by Ian Whybrow
“Not much farther now!” said Uncle cheerily. “This flat track was made by the Blah-blahs. See how wide it is, and how straight? And it has been trodden down so that they can move their Vroom-vrooms along it. Sometimes these tracks have no end, but often they lead directly to the mounds of one Blah-blah tribe or another. So stay extra sharp, what-what!” He patted Little Dream on the head. “And just keep it in mind that Vroom-vrooms can run faster than cheetahs. We must be careful. Why, I remember one time, in my Glory Days, I was wandering…”
At that moment, his words were cut off by a dreadful roar. All heads turned toward the sound and all eyes saw a cloud of dust leap just over the rise. “Take cover! Run for your lives!” yelled Uncle.
In the panic, everyone jerked the egg chamber in different directions. It tottered and crashed sideways.
“Get it over the side! Get it over the side!” yelled Uncle. “It’ll be crushed!”
The pups had to overcome their instinct to dive off the road and disappear into the bush that grew thickly on either side of it. Having come this far as a team, they were all determined to be ruled by Uncle and not by blind fear.
“Hold on, Uncle! We’re coming!” they cried, and gathered alongside him to put their backs into the task. But pushing an egg chamber lying on its side was much harder than pulling it upright on its spinners.
“It won’t budge!” panted Skeema.
“It feels dreadfully heavy!” puffed Mimi. She dashed around to the other side and found that a long, flat stone had wedged underneath it. She got her claws under it and tried to scratch it away, but it was almost as big as she was. “There’s a rock! It won’t shift!” she shouted. Skeema left his post and darted around to help her. Their combined efforts did the trick and they moved the stone enough for Uncle and Little Dream to feel the chamber jerk forward when they put their shoulders to it.
“It’s moving! It’s starting to slide!” piped up Little Dream. The roaring was getting frighteningly close, as if a herd of Kalahari lions were leaping toward them.
At last the egg chamber began to shift, inch by inch, toward the edge. Mimi and Skeema managed to grab the strap and pull with all their might while the others continued to push. Suddenly, it picked up speed and plunged to the side of the road. It reached a tipping point, wobbled—until finally it was flipped by its own weight over the edge.
Mimi and Skeema had to be quick to fling themselves out of its way into a bush, and the chamber itself crashed down and came to rest under a blue pea shrub.
Uncle had made a huge effort to save the chamber. Perhaps that was why, when it shot away from him, he fell hard onto his round belly and lay winded, unable to get up.
“Up!” said Little Dream, who had been pushing too. He tugged at Uncle’s backpack. The roaring dust cloud was getting horribly close.
“No good. No puff left. Leave me. Save yourself!” panted Uncle.
Little Dream turned his head and saw his first Vroom-vroom. He just had time to consider that this was also probably the last Vroom-vroom he would ever see. It was coming at him, with its silver mouth gaping and its golden eyes lit up, as terrifying as a charging bull rhinoceros.
“Run!” ordered Uncle and closed his one eye tight. His mind was racing. I’ve had my ups and downs, he was thinking, but all in all it’s been a good life. The pups are bright little things. They’ll cope without me. And at least it’ll all be over quickly…
Still lying face down, he tried to roll himself into as small a ball as possible and put his paws over his ears.
All of a sudden, he felt teeth tugging at the fur on the back of his neck and found himself being dragged, not toward the edge of the track, but toward the middle.
It flashed through his mind that he had been grabbed by a jackal or a bat-eared fox and he struggled, weak as he was, to shake himself free. Then he was astonished to hear a voice he knew very well (though it came through teeth firmly clamped together) calling, “I’ve got you, Uncle!”
Fearless opened his eye and turned his head just enough to be able to see that it was Little Dream who had hold of him!
“Stop, Dreamie! Let go of me!” he panted. The little meerkat seemed to have found enormous strength. “Wrong way!” he tried to tell him. “Save yourself!”
His voice was lost in the thunder of the engine sound.
Then the Vroom-vroom ran over them both.
Chapter 16
Mimi and Skeema were too stunned to move. They lay under a bush, sobbing in each other’s arms, long after the thunder of the Vroom-vroom had become an angry hum and faded into the distance.
“My Uncle! My Dreamie!” wailed Mimi. “What am I going to do without them?”
“What about me?” sniffed her brother. “They were mine, too, you know!”
“Go up and see what’s happened to them. I can’t bear to look,” said Mimi. A horrible picture of a dead porcupine she had seen further down the track flashed into her mind. It had been squashed flat to twice its normal size.
“Me? What makes you think that I want to see them… like that!” snapped Skeema. He grabbed her paw. “Come on. We’ve got to make sure, but let’s go and look together.”
The thorns of the thick bushes into which they’d thrown themselves were devilishly sharp. They had to be careful to pick their way out and into the open. They were both expecting to have to face the worst sight they could ever imagine. So it wasn’t surprising that for the moment, Skeema forgot part of the Sharpeye motto: Stay alert to stay alive. That was the last thing on his mind as he scrambled up to the top branch of a tree and forced himself to peep down at the road.
At once, relief flooded through him, sweeter than scorpion-juice. He saw by some miracle—large as life and completely unhurt—dear old Uncle Fearless sitting up in the road while Little Dream fanned him with his helmet!
As it happened, it was almost the last thing he saw. From the cloudless sky above them, a wicked shadow was swooping with no sound, no warning. It dropped more swiftly than the cold darktime that blots out the sun.
It was The Silent Enemy.
Luckily, Mimi had her wits about her. One danger can hide another and her keen eyes had spotted one. She let out an ear-splitting alarm call and knocked Skeema off his look-out post. They tumbled headlong through thick, spiky branches to the ground.
They both screamed with terror and braced themselves. At any second, each expected to be snatched from under the bush and hoisted into the air by a wicked bunch of dagger-sharp talons.
Out on the open road there were other yells and shrieks. These were followed by the eagle owl’s hoot of triumph. A terrible silence followed. Then came Little Dream’s defiant, “Take that, you big bully!” The eagle owl made one more dreadful, gargling sound and suddenly, Mimi and Skeema could see him through the tangle of leaves and branches above them! They watched the great bird struggling to take off with a wild flapping of wings that shook feathers off of him like rain.
He seemed to be choking and spinning clumsily around. They could see his yellow eyes were wide with terror as he battled to lift himself into the air.
“Oh no!” thought Skeema, and tried to cover his sister’s eyes with his paw. “He’s got somebody in his claws!”
For a few more seconds, the wicked bird zigzagged and staggered just above the ground until, with a great effort, it heaved itself into the sky and was gone.
Skeema and Mimi hugged one another and trembled, not knowing what to do.
“Wheeee!” came a loud voice from above. Almost immediately, there was a crash as something dived into the bush they were hiding under.
“Is it the eagle owl? Has he come back for us now?” shrieked Mimi.
Another crash, louder than the first, followed by a shout. “Missed us, what-what!”
Branches were bent and snapped, leaves were smacked, and twigs cracked—but not by The Silent Enemy.
“By all that roars and hoots, those were two close calls!” yelled Uncle, brushing sand out of his
fur and straightening his collar, safari scarf, and helmet. “I was certain I was no better than roadkill when the Vroom-vroom came charging at us,” he panted, “but Little Dream here had different ideas, what-what!”
“I could see the spinners on the Vroom-vroom,” gasped Little Dream. “They were fixed on each side, throwing up dust and stones. Still, I could see a gap between them and I just managed to drag Uncle into it. The Vroom-vroom ran right over the top of us but the spinners missed us completely! But, oh gosh! Then we saw The Silent Enemy.”
“Oh, and he thought he’d got me for sure this time—the coward! The sneak! The snake-in-the sky!”
“We saw him grab you, Uncle,” said Mimi. “We thought we’d never see you again!”
“Well, unluckily for him, all he got was my backpack!” said Uncle with a laugh. “Ha-ha! That’ll be a tasty treat for him, don’t you think?”
“Thank goodness you’re both alive!” gasped Skeema, giving his dear old Uncle a hug and a warm, wet scent-mark on both cheeks. “We thought you were both…” He managed to grab his little brother and give him bit of a hug, too. A cheek-mark would be a bit much, he thought, but he gave him a good squeeze and a warm, brotherly pat on the back.
“Well, here we are, nearly dead, but not quite,” said Uncle, who was starting to feel better already. “And all thanks to Little Dream.”
“But it was you who taught me to keep a sharp look-out!” Little Dream piped up.
“Yes, well, that’s kind of you to say so. But you kept your head! There’s the thing. And you saved us both, by all that’s sharp and lively!”
“What did he do, exactly?” asked Mimi.
“Well, there we were,” said Uncle in his story-telling voice. “Me and this courageous little squirmer, both flat out in the road, me on my tummy and Dreamie on his back. I couldn’t see a blessed thing. The dust from the Vroom-vroom was terrible! So there I was, blinded and thrashing about like a helpless ’kat. Not a chance of spotting The Silent Enemy, of course. So he obviously thought—Good show! Meerkat on the menu. Dive, dive, dive!”
“But Dreamie saw him!” Skeema could picture it now.
“Thanks to my Blah-blah eyes,” said Little Dream, modestly. “They let me look right into the sun if I want to!”
“He spotted the enemy alright! And quick as a cricket, he got his paw in my backpack. He felt around for the little box—and before you knew it, he’d grabbed one of the shiny round stars belonging to the baby Blah-blah.”
“Ah! Did you hurl it at him? Did you clonk him on his horrid beaky head with it?” asked Mimi, thinking that’s just what she would have liked to do. “Craftier than that!” cried Uncle. “He held it in the flat of his paw and made it flash in the sunlight. That idiotic bird couldn’t believe his luck! He thought at last he had the chance to grab the good eye I got away with last time he attacked me! But Little Dream had laid the perfect trap for him and he fell for it! You could say…” said Uncle, wiping tears of mirth from his eye as he laughed at his own joke, “…you could say he swallowed the thing whole, what-what! Ha-ha! Hee-hee! And let’s hope he jolly well chokes on it!”
“Little Dream!” cried Mimi. “What a big, brave meerkat you are!” She grabbed him and danced him off his paws.
“Brilliant!” cried Skeema. “And I thought I was the cunning one in our family!”
“Brilliant is the word!” chuckled Uncle. “So that blasted bird won’t be bothering us again anytime soon.” He shivered with relief. “Gosh, what a scare!” He gave himself a good shake to clear his mind.
“Plenty of scares! That’s what we all need!” said Mimi, joining in, shaking herself until her fur stood out like a mad little duster.
“Hear! Hear!” said Skeema with a giggle, before joining in like a wet puppy and shaking himself all over, too.
That night, having found a burrow to sleep in, Uncle insisted on a group grooming session before bedtime to get rid of the ticks they’d picked up on the journey.
After that, feeling very proud of everyone, Uncle kept watch under the stars for a time, while the youngsters slept safely below.
Chapter 17
The hills that had been in the misty distance for much of the journey were solid and up-close by next suntime. After the scare with the Vroom-vroom they decided not to risk keeping to the road. That meant a lot of hard work to keep the egg chamber rumbling forward. The grasses grew greener and more lush and the scrub was thicker now. Still, excited about getting close to their goal, the little mob pushed on in good spirits.
They hadn’t gone far when Mimi pointed out something hanging from the highest branch of a tall tree. “Look! It’s your backpack, Uncle!” she cried. “Let me get it down for you!”
Mimi darted up the tree, agile as a monkey. “It is your backpack, Uncle!” she called down. “The Silent Enemy must have been disappointed that he wasn’t clutching you in his claws! Wow—what a view from here!” She gasped. “I can see right across the valley to where it gets all gray and as flat as flat again!”
“The Salt Pans,” chuckled Uncle. “I thought as much!”
“And look! There!” came Mimi’s call again. She pointed and her tail-flag started waving as if it had The Madness in it. “I can see something interesting. Some sort of pointy termite mounds, I think!”
The others left the egg chamber where it was and scrambled up to her swaying perch to join her. “You’re right!” said Uncle. “Those mounds are very interesting. But you won’t find many termites in them!”
Suddenly he was clutching at all the little meerkats and pulling them to him. His chin wobbled. It took him a little moment to be able to speak, and then he said quietly, “I know you must think I’m a bit of an old phony. And I have to admit that I can lay it on a bit thick about my Glory Days. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you had made up your minds that everything I said about the Blah-blahs was just stories. But listen. You’re now looking at something you’ll be able to tell your own pups about one day. Right now, we are looking at some real, live, actual… Blah-blahs!”
The ’kats were struck dumb with wonder. They watched in astonishment as groups of charming giant creatures ventured out and moved on their hind legs among their strange, flapping, dwelling places. They could see they were gigantic, even from a distance, and naked-looking, not having any fur, but for all their strangeness, they behaved just like meerkats in lots of ways! They dashed about together in family groups, slipping in and out of their pointy mounds. Then suddenly, they were chattering and jumping up and down in an excited mob, pointing and calling Oolook-look! at something in the sky.
“Aren’t they funny! Aren’t they cute!!” cried Little Dream.
“They must have spotted those pink ibises and woolly-necked storks flying by!” laughed Skeema. “Oh! Silly things! They must think they’re dangerous! They’ve put up those flappy warnings to scare them off. And look at the way they hide their eyes behind their little shiny boxes!”
“So sweet with their big monkey faces!” cooed Mimi. “How I’d love to hug one and stand on its head! Are they from the Oolook tribe, Uncle?” asked Mimi.
“I can’t tell you until we get closer,” said Uncle with a shrug. “I’m afraid they all look the same to me from here.” Then he pointed a little to the left at a lovely sandy spot deep in the valley, not far from a group of the tallest, greenest trees they had ever seen. Their sheltering branches spread like umbrellas and made shadows as cool and inviting as underground chambers.
“That is Shepherd Tree Clump,” said Uncle, with a lump in his throat. “And under that beautiful white sand—do you see? That’s Far Burrow. That’s where we’re heading. That’s our new home.”
They stood for a moment, eyes glistening, swaying in the branches, without a care in the Upworld.
Then Skeema stiffened. He’d seen something. “Oh, no! We’re not the only ones heading for Far Burrow by the look of it!” he said in dismay.
He pointed out something moving stealthily down throug
h the grass tufts on the orange dunes on the other side of the valley.
“Oh no! By all that’s impudent!” exclaimed Uncle. “It can’t be…! Not this side of the Salt Pans, surely!”
Chapter 18
“My eye’s not good enough to be sure at this distance, darn it! And those creatures are well beyond scenting range,” growled Uncle. “Mimi. How about you, my dear? Can you make out their markings? I hope to goodness I’m mistaken and they’re no more our enemies than ground squirrels.”
“It’s not easy to tell exactly what they are from here,” said Mimi. “They keep low and then dash from tuft to tuft.”
“Cunning,” murmured Uncle. “Lined or striped?”
“I can see one,” exclaimed Skeema. “There he goes… and he’s striped!”
“I’ve got him,” said Mimi. “Look how orange they are. Aha! I get it! That’s how they can stay hidden against the dunes.”
“Check the tails,” urged Uncle.
“There’s nothing bushy about them,” said Mimi. “They’re skinny and upright, most of them, very long and with dark red at the tip, not black like ours.”
“Then it’s as I feared. Those are Ruddertails!”
“Look! There are three more over there, by that bush,” said Little Dreamer making the branch quiver as he pointed.
“I’ll bet they’re heading for The Grove,” muttered Uncle. He was thinking of the thick hedge of plants where herds of antelope came to feed in the dry season. Now they were covered in pink and white flowers.
“The Ruddertails think they can keep out of sight there and then move together among the shepherd trees,” he told the others. “That way they’ll be close enough to the burrow to see whether it’s already occupied. I expect they’ll lie low in the boltholes in the darktime and then prepare a surprise attack just after Warm-up. They’ll note how many of the rightful owners come out to forage. Then once they’re confident that they have the greater number—Vrrrrr!—they’ll pounce!”