It began two years ago, in a town so far from anywhere that nobody bothers to put it on a map.
Cast your beady little eyes over this town.  See those mountains on every side?  See how they’re snowy on top?  You must climb over those mountains to reach the town.  Few bother.  Maybe someone spots it from an aeroplane as they fly to more important places, but they see only rooftops and roads and a creek that reflects the sun.  What goes on down there they do not know.
The town’s name is Ookle.
Don’t laugh.  It’s not Ookle’s fault.  It was named by some halfwit way back in the days when two great armies, the Whistlefarts and the Slobberkisses, were battling for control of the world, amidst much hacking off of heads and kicking of dogs and vicious teasing.  Ookle had no say in the matter. 
The town changed little.  Ookle could not give a fart in a high wind for new things.  Black horses pulled brown carts through the streets.  Brown dogs piddled on grey lampposts.  Pink babies dribbled, shaking blue rattles.  Red stop signs crossed the road to shelter beneath green trees.  White toilets opened their lids to discuss philosophy with yellow bath-ducks.  Everything was just as plain and normal and everyday as you could imagine. Until the monkey and its master came to Ookle.

The town trumpeter, Brassman Bob, perched upon a weathervane rooster and blew a flourish on his trumpet.  The weathervane crowed and bit Bob’s toe.  Bob scrambled down, his trumpet blowing a nasty A flat at the weathervane.
A herd of small pigs stampeded down the street, past a stop sign that hurried out in front of them.  A washing machine lumbered onto the footpath.  It grunted with disgust, then lumbered back inside.   Three dictionaries sat on soapboxes outside the bookshop, opening up then snapping closed again, catching passing flies.  A stapler hopped up onto a window ledge and yammered orders at passing people, a fury of staples flying from its mouth.
The town had never known such commotion. 
A monkey!  Who would guess?
Clothes irons and slippers stared at each other in disbelief.  An excited kettle shot plumes of steam into the air.  The herd of pigs went rampant again, attacking a fruit stand outside Frank Fruiterer’s Fruitery, the fruit stand careering down the road, screeching with fear, the pigs following at an incredible pace, Frank Fruiterer chasing the pigs, an umbrella raised high in one hand.  The umbrella was black and mean and broken, and was shouting things I cannot repeat here.
The monkey was small and wiry, with a wrinkly face and lips puckered up to kiss.  Its knuckles dragged along behind, on the end of long arms.  It stopped on the corner near Butcher Bert’s Quality Meats.  It grew still. 
The crowd silenced.
Beneath a tree’s shadow, the monkey’s master began to turn the handle of a music box.  The monkey leaped into the air at the sound, then began to dance!    
It tap-danced! 
It did the Highland Fling!   
It waltzed! 
It did the Charleston! 
It took Bar Lady Bella by the hand and danced a magnificent tango with her, and all the young men in town grew jealous.  It finished with a twirl, a pirouette, a cartwheel and a back flip! 
The crowd went wild.  Money showered the monkey from all sides.  This was the most extraordinary day in the town’s history.  Nobody took much notice of the man with the music box, for they were all too excited by the monkey.  Only Butcher Bert looked at him. 
The man was hidden in shadows, so Bert could see little of him.  Three things he was sure of though.  The man’s fingertips were green.  And he had a very long and pointed nose.  And a smile gleamed out from the shadow cast by his top hat.
It was not a nice smile. Not very nice at all.

You must forget this monkey for now.  I know a monkey is a difficult thing to forget, but you must return to normal everyday things like talking staplers and swearing umbrellas for a time, I’m afraid. 
Push your mind forward two years now.  Cast your beady little eyes over this town again, this plain and normal town, not a monkey in sight, let alone a dancing one.           
Ah, well done!  You’ve spotted our friend Butcher Bert.  He isn’t wearing his butcher’s apron, because he’s on his way to work.  Early, isn’t it?  The sun hasn’t come up yet, but there’s dawn light in the sky, and the weathervane is getting ready to crow.  There’s the street, all glistening-wet cobbles. 
Can you hear the horses?  That’s their stable next to the blacksmith’s workshop.  They wake up early, those horses, because they have to be fed and brushed and rigged up for their day’s work.  Butcher Bert likes the horses.  See him stick his head over the stable door to say good morning to them, how he reaches in to scratch their long noses?  They snort and stamp their hooves, and that’s how they say, “Good morning Butcher Bert!”
Now that we’re closer, we can take a good look at Bert.
You don’t seem impressed.
Well, sure he’s got white hair, but white hair comes with wisdom.  Youngsters can only be crafty and lucky, never wise.  Well, yes he’s fat, but who’d trust a butcher who isn’t fat?  Butcher Bert’s meat must be alright because he eats so much of it himself, and now his belly sticks out in front.  And he’s not tall, you say, but he’s tough, like a stubborn old chop bone even the dogs can’t chew.  He wins the town arm-wrestling competition every year.
There you go.  That’s Butcher Bert through and through.
Here he comes, down the main street.  Baker Basil has been baking bread since three o’clock, and Butcher Bert waves as he goes past.  Nobody else is open this early.
Bert opens the door to his butcher shop.  He needs no key.  Nobody in town would steal from him, and even if they tried his security would wake up.  Follow him into his shop now.  See his security?  They’re just waking up.
“Morning,” Butcher Bert says.
“Good morning!” say Stab and Jab, the boning knives.
“Goot moorning,” says Siegfried Slicer, who was imported from Germany.
“A sterling day it is,” King Cleaver says from his place beside the finest condiments.  He slips on his crown.  His stare is cutting, inducing in his subjects spasms of mock fear.
“Good morning Bill,” Bert says.
“Aaarr!” says Band Saw Bill.  He is in an evil temper, as usual.         
“Raark!” says Red Caesar, the parrot who perches upon Band Saw Bill’s iron shoulder. 
“Darn straight,” Band Saw Bill says.
“Morning Mack!” Butcher Bert sings out.
A voice answers from the back of the shop.  “Mornin!” it says.  It’s Mack the Mincer.  He’s old and tough.  He swears a lot, so cover your ears.
“Morning Sam!”
“Ugublugubllgllfrlat!” says Sam the Sausage Machine.  Sam doesn’t speak English.  He speaks through his nose, and if it is full of sausage mince at the time, well… he makes even less sense than usual.  He is red and tall and thin, and stands beside Mack the Mincer, who is the only one who can understand him. 
But can he make sausages! 
He loves making sausages!  He’d make them all day, but nobody wants that many sausages, so usually he stands out there and tells rude jokes to Mack, who tells many in return.  Sometimes Sam laughs so hard that sausage mince shoots from his nose at great speeds, to splat against the opposite wall.  The hose, who has no name and never speaks to anyone, unrolls then, cleaning up the mess in an instant.
“Aaah!” Bert says, flicking lights on here and there and smiling.  “Another day!”
“Isn’t it time I had a sharpen?” King Cleaver says.  “My nose is becoming dull.”
“Hah!” Mack says from out the back.  “Yer cut a few chops’n yer wanna be sharpened?”
“You were sharpened last week,” Bert says. 
“Hmmph!” King Cleaver sniffs, retiring to his spot high above all the other tools.  His crown has slid down and he nudges it back in place – after all, crowns are made for human heads.  Nobody dares tell King Cleaver this.
“Unglbkutklcgng?” Sam says from out back.
“What’s that?” Bert says.
“He was asking if we’re making snags today,” Mack the Mincer says.
“We are.”
There is a thumping sound  from the back room.  It is Sam rocking back and forth, from foot to foot, excited at the prospect.