic's shoulders.  His right hand had hold of Johnny's right ear, his left hand was wrapped around Johnny's head and covered his left eye and he was shrieking with either terror or excitement.  Roy tried to catch them at the foot of the slide and they bowled into him so that the three of them wound up in a heap on the pavement.

"Cap," Chet said, "we have got to start carrying a camera on the engine."

"Amen!"

#-#-#-#-

When the engine and squad returned to the station they found a rental car parked on the street out front.  A big blond man stood beside it watching for them.  The engine pulled in first and then Roy backed around to follow.  As he slid into place Beau caught sight of the stranger and began hopping up and down on the seat and squealing excitedly.  As soon as Johnny opened the door Beau dropped down, scampered over the floor and climbed the stranger's clothing to cuddle in the big man's arms.

Carrying the monkey, the man came over and offered the two paramedics his hand.  "Mr. Gage?  And Mr. DeSoto?  I'm Clyde Halbarad.  Sandy's brother?"

"Yeah, we guessed," Roy grinned.  "The little guy sure seems glad to see you."

"I'm glad to see him too!  We really appreciate you taking care of him until I could get here.  I hope he wasn't too much trouble."

"No, no!"  Johnny assured him.  "No trouble at all!  So, um, how's your sister doing?"

"Good.  Real good.  I think they're going to let me take her home tomorrow."

"Great.  That's great!  Tell her we're thinking about her."

"I'll do that and thanks again!"

Roy and Johnny stepped close to pat Beau on the head once more and tell him goodbye.  Johnny handed over his diaper bag and Clyde took the monkey and left.  Feeling both satisfied and a little sad, the two paramedics went into the day room.  Roy picked up the paper and settled himself on the couch while Johnny got a glass of milk from the refrigerator.  The younger paramedic was deep in thought.

"You know what this station needs, Roy?" he asked, sitting on the arm of the sofa.  "This station needs a baby monkey!"

"Really?"

"I'm serious!  You saw how Beau climbed up that slide and brought me those scissors.  He got me a four by four at that wreck today, too.  And he hasn't even been properly trained.  I mean, think about it!  The police department uses trained dogs.  Why shouldn't the fire department use trained monkeys?  They're intelligent, they're agile, they can fit in small spaces, they climb great!  We get them while they're babies and we train them for search and rescue work.  They could carry equipment, fit into tight spaces; we could give them a camera and send them into collapsed buildings to search for survivors.  I'm telling you, it's a great idea!"

Roy turned the page on his paper.  "Fine by me, as long as you're the one changing their diapers."

Johnny thought about it.  He finished his milk, got up and went to put the glass in the sink.  He came back over, sat down again on the arm of the couch and said, "you know what this station does not need, Roy?  This station does not need a baby monkey.  That would just be a bad idea."

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