This is the story of two families. One is human, and the other, a family of apes. The two families seem quite different, and yet in some ways, they were very much alike.
Both had a father, a mother, and a child. Both adored their kids.
Both would have been surprised to learn that before long, their two families...would become one.

The whole thing began one stormy night off the coast of Africa. The human family was on a ship that had caught fire.

The father helped his wife and child into a lifeboat and lowered it into the water. Then, he jumped into the water, swam to the lifeboat, took the oars, and began rowing as the ship sinked into the water.

When the human family reached land the next morning, they found a dense jungle. They picked out a large tree, where they could live and began building a home with parts from the shipwreck.

Deep within the jungle lived a group of apes, watched over and protected by their leader, Kayode.

Like the human parents, Kayode and his mate, Yejide, loved their own child and spent many happy hours with playing with her.

But one night, everything changed when danger threatened both human and ape, in the form of the deadly leopard, Sabor. Because the little ape wandered away and was carried off by the leopard.

Kayode, the leader and ape father, couldn't help but feel sadness and could not be comforted either. He lagged behind as the apes moved onto new grounds.

Suddenly, he heard a distant crying sound. Could it be his child?

Kayode couldn't be sure, so he followed the sound to the edge of the jungle, where the human family had built their tree house. Climbing up the tree, he looked through the doorway.

The place was a mess. Furniture was overturned, windows were broken, and on the floor were the bloody paw prints of a certain leopard.

Kayode knew that this tree house belong to the humans. He tried to looked closely at the humans, who were lying peacefully in a shadowy corner. Their faces were obscured by the door that was leaning against the wall, where it had been ripped from the wall some time ago.

Unbeknownst to Kayode, if the humans had been able to see him, they would have been fascinated. In spite of what Kayode's own father had always told him about humans, they wouldn't have done anything to harm him, rather than have wished to observe and study him in his natural habitat.

But the humans he's seeing couldn't see him.

Kayode took a step further into the room and then realized why. Amid a sweeping of feathers, billowing from a torn cushion, the floor near the humans' resting spot was covered in blooded claw marks.

Leopard claw marks.

They belonged to Sabor, the same leopard that had killed Kayode's own baby daughter a few days ago. He knew Yejide had gone into a deep depression, because she was already a mother without a baby.

Then, looking down, he saw a picture in some kind of hard casing. The photograph showed three humans; a man with a moustache and a handsome face, a beautiful young woman with sharp eyes and a smaller human in her arms.

Kayode frowned down at the picture, and then a sudden wailing sound caused him to startled.

Cautiously, Kayode approached, wondering if it was some animal in pain. Whatever it was, it was covered by a blanket.

In the crib, beneath the blanket, Kayode found not his child, but a human baby girl.

Kayode had never seen one before. It looked funny. Then, he sniffed at it, and it smelled funny. It didn't even have fur!

But it was sad and all alone. Kayode looked back at the photograph, and realized that it was the very same baby from the photograph. It belonged to the human parents, who were killed by Sabor.

"Hello?" Kayode said, timidly. His voice echoed throughout the tree house. He moved closer to the baby girl, looking at it tenderly. "Poor kid. I know what it's like to lose a loved one."

Kayode gently picked the baby girl up. He cradled her in his arms and she smiled. Suddenly, a ray of hope showered and his heart was already filled with love as Kayode smiled at the baby. "Don't worry, you're not alone anymore."

Presently, however, Kayode became aware that they weren't alone. With an uneasy feeling, he looked upward.

ROAR!

It was Sabor the leopard as it growled down at him, hungrily. Kayode clutched the helpless baby and ran out of the tree house. He had to escape!

Then, Kayode saw a boat attached to a rope. Desperate, he jumped in.

Whump! The boat fell safely to the ground below. Sabor tried to follow, but got tangled in the cord.

Reaching the bottom, Kayode looked up to see Sabor tangled in the rope like a fly in a spider's web. With a defiant growl in the leopard's direction, he ran through the forest, with the baby in tow, back to the family.

Kayode joined the other apes, who were relief to see him approaching them.

"Kayode!" they all exclaimed, making their way up to him.

"I'm fine," Kayode grinned.

"We thought you were leading," Another ape said.

"I got a little bit...sidetracked." Kayode replied as he presented the baby to the other apes. When they saw her, they stopped and stared.

"Oh," said one ape, "isn't that..?"

"Well, it, um," said another, awkwardly, "It certainly..."

But one of the younger apes named Tope wasn't afraid to speak his mind as he voiced what they were all thinking. "It's pretty funny looking, that's what it is."

"Temitope!" His father reprimanded him.

"Well, it is!" Tope peered at the baby. "I mean, what the heck is it, anyway?"

Kayode laughed at the young ape and then handed the baby to him. "She's a baby, like you, only human."

"Well-!" Tope's cry of protest was cut short as the baby began to groom his large tuft of hair with her chubby hands. He chuckled, "So, where's her mama and papa?"

"Well," Kayode said, very honestly, "I'm going to be her father from now on."

Yejide finally approached the group as Tope chuckled again, "You know, she's not that bad once you get to know her."

"Kayode, whatever you're doing, it's a bad idea," Yejide said to Kayode.

"Look, I save her from Sabor," Kayode protested.

Yejide looked squarely at her mate, "But it's not our kind, Kayode. Take her back. She could put us all in danger."

Kayode refused as he tried to tell his mate, "I know what you're feeling, but... but leaving her here is wrong. She needs me."

"Wrong? Our child is gone, and it's because of that leopard!" Yejide replied, angrily. "You can't put our own family in danger. If the jungle wants her, then-"

"I know you blame the leopard, Yejide, but I want her. Does she look dangerous to you?" Kayode piped up.

Yejide was about to shout, but she sighed. "I see. Was it really alone?"

Kayode nodded. Then, he explained to the others that Sabor killed her human parents, "Yes. Sabor killed her family."

"Are you serious?" Yejide was stunned.

"Yes, I saw it with my own eyes. There were no other humans left."

Yejide softened. "Fine. Bring it into the family if you think it'll make you feel any better; but it can never be the daughter we lost. Not to me, anyway."

As Yejide moved off, Kayode sighed and then called to the rest of the family. "We'll make camp here tonight."

The gorillas nodded in agreement and began to arrange nests for themselves, stealing fascinated glances at Kayode's sudden love for the baby girl.

Only Tope eventually went up to him, took one last look at the baby, and asked, "So, um, whatcha gonna call her?"

Kayode thought for a second, "I'm going to call her...Tarzana."

"Tarzana?!" Tope tried it out. "Ok...she's your baby."

Kayode then looked at the baby, smiling. "I'll keep you safe, little one. Don't worry about what they say. You will always be my little girl. Always."

The time flew by, and soon, Tarzana was 5 years old. She liked playing with the younger apes, but they didn't always like having her around. She had trouble climbing trees and besides, she hardly had any hair.

One day, Tope was with some of his friends at Elephant Falls. Below them, a group of elephants were bathing.

All of a sudden, Tarzana came by, crashing right into them.

Tope crawled up to them. "Come on, guys, let her join in. She's not that much of a pest, really."

Mungo shook his head. "No way!"

"Oh, come on, guys, what if she proved she was one of us?"

"How?"

Tope thought for a minute, then he went to Tarzana, "Personally, I'd love to hang out with you and all, but the guys can be a little convincing, ya know?"

"Okay, what do I gotta do?" Tarzana asked.

"Uh, well, you gotta...uh...get a hair."

"A hair?"

"Yeah. An elephant hair."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Tarzana asked Tope as they approached the watering hole, slowly.

"Relax!" Tope drawled. "All ya gotta do is sneak up on that little one while I keep 'em talkin'. Then, ya just pull out a hair. Nothing to it. She won't even feel it."

Tope figured Tarzana would be discouraged by this dangerous task, but Tarzana wanted so much to be accepted by the other apes.

As planned, Tope went to the watering hole, trying to get the elephants' attention.

"Hey, you pachyderms!" Tope called, walking up to a group of adult elephants. "Now, I was just talking to my good friend, the rhino, and he was telling me that you guys are from the same family. Is that true, or is that guy just crackers? 'Cause, ya know, ya don't look much alike, no offense..."

Quietly, Tarzana made her away towards the younger elephant named Thema, who was muttering to herself about bacteria and unsanitary water.

Here goes nothing, Tarzana thought, and she quickly pulled a hair from the elephant's tail.

Thema screamed at once and cannoned into her mother. "Piranha! It's a piranha!"

"There are no piranhas in Africa, Thema!" her mother sighed.

At that point, Tarzana, who had been knocked into the water at Thema's scream, surfaced with a great gasping breath, which the elephants mistook for a biting motion.

"Piranha!" The elephants all exclaimed, and then they stampeded the shoreline, heading straight for the gorillas.

Luckily, all the gorillas managed to get to safety in time. Kayode looked around, "Where's Tarzana?"

Thema watched as Tope dragged Tarzana from the water.

"Tarzana!" Tope tried to wake her up as Tarzana coughed and spluttered. "Tarzana, buddy, speak to me!"

"Get away from there!" cried Thema, pulling him away with her trunk. "Don't you know a piranha can strip your flesh in seconds?"

"What? She's not a piranha!" Tope pulled free just as Tarzana recovered.

"Hey, Tarzana!" Tope hugged her. "Gee, sorry, all that danger for nothing. You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"I wouldn't say that," Tarzana grinned, showing Tope an elephant hair.

"I don't believe it. You got the hair?"

"Is that what this is all about?" Thema swished her tail. "Why didn't you say so? I got a whole tail of 'em!"

The three of them laughed and that was when Kayode ran up and pulled her into his arms. "Tarzana, you're safe!" Then, he addressed her sternly. "What happened?"

Tope tried to explain, "Ummm, well, it's sort of a long...it's involved...because what happened...it was a weird-"

Tarzana halted Tope as she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Papa. I...we were playing, and well...I sorta scared the elephants. I didn't mean it."

"You almost hurt somebody!" snapped Yejide.

Tarzana flinched at her tone, "But it was an accident."

"All right, that's enough. She's only a child," Kayode said to Yejide, sternly, defended Tarzana.

"That's no excuse, Kayode," Yejide argued. "You may be the leader, but you can't keep defending her."

"But she'll learn!"

"She will never learn! She can't learn to be one of us!"

"Because you never give her a chance! I gave her a chance. Why can't you do the same?"

"Give her a chance? You know I'm right; why are you so in denial! Kayode, look at her! She will never be one of us!"

Tarzana, stunned, dropped the elephant hair, rose to her feet and went running off into the jungle.

"Tarzana, hey!" Tope called after her, but she didn't stop.

Later that evening, Tarzana stared sadly at her reflection in a pool of water, wondering why she was so different from the other apes.

Just then, Kayode appeared, seeing that Tarzan smeared herself with mud, trying to look more like an ape.

"Why am I so different?" Tarzana asked sadly.

"Because you're covered in mud, that's why," Kayode answered, smiling a bit.

Eventually, Tarzana was able to get her words out. "Yejide said I didn't belong in the family!"

"Never mind what Yejide said."

"But look at me!"

Kayode blinked at her. "I am, Tarzana. And do you know what do I see? I see two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears...and what else?"

Tarzana grinned and held up her hands. "Two hands?"

"That's right." Kayode held up his own hands. They looked the same as hers, and yet different.

Tarzana looked at her own hands. "But we're not exactly the same," she realized.

"Maybe we don't look the same," Kayode replied, wisely, "but we're not that different."

Kayode put Tarzana's hand to her chest. "What do you feel?"

"My heartbeat."

"Now come here." Kayode held her to his chest. "What do you hear?"

"Your heartbeat."

"See, they're the same." Kayode's smile faded. "Yejide just can't see that."

Tarzana smiled up at him. "I'll make her see it, Papa. I'll be the best ape ever; even if I'm not one."

And over the next several years, Tarzana's goal wasn't an easy one. At first, she struggled to keep up with her family.

But with perseverance, the help of good friends, and her ability to observe and mimic the other animals, Tarzana was well on her way.

Of course, Tarzana still had much to learn.

Upon reaching adulthood, Tarzana has developed skills and talents that boost her confidence, help her family, and please her friends.

Tarzana gained so much strength, speed, and agility that even the apes have trouble keeping up with her. She knew the jungle like the back of her own hand, better even and Kayode was very proud of her.

In the end, Tarzana became something more than an ape. Daughter of Man.

As the years passed, Tarzana grew into a young woman. Tope and Thema grew with her, and the three became fast friends.

One day, Tarzana and Tope were wrestling, which always made Thema very upset.

Thema shook her head at Tarzana's unladylike form of playing. "Honestly, you two! It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye or an arm! Someone's gonna get hurt here and it's almost either you two or me..."

But Tarzana and Tope almost hear her as Thema sighed, "Why do you two always have to play so rough? It's not good for you, Tarzana; you should be acting like a lady."

"Lady?" Tarzana wriggled free and then flipped Tope. "Please! Whatever I am, Thema, we all know I'm no lady! Where's the fun in that?"

As she spoke, Tarzana felt two things. One was a pang of loneliness that she had never even confided to even Kayode that often came along when she questioned what kind of creature she actually was.

The second was a sudden feeling of unease that they weren't alone in this clearing.

"Ow! Cramp, cramp in the calf! Okay, okay, you win! Ow! Ow! Okay, okay! You win. Hello...hello down there, yo! YO! Let go! ACCH! CAAACH!"

Glancing down, Tarzana realized that she had Tope's right leg hooked over at a painful angle. She quickly released him. "Sorry, Tope."

"Aw, honestly!" sighed Tope, rubbing his sore muscle. "What kind of animal are you?"

"You know," said Thema, as Tarzana approached a cluster of bushes that had caused the hairs on the back of her neck to prick up, "I've been thinking a lot lately that maybe Tarzana could be some sub-species of elephant."

"What?" exclaimed Tope, shaking his head. "Are you crazy?"

"Think about it. She likes peanuts, I like peanuts..."

"I don't believe I'm hearing this," Tope muttered as Tarzana turned to them. "I don't see any peanuts in this jungle, so she looks nothin' like ya!"

Suddenly, out of the bushes leaped a familiar figure. It was Sabor the leopard!

The three friends yelped as the leopard chased them back to the feeding grounds.

The growls Sabor omitted didn't go unheard by the rest of the family, and all apes on the ground scattered. Tarzana leap up the nearest tree, and Sabor followed...until she found herself ripped from the trunk by Kayode.

As head of the family, after all, it was Kayode's duty to protect them. Tarzana gasped as Sabor leap back and pinned him to the ground.

The other apes gasped, too. Thema, who wasn't good with violence, covered her eyes with her ears.

"Kayode!" cried Yejide, who was halfway up a tree, but now she slid down to face Sabor.

Tarzana watched as her father was knocked down and the leopard turned her attention to Yejide. Snatching up her handmade spear, Tarzana leap down to the ground, too.

Hearing her land, Sabor turned to her. She recognized the prey she had been denied all those years ago.

Tarzana, however, didn't recognize the beast that had killed her real human parents. Of course, she had been only a baby at the time, and now she was just eighteen, by human years, so many of her earliest memories were gone.

As the battle raged on, Sabor leaped at Tarzana, and they both fell into a deep pit.

The fearful ape family watched as sounds of snarling and roaring came from a pit. Then, there was a silence.

Moments later, a triumphant Tarzana climbed out of the pit, holding the lifeless leopard.

The apes erupted into cheers and applause. Kayode sighed in relief that she was alright.

"Tarzana, that was amazing!" exclaimed Thema, seizing her in a hug with her trunk. Then, with a stern tone of authority, she added, "But you could have been killed! Don't scare me like that again!"

Tarzana laughed as the other gorillas gathered around her.

As they did, Tope pushed his way to the front of the group, "Okay, everybody. Move aside. Out of the way. Best Friend coming through. That would be me."

Then, Tope put his arm around Tarzana, "Don't make a habit of it. There are other ways to get attention, you know."

"I'll try to remember that," Tarzana replied. Then, she glanced over at Kayode and then ran over to him. "Are you alright?"

Kayode grinned at her. "Few bruises, but nothing I can't handle."

Tarzana hugged him and then looked over at Yejide, who was standing a little way off.

Yejide couldn't believe it. Tarzana had just saved her life, even though Yejide had never given her any reason to. Perhaps, perhaps she wasn't so bad after all.

Then, Yejide realized that Tarzana had come up to her. They shared a mutual look of understanding as Yejide smiled at her.

Just then, a loud gunshot rang out. Everyone turned at the unfamiliar sound.

Only Tarzana and Tope turned to Thema, thinking it was her. Thema looked offended. "Well! I may get a little bit gassy under pressure, but that certainly wasn't me!"

"What was that?" Tarzana asked the two.

"I don't know," Tope answered. "And if I did know, I don't think I want to know."

Kayode, however, knew that sound. He had heard it before.

It was the sound of humans. And they were dangerous to gorillas, all except Tarzana.

"Everyone, let's move," Kayode ordered.

The other gorillas and Thema nodded as Kayode led them deeper into the jungle, but Tarzana decided to investigate as she quickly leap up the nearest tree.

Kayode turned and decided to let her go find out, She would come along, he thought. She had just taken on a fully grown leopard by herself. I mean, if she could survive that, then there's no need to worry about her now.

Although Sabor was defeated, a deadlier danger had only just begun...

To be continued...