by Ian Whybrow
“Well, don’t worry, you’ve got us now,” said Little Dream.
“I’m sure we can help you find your family, but we meerkats are daytime creatures,” explained Skeema, shivering. “We need to rest at night. Which is good because it’ll give us time to come up with a proper plan. But it’s getting really cold now and if we don’t hurry up and find a burrow quickly, we will f-f-freeze.”
“It was very kind of you to feed me,” whispered the lion cub, lifting his nicely filled tummy. “Thank you. Now, why don’t you squeeze up under the folds of my belly? You’ll be snug there, and safe until the sun comes up again.”
The kits couldn’t have been more snug. But the lion cub was too full and too exhausted to keep watch. His eyelids drooped and in moments he was sound asleep.
That’s why it was no trouble at all for three Blah-blahs to creep up at first light and tangle him in their net.
Shadow saw them come and he saw them go. He did not like what was happening. He could not prevent it, but he was a thoughtful boy and he made a mental note of everything.
Chapter 9
The kits had come across Vroom-vrooms before. Uncle Fearless had taught them that they were mobile escape tunnels. “Special moving burrows, what-what!” he had answered when Mimi had questioned him long ago. “The Blah-blahs don’t bother to dig extra passages to escape along in emergencies. So they keep Vroom-vrooms close by to jump into. Then they can get away fast if danger comes.”
They also knew how dangerous Vroom-vrooms were, charging along like buffaloes. One had run right over Uncle and Little Dream once, but luckily they had not been touched by its spinners, so they lived to tell the tale.
Why no one heard the Vroom-vroom coming, none of the kits could say. But suddenly there were loud cries: BLAH-BLAH! BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!
These were accompanied by frightened snarls, growls, screams, scuffling—and the swish of the net that closed over poor Griff!
Perhaps because they were lighter sleepers than Griff, the Really Mads woke up in time to rush for cover. From the hiding place where they lay shaking, the kits watched in horror as the Blah-blahs trussed up Griff until he was as helpless as a fly wrapped tight in a spider’s cocoon. There was nothing they could do but watch in horror as he was hoisted up on a pole between the shoulders of two grim-looking Blah-blahs and carried away, out of sight. Now that they were alert and listening hard, they had no difficulty hearing the Vroom-vroom roar into life somewhere on the edge of Green Island. Then it growled away into the distance across the almost lifeless desert.
It was still early morning when, shaking with cold and with no time for a proper, leisurely Warm-up, Skeema, Mimi, and Little Dream stood together by the dead fire, feeling miserable and hopeless. So far, nobody had come up with any sort of plan.
“Uncle Fearless would know what to do,” said Skeema. “And he’s an excellent tracker. I think we should go back to Far Burrow and get his advice. Don’t you think so, Mimi? Besides, he’s bound to be worried sick about us.”
“He’s not worried about me,” said Mimi bitterly. “All he cares about is that fluffy female.”
“Now, that’s not fair!” replied Skeema. “He would die for us and you know it!”
“But we promised Griff we would help him find his mama,” Little Dream reminded them. “We can’t do that if we don’t go and rescue him! We just haven’t got time to go back to Far Burrow right now. I really think we should follow the Vroom-vroom. You don’t need to be clever to follow Vroom-vroom tracks when they’re fresh. But the sand will cover them if we don’t hurry!”
“Good plan, Dreamie!” said Skeema. “You’re right. There’s no time to lose. Poor old Griff has had a rough time and besides, it was really friendly of him to keep us warm, don’t you think?”
“Yes, and it was pretty special of him not to eat us, too,” added Little Dream.
Talking about eating made the kits hungry, and if they were going on a rescue mission, they’d need plenty of energy. They sniffed at the dirt, ready to dig for breakfast. “Look here!” cried Mimi. Close by the ostrich egg-wells, another broad leaf had appeared, folded neatly into a parcel. This time it contained orange fruit, nuts, a paste made of crushed seeds, and some fat, wriggling maggots. Just the perfect breakfast! The kits dug in, too hungry to even wonder where it came from.
Suddenly, a ray of sunlight caught the glass beads sewn onto the leather pouch that Mimi had found. Even though he was wearing the Blah-blah eye-protectors he always wore, Little Dream was still dazzled by the way they glittered.
“What’s in this?” he asked, picking up the pouch and shaking it. It rattled. He put his paw inside the pouch and pulled out a pawful of beautifully painted pieces of ostrich shell.
“I don’t know what these are, but I will take them with me,” announced Little Dream. “You never know—they might come in handy.”
“And I will take this to be my tall stick, like the one belonging to the shape of the Blah-blah warrior I saw in the cave,” announced Skeema. He picked up the strong, white, hollow bone that came from the shin of an ostrich. He waved it like a spear in one paw while he lifted the Snap-Snap in the other and squeaked it.
Not to be out-done, Mimi grabbed a handful of feathers and porcupine quills and stuck them in her headband. “Now I look important, like a secretary bird. And I can strut, peck, and stamp, and look fearsome. And if an enemy comes close, I shall prick him like this.” In a flash, she snatched a quill and jabbed it in Skeema’s bottom.
“Yikes!” he squealed and jabbed her back with his stick.
A giggle made them all stop and listen carefully.
“Hyena!” warned Skeema with a shudder. “Stay together!”
He was mistaken about the hyena. It was Shadow who was laughing at the little warrior meerkats. He had been looking down through a gap in the thorn fence in front of the cave. He put his hand over his mouth to stifle the noise. Even so, he couldn’t stop the tears of merriment from pouring down his cheeks.
Chapter 10
It was easy for the Really Mads to find the Vroom-vroom’s trail and follow it, and quite honestly, they had not expected to catch up with it so quickly. They had hardly lost sight of Green Island and there it was—stuck in a steep dune with one of its back spinners lying in the soft, hot sand. The Blah-blahs were in a rage.
“Blah-BLAH-Blah-blah!” screamed the Chief, the one with the reddest face. The others leaned against the side of the Vroom-vroom and tried to tip it back. One was small with baboon’s ears and there was a giant one with a safari hat like Uncle Fearless’s, only bigger than a tortoise shell.
Red-face took the spinner off the back of the Vroom-vroom and staggered around to the front with it, to put it in the space left by the one that had come off.
“Go, go, go!” whispered Skeema, and while the hunters were concentrating on the spinner, the kits skittered around to the back of the Vroom-vroom and peered in. Right away, they saw Griff, still cruelly bundled up in the net.
When he saw them, Griff’s sad face brightened. He curled his lip, ready to roar a greeting. Quickly they waved and put their paws over their mouths, meaning, Shush! “Lie still,” they whispered, saying the words big so Griff could lip-read them. “We can’t get you out yet. We’ll rescue you later.”
“Blah-BLAH!” barked Red-face and started trudging through the sand towards the back of the Vroom-vroom. The kits dove for cover underneath while he pulled the door open and rattled around for something clunky.
“We’ve got to get inside and go with them,” hissed Mimi.
“We can’t,” Skeema hissed back. “The Blah-blahs will see us. We need to get on top, somehow. Ah! Look here!” An untidy heap, mostly made up of poles and camping equipment was tied onto the roof rack with rope. A piece of it was dangling down. “Quick, Mimi! Hold this and give me a leg-up!” urged Skeema. He passed the Snap-snap and his long bone-stick to Little Dream. His sister made a kit’s-cradle with her paws and, placing his hind paw in it, he man
aged to grab the end of the rope and heave himself up on to the roof. Little Dream tossed up his weapons and Skeema tucked them away in the folds of the canvas.
“Come on!” he hissed, but quickly realized that there was no way that Mimi or Little Dream could reach the end of the rope. He slid down the rope again, leaving his back legs dangling. Mimi jumped and was able to grab his ankles. Then she let down her tail and Little Dream was able to use that as a rope. The worst part was when he got his sharp little claws into her body fur and pulled himself up and over her. “OO-OW! OO!” Next he scrambled up and over his brother—“EEK ! OOCH! OUCH!”
“Do you mind?” grumbled Skeema, as Little Dream stuck a paw on his nose.
“Sorry!” squeaked Little Dream. But at last he was on the roof and able to help haul up the others.
Quickly, they hid themselves in the folds of canvas—and they were just in time. With a lot of snarls, grunting, and sweating, the Blah-blahs fixed the sleeping Vroom-vroom and then woke it up. Awake, it was in an even worse mood than they were. It roared with rage as it heaved itself off the sand dune and onto firmer ground.
“Hang on tight!” warned Mimi. “Grip with your teeth and claws!” The Vroom-vroom grumbled as it began to trot and shouted louder as it started to gallop, bucking, swaying, and kicking up dust like a charging rhino. Goodness knows how the terrified kits managed to cling on, but somehow they did.
On and on they rushed, the sights and smells of the Upworld changing around them so quickly that after a while they all began to feel sick and dizzy. And when at last the roaring stopped and the Vroom-vroom was still and only ticking in the heat like a weary cicada, they found themselves peeping out at wire fences and big, white blocks.
*
Beneath the roof, where the kits clung dizzily to the luggage, the Vroom-vroom cracked open at the sides and the Blah-blahs broke out, like ugly chicks from a square egg.
“Blah-blah! Blah!” barked Red-face, the chief. For a moment, as he stretched himself to his full height, his head, with its huge tortoise shell of a helmet, was level with Skeema. He was so close that Skeema could smell his breath. It was nasty and sour, like smoke from a bush fire. At first Skeema considered burrowing deeper into the canvas, but he remembered how he had found the wriggling stone bug. “Keep still!” he warned himself, and the Blah-blah chief moved on.
Red-face and the others cracked the Vroom-vroom open at the back. No sooner had they done so that Griff let out a hiss like a nest of cobras.
“Blah-blah! Grabbim!” yelled Red-face. The giant and Baboon-ears tugged at the net and tumbled it onto the ground.
Griff could do little more than growl, hiss, and show the Blah-blahs what he would do to them if he were free. They pushed the pole through the net again and two of the Blah-blahs lifted him up with it. They grumbled and grunted. “Uh! Oof! Aha! Grabbim!”
Baboon-ears suddenly gave a scream.
“Good old Griff!” whispered Mimi. “He got his claws into that one!”
“Where are they taking him?” said Little Dream.
“Let’s follow and find out,” said Skeema. “We’ll have to jump for it.”
It was a long way down, but jump they all did, breaking their fall by rolling over and over again. They had no worries about the Blah-blahs seeing them because they had their paws full with the struggling Griff.
The kits bobbed up and down, trying to attract Griff’s attention. At last he caught sight of them, and immediately he calmed down.
“Blah-blah!” grunted the giant, obviously thinking that the noises he was making had frightened the spirited little scratcher into silence.
“Don’t worry. We’re still here!” Skeema mouthed, as they followed silently after them.
Chapter 11
The kits managed to keep out of sight behind the Blah-blahs, who were concentrating on carrying the lion cub. They made their way along a track that ran among cages and small patches of trodden ground, surrounded by shiny wire with spikes on it sharper than thorns. In these wired-off areas, dazed creatures stood single and silent and drooping, staring at the sky.
An ostrich gave the meerkats a look and a tut as they passed but then scratched aimlessly at the ground, as if the ground were more interesting. A porcupine scuttled away and hid in a small box.
“Why are you here?” Little Dream asked a miserable kudu as they passed. But the kudu said nothing.
On they went, past a zebra with a coat as dull as the dust he stood on, an oryx, and an eland, all rippling their shoulders to scatter the flies that settled on them in clouds. Then they passed a row of bored and circling cats, padding aimlessly around the little spaces they were trapped in—a raggy-looking leopard, a cheetah with a limp, and an old Kalahari lion with a tattered gray-black mane.
“Ask the cheetah,” suggested Skeema, so Little Dream asked, “Why are you here?” But the cheetah was only interested in his meat—meat in a bucket.
“What is going on?” Mimi wondered aloud.
The Blah-blahs stopped at an enclosure next to the old lion. They opened the heavy, barred gate and took Griff in, the three of them holding him down as they untangled him from the net. They backed away, expecting him to give them a fight, but the cub was worn out. He lay panting as they retreated and closed the heavy gate behind them.
Baboon-ears tipped some water into a dish and dropped a rattling handful of something dry into another. Then Red-face led the Blah-blahs away.
*
“Action stations, Wup! Wup!” cried Skeema, as the kits slipped under the wire.
Griff was lying on a mound of earth in front of a small cave. To get to him, the kits had had to cross a deep ditch. It was no trouble for them to scramble down one side and up the other, but it was too wide for a lion cub to leap across without getting hurt by the dreadful wire. The kits sat quietly with Griff, not saying anything at first. They just snuggled up to him and let him feel their hearts beating until they were all feeling more settled and sure of themselves.
Then Griff told them what they knew he was feeling. “I don’t like it here. I want my mama. Why am I here?”
“Ask the Kalahari lion,” suggested Skeema.
Griff called out to his neighbor who opened his mouth, but could not raise a roar in reply. It was as if his throat was clogged with dust. He flicked his tail, more like a camel than a King of the Plains.
Mimi had made up her mind. “These Blah-blahs are bad,” she said. “They are not at all like our Click-clicks at home. They make threat noises all the time. I think they are another tribe altogether.”
“I don’t understand,” said Griff, so they told him all about the Blah-blahs, and the Click-click tribe back home, with their funny pointy mounds, their eye-protectors, and their Vroom-vrooms.
“But if these Blah-blahs are not Click-clicks, what tribe are they?” asked Griff.
“I think they must be the Grabbim tribe,” said Mimi. “And I think I know why they brought you here.”
“You do?” cried Skeema. “Why then?”
“Because it’s the dry season!” said Mimi.
“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Little Dream.
“Well, you can see how big they are,” said Mimi, and the others agreed. “So they must eat a lot. And when food is scarce near their burrow, they go out in their Vroom-vrooms and capture any animals they can. Then they bring them here so they can eat them whenever they feel hungry.”
“Mimi! I had no idea you were so clever!” said Skeema.
“Nor does anybody else!” grumbled Mimi, getting huffy. “Including Uncle. If he did, he wouldn’t go off looking for other princesses to join the Really Mads.”
“But it was only one, and I’m sure she’s very nice, really,” Skeema reminded her.
“Yes, but she’s not much use, is she?” Mimi said.
Griff interrupted them. He was horrified. “Hey! I don’t want to get eaten!” he said. “Don’t let them eat me!”
“We won’t,” said Little
Dream, giving him a comforting pat. “Skeema will come up with a plan. He’s good at them.”
And sure enough, Skeema did come up with a plan. “We will wait until nighttime,” he mused, “until the Blah-blahs are asleep—and then we will all run away together. And then we’ll go and look for your mama.”
“And our mama,” added Little Dream.
“And our mama,” agreed Skeema. “We’ll find Griff’s mama first and then we will search for ours. OK, Dreamie?”
“But I can’t get across the ditch!” said Griff anxiously. “My legs are too small and too weak. And I can’t get through the wire.”
“Ah, but there’s no need to go through it,” said Skeema with a crafty grin, “when we’ve got these.” And he held up his front paws, each with four sharp claws—perfect for digging.
Chapter 12
When the sun set, the kits peeked out from Griff’s little cave and were surprised to find that there was still so much light. Since their nights were normally spent in a chamber, deep under the earth, they didn’t know about the moon and the stars.
All night the meerkats had dug fast and deep, but they had never tried digging a tunnel wide enough for a lion cub to get through. It was hard work. Though it was nighttime, the air was hot and full of electricity that lifted their fur into crackling points. Black thunderclouds slid across the moon and hid it.
“Shoulder-to-shoulder,” puffed Skeema. “Maybe that will do the trick!”
Sadly it didn’t. They were used to working one in front of the other to clear out burrows. Being side-by-side meant getting in one another’s way.
Griff did his best to help, but he kept getting in the way, too. And besides, his claws were the wrong shape for tunneling. He could scoop—a bit like a puppy—but he was no good at tunneling.
Little by little, they all began to tire. Not surprisingly, since he wasn’t used to digging, Griff was soon flat on his tummy, gasping for breath.