Amanda blinked. What had woken her? Her heart pounded as she listened to the sounds of the house. There it was again – a creak from the next room. She quietly crawled out of bed and stumbled through the doorway. The door was almost closed. She gently pushed it open. Inevitably the hinges creaked.
“NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Amanda screamed.
In front of her was a tall figure. He was bending over two small sleepy bundles. She lunged but two strong arms grasped at her from behind. Her shoulder wrenched and she yelped with pain. She caught her breath and was about to yell again when five fat fingers clamped over her mouth. How could someone have so many hands?
She watched helpless as the tall figure swept up Sophie and Max into each arm and turned his head towards her. Two pairs of brown, frightened eyes peered out. His torso straightened. “You surely didn’t think that I’d come alone did you?” His voice was so quiet. “They need to be with their own kind, Amanda….they have to know their culture.” He swept past her struggling body through the door and she heard him tread gently down the stairs. She tried to scream but the hand clamped around her mouth so that she could hardly breath. She suddenly ….felt….heavy. Only blackness followed.

Moaning. Who was that?
Amanda tried to call out but couldn’t quite get through the fug of her brain. There was more moaning. As Amanda became more lucid she realized that she was shaking uncontrollably. Her mind and body gradually reintroduced themselves, and she had the bizarre ‘out of body realisation’ that the moaning was her; and that she was still doing it. It became louder. Now she was fully conscious and retching violently. SLAM! A wave of sickness and emotion hit her. Her babies. He had taken her babies. She had to get to them. She’d do anything…anything… but what?

She staggered to her feet, her legs threatening to plummet her to the floor at every step. The telephone upstairs. Receiver. 999. Her fingers could hardly dial, she was shaking so much, not that it mattered. Now, nothing else mattered. She could have run a marathon if it meant getting them back. She waited. “Ring, Ring RING.” What was taking so long? She’d need the police. She must remember every detail. “Hello caller, which service do you need?” They’d certainly want to know as much as possible. They’d ask questions. Questions she didn’t have answers to – or questions she mustn’t answer. The twins didn’t have papers. She‘d be arrested. “CALLER. DO YOU NEED AN AMBULANCE? HELLO?”
“No…I…no. I’m sorry…I ca…I’ve made a mistake.” Her mind was racing. She must do something.
“Caller. Are you sure you don’t need assistance?”
“No.” She was more resolute this time. Her legs steadied under her. This was how it used to be. This is how it must be again. “No I’m fine thank you. Sorry for wasting your time.”
The phone line went dead. She picked up her keys from beside her bed. She had to find them. But where? Where would you even start? She put down her keys again. Staring at the clock. Who could possibly help at this hour. No one would have seen anything. Then it struck her. Madge. She always had her mobile switched on and was ready to get up in a minute whenever a story broke.
It had been a long time since they’d talked. Not since the escapade a couple of years ago. Despite Madge’s passion for the truth, Amanda knew that Madge could keep a secret if the reason was good enough.
She slung on some jeans and a jumper over her worn, tatty looking bedshirt. She’d need to be ready.
“Madge?”
“Yes. Who is this? What have you got for me?”
“Madge, it’s me..Amanda.” Silence. Madge was listening. She had always been an exceptional listener. “Madge I need some help. He found us. He’s taken them. I need to know where he might be. No Officials – Please.” Amanda held her breath while she waited for an answer.
“Right. Tell me what you know and I’ll get right onto it.” There it was. Madge, always so practical. So forthright. No dramatics, no emotional out-cries. Just the person to get the job done.
Amanda briefly filled her in on everything she knew, crossing her fingers behind her back, hoping that Madge still felt as passionately about rescue missions as she always had.
“OK. Stay where you are. I’ve still got a few contacts I can use. I’ll phone you back in half an hour.”

The clock ticked. After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting, Amanda put on the kettle to make herself a coffee. She had hit a wall and she couldn’t risk tiredness taking away her driving capability. She’d tried for years to have children. He’d sworn he felt the same way. They had the same ideas, the same passions. When she had been told that she’d never naturally have children, she knew that she was already too old to adopt. So who could argue with her methods? She had rescued them. Sophie and Max might have died if she hadn’t got them out. So what if the law disagreed. They were better off with her, whatever he said. She’d be their family.
“BEEP” The phone hardly had a second to sing out its usual reveille before she grabbed at it.
“Amanda – I’ve found them. He’s been setting it up for ages. It’s about an hour from you.”
Madge gave her the address and Amanda was already opening the door to her car when she rang off.

When she got there, the sky’s darkness had already begun to fade. She banged with two fists against large wooden doors. She heard a dog bark and then latches and locks being manouevred.

There he was. Standing before her. She couldn’t believe that this was a man she had once loved.
“You kidnapper! GIVE THEM BACK!” She yelled, pummeling her fists against his chest.
He pushed her hands away and turned silently. He pointed towards a room with a large glass window.
“There they are. Safe. Asleep. You can see them when they wake.”
“You…If we…I… They would have died if I hadn’t taken care of them!”
He beckoned her to sit. His legs folded gracefully under him as he sat opposite her.

“They were treated badly in the testing centre… but whatever the reason, you can’t just take them and adopt them as your own.”
“You mean like we did last summer. You were there too. You didn’t make such a fuss then – I seem to recall. It was ‘action against the unscrupulous’ you called it and ‘to hell with the law.’” She spat in his face as she spoke. Her hate for him, seeping out of every pore.

He paused, as though trying to find the perfect response. “Amanda, I know how much you love them..”
“You know nothing! Otherwise you wouldn’t have taken them from me!…” She was about to defile him with more verbal abuse but something in the gentle, almost fatherly way he looked at her made her stop.
“Amanda, we thought we were doing a good deed but it wasn’t the right way. Chimpanzees have to…Must… be with their own kind. They aren’t human children; but they should have the right to grow up in as natural a habitat as possible. How could they live properly, tucked away in a small Cornish cottage; barely seeing the light of day? And then caged, when they get too hard to handle. You must see that however much you cared for them and treated them with kindness that it wouldn’t be enough.” His voice hardened slightly. “I have taken legal steps to get all of their paperwork in order and until that time they will live in the large garden area you saw as you came in. Hopefully it won’t be too long before the end of quarantine and then they can be integrated back into a proper family group.
You are welcome to visit anytime you wish.”

Amanda’s eyes glazed over as she surveyed the rubble of what used to be her life. They may not have been “normal” children but the baby chimps had been her life. Bereft, she turned and opened the door. She walked through, knowing she had lost .