Meerkat Madness

by Ian Whybrow

  Mimi snatched one of the shiny canisters from Uncle’s backpack. “Don’t you dare call me a crazy scorpion. And do not touch me, not Mimi! Not me,” she shouted in a shrill voice. “I’ve got a deadly weapon!” She shook the canister wildly.

  “So have I!!” cried Skeema, holding up his Snap-snap and squeezing it. Its piercing SQUEAK! shocked the Narrowheads, and they jumped back.

  As it happened, there was no need for either Mimi or Skeema to test their weapons in battle. Suddenly there was a noise like the snapping of a twig and a blinding bolt of lightning shot out of Little Dream’s chest!

  Two more dazzling flashes quickly followed, and before the last of them faded, the terrified Narrowheads had begun to run for their lives.

  “Whoops!” said Little Dream. “All I did was touch this little lump here…” There was another deadly flash that had his brother, sister, and Uncle squealing and diving for cover. “Sorry,” said Little Dream, just before he fell flat on his back. “Is everybody alright?”

  Chapter 11

  After the group had recovered from the shock of Little Dream’s daring surprise attack, they sat and talked excitedly about what had just happened.

  “My goodness, Little Dream!” Uncle exclaimed with a gasp. “Whatever made you come up with that nonsense about us taking the egg chamber to the Blah-blah mounds? I nearly had a fit, what-what!”

  “Sorry, Uncle,” said Little Dream. “I just wanted you to be proud of me.”

  Uncle was touched. “I am, dear boy, I’m very proud of you. But as for traveling across the desert on our own, that’s quite ridic—”

  “I would like to go to Far Burrow!” interrupted Mimi. She had made up her mind. “Uncle, why don’t we return the egg to its mother and then go and live by the Salt Pans forever and ever? I don’t want to stay here with our horrid Queen Heartless.”

  “Me neither! I would love to see those Blah-blah mounds,” agreed Skeema. “Let’s all run away and go there now! Go on, Uncle,” he pleaded. “Take us to Far Burrow. You wouldn’t have to be a babysitter anymore. You could be a king again!”

  “Me? A king again? You can’t really suppose that…I mean to say…Come on! It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to be one or anything, what-what! It’s quite true that I can dish out orders and terrify the enemy as well as the next royal meerkat…”

  “And you can have lots more bold adventures among the Blah-blah tribes!” squealed Little Dream. “We all can. We like adventures!”

  “Well, my ’kats,” laughed Uncle. “It’s tempting, I must say. I’m getting ancient and rusty but you’re all getting pretty bold and quick. Still, you don’t know what you’re asking for. You’ve just seen how nasty Narrowheads can be. Wait until you see the Ruddertails!”

  “We’re not scared of Ruddertails!” cried Skeema.

  Uncle smiled and ruffled the fur on his head. “It must be true what everybody keeps saying. Just listen to us! We must all have The Madness even to think about making such a long journey. And there are going to be all sorts of dangers every step of the way. ”

  “And I don’t like it here,” said Mimi firmly. “I want to be in a story about how important I am.”

  Uncle took in a huge breath. “Right! That’s settled then. We’ll have no more negative nonsense! It’s time to be positive. It’s time to ACT! We four mad meerkats WILL travel to see the Blah-Blah mounds and we SHALL live to tell a tale or two, by all that’s strong and tasty!” And to show he meant business, he lifted his tummy-pad with both paws. HUP! “And how are we going to do it?” he went on. “Altogether now!” He raised his paws above his head like a conductor.

  The pups bunched together, lifted their chins high, and with one voice, they proudly spoke the words of their motto:

  “Stay alert to stay alive!

  And stay with the group!”

  For a giggle, they pretended they were as fat as Uncle. They stuck out their tummies and lifted them up with both paws, shouting—1-2-3-HUP!

  Then they got going.

  Chapter 12

  Fear helped the wild travelers on the first part of the journey. They ran as fast as they possibly could with a heavy egg chamber to drag along with them. Every now and then they thought they could hear scampering claws and they would turn, expecting to see the Narrowheads or perhaps some angry Sharpeyes chasing after them, but it was only the wind or the rattling of pebbles behind them. They saw neither stripe nor tail of any other meerkat.

  Once they had left the dunes behind, the ground grew hard and sloped gently down toward The Great Plain. It was rough and bumpy, but at least the chamber didn’t keep sinking into soft sand. In fact, now and again, the chamber seemed to have the power to run forward by itself like the crazy pink elephant it pretended to be.

  When they reached The Great Plain, the sand grew softer again. The pups were tired and began to struggle. Uncle was very jumpy. He knew that they must push on to safer ground before they could forage for food and find somewhere to sleep for the night. There was too little cover here for his liking, and too many chances to be flattened by the blundering monsters of the Upworld—the rhinos, the herds of antelope and zebras, and the trumpeting elephants. The pups found it hard to believe that the lions, lying about in yawning, dusty-yellow heaps, were not interested in meerkat snacks. Still, nothing scared them more than snakes. The quick, black ones were the worst. And the later it got, the more every whisper of the grasses began to sound like the hiss of a lurking mamba or puff adder.

  As for Uncle, the thought of attack from out of the sun made all his once-broken bones ache. He imagined that everywhere in the sky, powerful birds of prey mocked and screamed. His bent arm throbbed and there was a pain all down his side where his ribs had been shattered when he had been dropped from a great height. At least he had his helmet and his pack. They gave some sort of protection.

  As they traveled, Uncle sang lively contact songs, expecting the young meerkats to echo the words to show that they were still there and that they were safe.

  “Look about, look about!

  (Look about, look about)!

  Listen out, listen out!

  (Don’t shout! Listen out!)

  Don’t know the sound?

  (New sound! Wrong sound!)

  Get underground!

  (Dive underground!)”

  Uncle was right to be cautious. High in the cloudless blue, out of sight even from the keen eyes of young Skeema and Mimi, The Silent Enemy was watching.

  The eagle owl had only one thought in his revolving head: revenge.

  The hot air lifted the eagle owl like waves holding up a swimmer in a warm sea. He kept his back to the sun and was careful not to show himself as more than a scratch in the sky. His sight was so powerful that when the meerkats were on open ground he could clearly see the sun glinting in the one busy eye that was still in Fearless’s head. Each time it flashed, the eagle owl felt a twinge along his breastbone where Fearless’s needle-sharp teeth had sunk in and made him scream and let go.

  He knew that there is no more watchful a creature than a meerkat. But he was patient. There would be a moment when Fearless was off guard. One careless moment was all it would take, when his mind was on something else.

  “Then,” thought the eagle owl, “I shall drop like the darkness and dine on him! Oooo-hooo- hooo!”

  When at last the worn-out travelers came to a place where devil’s claw bushes, bright with yellow flowers, grew everywhere, Uncle breathed a sigh of relief. “Ground-squirrel territory!” he said. And sure enough, dozens of them popped up like little jack-in-the-boxes, flicking their charming bushy tails over their heads or swishing them out behind them. They nibbled at the yellow flowers and chattered amongst themselves.

  “Can you speak their language?” Skeema asked Uncle.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Uncle. “But they are welcoming creatures. And we have an ancient agreement with all their tribes: we always give them shelter if they need it and they give shelter to us.”


  The travelers stopped and refreshed themselves, taking turns to dig for juicy roots to quench their thirst.

  “Ouch!” squealed Little Dream, pricking himself on a wickedly sharp thorn for the umpteenth time. He was hungry, though, and he soon found plenty of strange-looking crawlers to fill his belly and make him forget the soreness of his nose.

  And sure enough, as their shadows began to stretch, a motherly-looking ground squirrel with a broad stripe down her side led the way for them into a cool and pleasant-smelling burrow full of tumbling babies!

  Chapter 13

  A good sleep in the freezing darktime, snug among the soft bodies of the ground squirrel family, did the travelers good.

  After a good Warm-up and a breakfast, they thanked their hosts and waved goodbye.

  They struggled on, often wishing that they could leave the egg chamber behind, because it took such an effort to keep it moving. They didn’t stop for rest until they came to a red ebony tree that Uncle knew well. It spread its branches widely and offered them its cool shade for rest and shelter from the sun, which was now at its hottest. Overhead, the weaver birds flitted in and out of the holes in their enormous nest, chit-chatting busily.

  “Is that what the Blah-blah mounds look like?” Mimi inquired. “I can’t really picture them.”

  “Not quite. It’s hard to explain exactly how they look. But with luck, we’ll see them soon enough,” said Uncle. He told them a little story to try and make things clearer, but he got a bit muddled and the tale fizzled out.

  Skeema felt rather sorry for him. “You know, it doesn’t really matter if there’s no such thing as a Blah-blah, Uncle,” he said kindly. “Whatever happens, we’re all together now, and that’s what’s important. And it’s a good story, in any case!”

  For once, Uncle was completely lost for words.

  “I love it,” murmured Little Dream sleepily.

  Then the pups tumbled and fought for a short while until they fell over, fast asleep in a heap.

  When they heard the thunder of springbok and gemsbok hooves, they twitched and jumped up again, heads turning all around.

  “They won’t hurt you,” murmured Uncle, half-asleep. But his ears pricked up when he heard the shout of jackals and the cackle of hyenas. Suddenly, all his brave little daredevils were burrowing under him like chicks under a mother bird! “Far away,” he said soothingly. “Safe here.”

  Above them, The Silent Enemy cursed. He had no trouble seeing the pink, lumbering thing that the meerkats were dragging along, but the grasses kept hiding Fearless’s eye, the one particular morsel he longed to taste more than any other. And now that the meerkats were under a tree, he could see nothing at all of the adult or the babies.

  Once they had their strength back, the adventurers moved on and soon found themselves among golden grasses that whispered in the hot wind.

  The spinners of the heavy chamber were useless in soft sand. The meerkats heaved, but couldn’t get it to go in a straight line. It had to be pulled along a twisting path in and out among the tall tufts. For a while no one said a word, except to answer Uncle’s call. No one complained about their sore paws, not even Skeema, who found that his little desert boots rubbed—but wouldn’t take them off for all the ants’ eggs in Africa. Little Dream did his best to keep pace with the others, though it was hard for him. Sometimes they let him ride on top of the chamber and be look-out for a while to keep his spirits up.

  “You remind me of a Blah-blah female I once saw riding on a camel,” said Uncle with a wink at Skeema and Mimi. “She went wibble-wobble, wibble-wobble, squeak!”

  “Why did she go wibble-wobble squeak, Uncle?” asked Little Dream. “Was she scared?”

  “Ah!” said Uncle mysteriously, putting a claw down the side of his nose to show he was telling a secret. “She didn’t squeak while she was on the camel,” said Uncle. “Only when she got off.”

  “But that’s silly. If she wasn’t wibble-wobbling any more, what did she squeak for?” Mimi wanted to know.

  “I think it was because the camel spat in her eye!” said Uncle. And he laughed so much at his terrible joke that his big tummy went wibble-wobble and set the little ’kats cackling with laughter like red-billed oxpeckers.

  A little fun made a tough journey seem easier. Even so, it felt like forever before Uncle said the words the pups were waiting to hear: “Not far now before we rest.” He was pointing with his long, rust-tipped tail. “You see that red dune in the distance? There’s a fine burrow there where we can shelter for the darktime.”

  But oh, what a painful “little way” that was. By the time they had dragged themselves and their heavy load to the entrance to Red Dune Burrow, they felt half-dead.

  The egg chamber had to be safely buried before they could finally crawl through the main entrance and into a cool, damp, safe place. “Well done!” said Uncle, at last. “In we go then.” But something made him nervous. “Wait! Stand back!” He lifted his long nose and sniffed the air.

  “A cobra, by all that spits,” he said softly. “Can you hear that sound like the whispering grass? He’s uncoiling, what-what! That’s the sound of dry scales rubbing together!”

  Chapter 14

  The cobra was not pleased to be disturbed.

  “SSSSteer clear!” he hissed. “I’m the lord of this burrow.”

  “You, sir, are no such thing. You are a squatter!” shouted Uncle indignantly. “I helped to build this burrow myself long ago. Now I should like to rest and shelter here and so would these pups. Kindly slither off and find another hole.”

  “Mind your manners or I’ll have you!” warned the snake. He put his head out of the burrow and looked at them with frightening eyes like small, glittering stones. His head and hood were shiny black, though when he spread out the hood to scare them, the ’kats saw that it was marked with angry red blotches. Uncle had seen cheeks swollen with poison like this before. The brute was, as Uncle’s nose had told him, a zebra spitting cobra. Underground, his gray belly would be striped with glittering bands. Because he wanted to keep the burrow for himself, he was not eager to show this part of himself just yet.

  “Scorpion dance,” said Uncle quietly to the pups, out of the corner of his mouth. “He can’t hear much but he can lip-read. Now pay attention.” He turned his head slightly, without taking his good eye off the intruder in case of attack. “Stay on your toes and remember the steps. He’ll be quick, so you dance quicker! Remember the snake-in-the-canister? That’s how he’ll go for you. He’ll spit—and he can spit a long way. But if he spits, then mind your eyes! Skeema—here’s the plan…”

  The snake began to hiss like a burning branch in a wild fire. Though he was very deaf, he sensed that the meerkats were plotting something. His tongue flicked out, hoping to scent their fear. His jaws opened like a trap and when Skeema danced toward him, showing his teeth, he flicked his head in his direction. Skeema skipped away—and out of sight.

  The cobra was well-pleased. Terror was a fine weapon. As the little female darted toward him, he pulled back again and this time sprayed twin jets of venom through his hollow fangs. The venom flew three feet, but Mimi gave a squeal and, spinning like a little furry ballerina, she pirouetted out of danger.

  “Good work, Mimi! Ten out of ten for style!” cheered Uncle.

  The hood was spreading again, the cheeks were swelling, and the snake was forced to slither forward. He tried to lift himself up in the confined space of the burrow and wipe the look of triumph off Uncle’s face.

  “Yikessssssss!” he fizzed. “ What the…?”

  “Has something just struck you?” inquired Uncle Fearless, innocently. He knew very well what it was that had just struck the cobra... and where. The sharp teeth of young Skeema had just locked onto his pointed backside! Uncle had sent him down and around through a side entrance to do just that.

  The cobra had no room to turn back on himself, so he darted forward, his curved fangs reaching for Uncle’s helmeted head. But Un
cle knew the dance and stepped aside, his safari scarf swinging like a mini-matador’s cape.

  “Dance with me! With me, again!” cried Mimi. Furiously, the snake lunged at her. Half of him was out of the burrow now. They could see his zebra belly stripes clearly.

  Meanwhile, Skeema was hanging onto his tail tightly.

  “Yoo-hoo!” squeaked Little Dream. When the cobra saw a rival snake reflected in Little Dream’s eye-patches, he got so angry that his jaws almost came unhinged. He leaped clear of the burrow and would have punctured the brave little pup had Uncle not taken a running jump and pushed Little Dream out of the way.

  Skeema was whipped into the air by the pointed tail his teeth were locked onto. He came down on the back of the cobra’s neck like a cowboy on a bucking bronco. Holding onto the hood with one paw, he gave his Snap-snap a mighty SQUEAK! with the other as he landed. He then pushed both sides of the hood down over the eyes of his mount, gave him one more nip on the back of the neck for luck—and then jumped sideways to the ground.

  This was all too much for the intruder. With one last hiss, he gathered his coils and shot off into the falling darkness.

  Chapter 15

  One dry river bed usually leads to another. For a long while there seemed no end to the dull and dusty yellow sands before them.

  But at last they came to a grayish track that stretched out across the rolling sand hills. They scrambled up out of the river bed and followed this smoother way to the brow of a hill, delighted to find that the egg chamber ran very nicely along it on its spinners. They had expected a long, slow haul and were surprised to make good, quick progress.