by Ian Whybrow
“An ambush, eh? So what’s your plan, Uncle?” asked Skeema.
“Well, in my day the usual tactic was to bring up the whole tribe to dance in front of the burrow—show the enemy our teeth and claws, what-what! But…”
“But what, Uncle?” asked Mimi. She liked the idea of a face-to-face scrap.
“The trouble is, we won’t have a lot of teeth and claws to show them. There could easily be ten times more of them,” said Uncle with a sigh. “We wouldn’t stand a worm’s chance!”
Skeema turned to look at his brother and saw himself reflected in his shiny new eyes. He liked what he saw and puffed out his fur. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “If the Ruddertails are planning to give us a little surprise, then maybe we should…”
Little Dream finished his sentence for him: “…give them an even bigger surprise!” he cried.
Chapter 19
The plan the group came up with meant that they had to move quickly. Before anything useful could be done to defend it, they must quickly claim the burrow and scent-mark the territory around it before the enemy arrived.
Dragging the egg chamber through the thick scrub was painful. There were roots and scratchy branches everywhere. Panting like wild dogs, the adventurers arrived at last at the lip of the steep valley and looked down toward the leafy greenness below.
They could clearly see the low, sandy mounds that marked the entrances and escape tunnels. The problem now was that there was no cover. Hardly anything grew on the dry, stony slope that led down to Far Burrow and its splendid foraging grounds.
“Even a mole-snake would be able to spot us if we started pulling a pink baby elephant down there!” groaned Skeema. “We wouldn’t have a hope of surprising the enemy.”
“You’re right. We’ll have to bury the egg chamber here and collect it after the battle,” said Uncle. They opened it to check that the egg was safe. Mimi pressed her ear against it, making its shiny covering rustle. “I can still hear its heart beating,” she said. “But it’s very faint.” Bic-tic-bic-tic! it went. She gave it a squeeze to warm it a bit.
The egg made a whirring sound and suddenly cried out in a strange sing-song voice:
“Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear Charlie,
Happy birthday to you!”
Mimi was so shocked, she fell flat on her back. The others dived for cover. When the egg made no sign of speaking again, they crept back.
“What do you think, Uncle?” asked Little Dream.
“I think it must be about to hatch into a Blah-blah,” said Uncle. “How strange! I had no idea that they could talk while they’re still in their shells! But we haven’t time to wait. We have a battle to fight and we must get into position, what-what! We’ll just have to cover the egg to keep it warm and come back for it as soon as we can.”
Quickly, he checked the weapons in his backpack. “Mimi, you’ll take these snake-in-the-boxes. Skeema, see what you can do with these.” He rattled the star-stones in their little box. Then he noticed something lying in the open egg chamber. “I’ll take this black stick and sharpen my teeth on it,” he said, and put it into his mouth while he and the others snapped the egg chamber shut and covered it in leaves and branches.
“Nga-nga,” said Uncle, meaning to say, “Well done,” but forgetting he had his mouth full. Suddenly, a blinding light shot out from the end of the stick. The pups squealed and covered their eyes. Uncle nibbled again. The light went out. Nibble—on. Nibble—off.
“Marvelous!” he said. “A sun-stick—that’s dazzling! This will give those Ruddertails something to think about!” He slipped it into his backpack and looked at the little meerkats, who were determined, but understandably nervous. “What we are about to face may easily be the greatest challenge of our lives. So listen while I go over the battle plan.”
Chapter 20
As expected, the full company of the Ruddertails arrived soon after the sun lit up Shepherd Tree Clump. They were led by King Leaper. He was, as Uncle had warned, even bigger and more cruel-looking than Twisted Claw. A vivid stripe seemed to split his domed skull in two and his jaw opened and closed ceaselessly, displaying long, deadly fangs. His eye-patches ran into deep, black, narrow caves from his twitching nostril to his tattered ears. His movements were always quick and threatening and his deep, staring eyes challenged everything in their view. Leaper moved among his restless troops as they presented themselves straight after Warm-up under the spreading branches of their gathering place. Briskly, he scent-marked all his followers, never pausing until all thirty-seven of them carried his powerful stink. To judge by the grunt of pride that each Ruddertail gave as they were squirted, he might as well have been dressing them in bite-proof armor.
“Ruddertails! Show your rudders!” cried Leaper, and at once a forest of red-tipped tails rose like bloody spears. They bustled about like a moving stockade, screaming and dancing. Then they rushed forward until they were not much more than a leopard’s leap from the main entrance to Far Burrow.
What stopped them was a small, feeble-looking little female. She stepped out from the shadowy mouth of the burrow and boldly blocked the entrance with her skinny body. The Ruddertail army hooted with laughter and screamed insults. They waved their tails, made little pretend charges, and hopped up and down menacingly. They were a bit worried by the colored material she had wrapped around her—but there were so many of them, they felt sure they could soon shoo her away like a spider.
To their surprise, the strange little thing took no notice at all. Instead, she stood alone in the bright sun, calmly lifted her tummy—HUP!—and warmed herself. The noise and the war dancing grew louder and wilder. She simply smiled and waved at them as if they were friends and then began to hop and skip about. She dug a little play-mound (which she jumped on and off) then she did a roly-poly and sang quietly to herself.
The Ruddertails grew frantic and stampeded about. But since the little meerkat did not seem the least bothered, they gradually ran out of puff. Finally they slowed down to a gentle jog. “Hold your positions, Ruddertails!” came the commanding voice of King Leaper. “Save your energy! Can’t you see that this little meerkat is too crazy or stupid to be frightened? Leave her be and stand by until we see exactly what kind of army the enemy can bring out to challenge us! Wait for my signal to charge.”
Mimi was pleased with the way things had gone so far. Next, she took off her dress and tied it to a stick. As the breeze picked up, it began to flicker and crack in the breeze like the flags that the Blah-blahs flew over their pointy mounds. As soon as Mimi planted the stick in the sand, it came to life once more. It shimmered a brightly-colored warning. “Do not touch me!” it seemed to say. “I am an unknown enemy. Bite me and my poison will make you scream.”
“Oo-er! W-w-what’s she doing?” a nervous young Ruddertail asked his neighbor.
“I dunno!” came the anxious reply. “But I don’t like the way that flat creature looks at you! And listen to him snapping. That’s dangerous, that is!”
Mimi then dug just below the mound she had made and uncovered two canisters…
“Now what?” came the worried voice.
“What are those two shiny things she’s dug up?”
Mimi batted them about and rolled them gingerly. Then, she grabbed one between her teeth and shook it wildly. She dropped it, backed away, crept up to it, put her ear against it, and let out a piercing scream, “Spit, cobra, spit!”
It was a dreadful noise and the Ruddertails all shuffled back a little when they heard it. They turned to their king, not knowing what to do next. Then they saw Mimi hook a claw under the ring at one end of the canister. It gave a frightful HISSSSS! and shot brown venom toward them. As one body, the attackers shrank back with howls of fear. It took all Leaper’s courage to stay where he was. He knew that if he turned tail now, with the whole tribe expecting him to set an example, his days as king would soon be over. “We must push forwar
d!” he cried. “She may strike some of us with her poison, but the rest of us will win! We need to get into the burrow quickly and chase out any Sharpeyes who are sheltering underground.”
“Come on, then!” shouted one of his braver followers. “Forward, the Ruddertails!”
But before a charge could begin, another young Sharpeye warrior (Skeema—who else?) rushed out of the burrow, with a growl that was more like a leopard cub’s than a meerkat’s. Was he about to do battle with the Ruddertails? No! He was preparing for a fight with something deadly-looking! A nasty, lime-green Snap-snap, it was. It went for his front leg! What a struggle! Suddenly, the young meerkat flipped the Snap-snap high in the air and sank his teeth into its neck as it came down. It let out an ear-splitting SQUEAK!
“He’s killed it!” cried one of the Ruddertails. He was so impressed, he blurted out, “Well played, son!” and got promptly nipped by his fellow soldiers.
The young Sharpeye sniffed the Snap-snap and lifted it up in his paws to mark his victory. Then—horror of horrors—the Snap-snap suddenly came to life again! It wriggled, it jumped high in the air! As it came down, the youngster tried to catch it, but it opened its terrible jaws and clamped them around his throat! The Ruddertails were shocked into silence as they watched the young Sharpeye fighting to save himself again. They half-hoped he would hold on—but suddenly his legs gave way. He slipped. Slowly the Snap-snap tightened his jaws. Bit by bit, he squeezed the breath out of the brave young struggler until he flopped lifeless onto the sand. He gave a final twitch and lay still. The Snap-snap’s victory squeak was enough to make the blood run cold. But there was something really wicked about the way it suddenly flew up into the air, did a somersault, and dived straight back down the entrance to the burrow.
“Bull’s-eye!” muttered Skeema to himself, pleased with his rather lucky throw. Then, it was time for a bit more acting. “ARRGHHH!” he gurgled, very theatrically. “My paws!” he yelled, howling with pain. He went wild. He jittered and squirmed all over the sand. Then he sat up—and pulled off his desert boots!
There was shock among the Ruddertail ranks. “He’s pulled his back feet off!” someone yelled. “I don’t believe it! He’s pulled ’em right off! And now look! He’s chucking them up in the air!”
Not content with tearing off his own feet, he put his front paws up to his eyes—and pulled them out! He actually pulled out his shiny round eyes and flung them into the air. The sun caught them and made them sparkle for a second before they plopped into the sand with two sickening thuds.
“Errr!” chorused the Ruddertail army. “Disgusting!”
They watched open-mouthed as the poor fellow wriggled to the entrance hole and slid himself down it. There followed another awful scream.
“That Snap-snap must have finished him off!” gasped an old-timer. “That poor little guy killed it, but then it came back to life! Then it poisoned him and sent him raving mad! And now it’s finished him off!”
“I’m definitely not going down that burrow! Not with a spitting cobra and a Snap-snap down there!” replied his neighbor.
The king sensed the rising panic amongst his soldiers. “Keep your nerve, everyone!” he called. “Stand by to rush the burrow. We don’t know for sure how many of them there are, but there can’t be many. On the count of three, we’ll charge together. Are you all set? One… two…”
At the count of two, a very small meerkat with square, shiny black eyes came charging out of the entrance to the burrow and ran straight at them. At first, he seemed to be all on his own. Instead of the normal war cry, he shouted, “Wheeee!,” as if he were having the time of his life.
“Tear him to pieces!” commanded Leaper. The Ruddertails flew toward him as one, teeth and claws at the ready. But the fact was, as they closed on Little Dream and looked into his eyes, he suddenly turned into a whole army with a forest of tails waving. Dozens of meerkats had suddenly appeared out of thin air, dancing and threatening!
The front rank of the Ruddertails staggered to a ragged halt, turned, and ran into the ones behind. “What’s the matter with you all? CHARGE!” screamed King Leaper.
That was the signal for yet more Sharpeye fighters to pop up from escape holes all around the burrow, dancing and yelling for all they were worth. Amazingly, the crazy little female was there again, another snake-weapon in her paw. The young male who had pulled out his eyes and torn off his feet had come back to life too! He was running along clutching the poisonous Snap-snap.
“Don’t hang back, you fools!” screamed the King of the Ruddertails. “There are far more of us than them. CHARGE!”
The Ruddertail army was well-drilled and used to obeying orders. The warriors were nervous and upset, but still they gathered themselves into their fighting formation and prepared to rush the enemy. But once again, a wicked, hissing snake sprang from the tube the little female was holding and spat great gobs of sticky brown poison high into the air. At the same time, a bolt of lightning flashed from the chest of the littlest meerkat. How the Ruddertails howled and panicked! And when they uncovered their faces and looked up, they saw a sight not one of them would forget.
Chapter 21
A beast was charging down the side of the valley, trumpeting and raising a cloud of dust.
“An elephant!” someone yelled. “A pink elephant on the charge!”
“Look out!”
“Retreat! Head for the dunes! Take cover! Run for your lives!”
Uncle Fearless could only cling onto the galloping egg chamber. He was going in the right direction and he was doing a good job making trumpeting noises, but had no control over his mount. To tell the truth, it wasn’t part of the plan for it to gather quite so much speed. By the time it hit the mound in front of the back entrance to Far Burrow, it was racing like a cheetah.
The egg chamber roared up the steep slope and took off. There was a moment’s hush as it hung in the air…then slammed into the middle ground between the two armies—and burst open.
The egg that Uncle and the pups had wanted so much to return to its mamma was jerked free of its straps and rolled among the enemy warriors. Several of the Ruddertails were bowled over by it, like furry bowling pins. As the egg bounced along, the golden covering and the ribbon around it were ripped away.
Suddenly a monstrous creature was hatched! As it broke from its golden, shiny shell, it was already flapping and calling a wild Ooo-hoo-hoooo!
It was an eagle owl!
Not one Ruddertail stayed around to see what happened next, but the young ’kats saw it. Caked in dust and bruised all over, Uncle staggered to his feet. Blink as he might, he couldn’t clear the muck from his one good eye. Dimly, he saw the moving wings of… The Silent Enemy. He heard repeated the chilling HOO-HOOO of his attack-call. Until now, this sound had always made Fearless tremble and turned his insides to jelly. Yet now he felt nothing but rage.
“So, you have come back for the pups!” he cried. “You think you can take them when their minds are busy with thoughts of the Ruddertails! But you’ll have to get past me first, what-what!”
Furiously he leapt at his arch-enemy, exclaiming, “Do your worst with your nasty beak and talons! This time, we fight to the death!” And with that, he grabbed the eagle owl and shook the daylights out of him! Feathers and fluff and stuffing flew, but Fearless the Bold battled on, ripping and twisting.
“We love you, Charlie!” sang the eagle owl in two voices that sounded like Blah-blah calls.
“Aha! Not so silent now, are you?” yelled Uncle.
“Happy birthday to our best little boy,” said the voices of the eagle owl. “We hope you have a wonderful holiday and see lots of meerkats!”
Uncle wasn’t put off by this frightening, meaningless babble. He never gave up the struggle until he had the hard, dark heart of his arch-enemy in his jaws.
Even then, it seemed determined to have a last word:
“Happy birthday to you,”
sang the heart.
“Ha
ppy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear Charlie
Happy b—”
One final crunch from Uncle’s fiercely gritted teeth—and it was silenced forever.
Chapter 22
None of the fighters caught up in the battle noticed, but a party of Blah-blahs had been filming the whole thing. Apart from the cameraman and the soundman, there was a TV presenter, his wife, and their little boy.
As the last of the screaming Ruddertails galloped back beyond the Salt Pans, never to return, the watchers stepped out of their hiding place and looked with amazement at the wreckage on the battlefield.
“I say!” gasped the woman. “You said we might see a bit of action, but—my goodness!—that was extraordinary!” She turned to the little boy. “Wasn’t it, Charlie, dear? Aren’t you glad we came to see Daddy at work? And on your birthday, too!”
The little boy at her side put his thumb in his mouth and nodded. She picked him up and hugged him.
“Did you get all that, guys?” the presenter asked the film crew. “I hope so, because that was the most amazing behavior we’ve seen so far!”
“Don’t worry, it’s all on film,” said the cameraman, whose name was Nick. “How was the sound, Jack?”
“It was all too far away to hear much,” said the soundman. “But I’ll play some of it back.” He flipped a switch and it was just possible to hear a tinny voice singing Happy birthday to you…