Day 13
It's the nights that get scary in the Munich Animal Protection League Centre. When the screws finish their last rounds of nut rations and flick out the lights, the beasts come alive. The speed-freak chimp in the next cell – some say he was the 14th Bubbles – starts screaming threats at the battered daschund across the hall, evil shit about dangling her puppies off a balcony in front of the world's press.
The crazy old meerkat on the other side peels back his poster of Sergei from IT and starts scratching at the back wall with a broken spoon, muttering "Must sell insurance, must sell insurance." In the night, you'll sometimes hear a cage swing open and some poor, betrayed soul bundled into a hessian sack and dragged through a steel door at the end of the block. They never come back. Deep down, we all know the truth. Yet still, in the quieter moments, you'll hear inmates whispering about the fantastical paradise land they say awaits us all at the end of our time. They call it Monkey World.
The first night at MAP is the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in, naked as the day you were born – not even a pair of comedy monkey jeans to spare your blushes – skin burning, and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you. They confiscate your iPad and when they put you in that cell … a whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it. How you wish you'd had your paperwork implanted into your ear when you had the chance. And how you wish you'd never got involved with the crazy fool that got you into this mess in the first place. The name's Mally, but in here they call me Biebermonkey. And my story will make your tail curl.
Day 25
I wish I'd listened to my mother. She told me these teen pop stars, sure they look cute and cuddly, but sooner or later they'll turn on you. But I was trapped, drawn in by the adulation, the fame, the endless Haribo. Bieber was my Madonna, my Brangelina, my ticket out of Zoosville.
Little did I know he'd take me down with him.
It went so well at first, I was training him up good. I got him topless and walking like a wonky orangutan through London in the winter, taught him how to burst into random bouts of violence at the tiniest provocation. I even dressed him up funny … that gas mask thing was a scream! Then, just as I'd almost got him to the point of throwing his own faeces at strangers, something changed … I swear it was that night at the O2, man. He went cold, to his fans waiting hours to wet themselves out front, and to me eating the dressing room drapes out back. He lost interest, like a child with a Christmas puppy; within weeks he'd forgotten all about me, hadn't even bothered to get my immigration forms in order. He turns up in Germany all like, "Ooh, what monkey? Oh, there's such a thing as quarantine in Europe, oh my, well, does anybody in Germanland want her, I've got a Galaxy S4 now." And that's it. Over. Stitched up. Sold down the river and banged up with no bail, no visits, no parole, nothing. Left to rot by my evil handler, like an Indonesian drug mule.
The daschund has a plan. She's worked out how we can dig our way out, depositing the tunnel dirt down our trouser legs into the litter trays. How to get hold of convincing trousers is the main drawback, but we're going to start three tunnels – Tom, Shep and Lassie.
Day 37
The guards found Shep. The daschund disappeared through the steel door last night. Still no paperwork. Bieber, how couldst thou forsake me!
Day 40
The bars seem to close in on me, like a comfort blanket. I'm scared of the sun. Who you callin' Biebermonkey? I'll bite your face off! I've got connections on the outside see, better tell your cubs to watch their backs. Come at me and I'll have you, you slaaaaag!
Day 46
My last day, the governor says, and there's been no call from Team Bieber, or a reprieve from the commissioner. I saw them take the hessian sack off the peg on the wall this morning. I'm coming, Monkey World! Save a space on the tire for old Mally!
