Merry Meerkat Madness

“W-where’s the snake?” asked Little Dream nervously.

The drongo opened his beak and let out a loud HISSSSS – exactly like a striking puff-adder. Instinct made the meerkats duck for cover again, but soon, very cautiously, they could not resist looking out of the entrance of the bolthole again.

“I did that,” said the saucy bird. “That was me! I can copy anybody. Listen…” He threw back his head and in quick succession he chattered like a frightened starling, laughed like a hyena, screamed, “Huu-eee-oh!” like a martial eagle and finally shouted, “WUP-WUP!” in a voice exactly like Uncle Fearless’s!

“You thief! You robber!” yelled Mimi. She showed her teeth and rushed at him.

“Hoy!” said the drongo, hopping out of the way. “Do you mind? I’m only doing what my mum and dad taught me.”

Skeema looked at the little bird with deep admiration. What a trick! he was thinking. Just think how useful it would be to be able to do that! “He’s right. Let him be, Mimi,” said Skeema. “It’s just his nature. What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

“Fledgie’s me name; mimicking’s me game!” chirped the bird. “Alarm calls are my speciality! Chuck me a few more wrigglers some time and I’ll give you a lesson, mate. Uh-oh! There’s me mum calling. Sorry, got to flit. See you!” And off he flew to join his parents.

“Brilliant!” cried Skeema.

“It’s all right for him!” complained Mimi. “But thanks to him and those greedy babies, I’m starving and I’m thirsty! So I’m jolly well going for a drink! Goodbye!” With that, she scuttled away in a huff.

“Hang on!” called Little Dream. “It’s not safe on your own. We’ll come with you.” Tails up, he and Skeema fell in behind her at a gallop. They knew exactly where she was going. She was heading for the farm where the Tick-tocks lived. Not that the kits actually thought of it as a farm. They had no idea what a farm was, but being naturally inquisitive they had discovered this place very shortly after the Really Mads moved into their new burrow.

To them, the farm was the strange and thrilling territory of an interesting tribe of Blah-blahs. Other Blah-blahs lived in pointy mounds that flapped in the wind, but these seemed to have built themselves a great white lump of an upside-down burrow, bigger and harder than a giant termite-heap. There was a round fire-pit in front of the ‘burrow’ that alarmed the kits. But in spite of their fear of the smoke and flames, they were drawn to the farm by the smell of sweet, fresh water. Meerkats mostly live without needing to drink, by sucking the juice out of their prey. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t enjoy cooling their tongues and splashing about in water when the weather is particularly hot.

The kits had already come across a fair number of Blah-blahs in their short lives. They were mostly tall, pale, harmless creatures, who sometimes wandered across Really Mad territory on two legs calling “blah-blah-blah-blah” to each other. Like meerkats, they came from different tribes. The tribe that the kits knew best, the Click-clicks, often gave them bits of boiled egg and let them stand on their heads. They held strange eye-protectors in front of their faces, and they sometimes went click-click.

Sometimes other small mobs of visiting Blah-blahs hurried across the Really Mads’ territory, making a lot of noise. There were the Oolooks and the Hurry-ups and the Whevubins, all named by Uncle after the calls they used. They were often very frightened of the local animals and hid from them in their mobile escape tunnels that ran very fast on spinners.

As it happened, the family on the farm were not pale like these creatures; these were Zulu people. The kits knew them as the Tick-tocks because that’s how the Zulu language sounded to them, with all its tick-tocking of tongues. Generally, the Tick-tocks were gentle and not threatening, moving about their territory calmly and gracefully on their two legs, though they did keep a mobile escape tunnel near their main burrow – a very big and noisy and smoky one that roared vroom-vroom!

The kits loved to sneak on to the farm, partly to enjoy the water and partly to test their courage. To reach the water needed nerve and skill, for there were delicious dangers and challenges everywhere.

One was the wire fence stretched round the place, which glittered and whistled in the wind. The clumps of fur and feathers that were caught in it warned them just how nasty it could be. But the wire didn’t put Mimi off. “I’m not scared one bit!” she had scoffed when she first set eyes on it. “I can just burrow underneath. And look! This is easy-squeezy. Somebody’s started digging here already!”

Under she went with her brothers following close behind, passing back the dug-out sand, no problem at all. Even so, to reach the water they still had to get past some strange beasts that they hadn’t come across before. These bearded, woolly creatures trampled about everywhere inside the fence. They had mad eyes and sharp horns, but luckily, as the kits soon discovered, they were harmless. They seemed quite happy just to get their heads down and nibble and bleat, “Baaaa… Baaah!”

There were some hungry-looking fat birds there too, strutting about. Luckily they turned out to be silly, clumsy things. They didn’t fly up but scratched in the dirt.

“No danger,” the kits whispered to one another. Still, they knew that you had to be careful not to scare them or they would flap and cry, “Perk! Puck-puck-puck!” If that happened, one of the Tick-tocks would think you were a striped polecat and come running out with a stick.

As if that wasn’t enough, the kits had to face the turning tree that guarded the water. It whirled its arms wildly and rattled and shook. “Take no notice,” said Skeema boldly. “It’s only making threat-noises. Just wait till it’s looking the other way and we’ll sneak past.” And indeed, when the wind changed and the windmill was facing away from them, the kits raced to lap the water that came from deep under the sand.

It happened that as the kits were enjoying a refreshing drink on this particular Christmas Eve, their attention was suddenly caught by a movement in front of the farmhouse, near the fire-pit. The young female Tick-tock and her infant brother (let’s call them Molly and Ajahn) were jumping up and down and clapping their paws together.

Suddenly the Blah-blah papa came running with a loud cry. He had knocked down a young camel-thorn tree as tall as himself and now he lifted it above his head with his mighty arms and shook it at his cubs. As he did so, the mama appeared from the burrow entrance, with a box of bright, shiny things that sparkled in the sun.

“Quick! They’re going to attack!” cried Mimi. “Run!”

“No, wait,” whispered Little Dream. “They’re not after us. Look!”

With a grunt, the papa stood the tree upright by jamming it into the sand, and with many a tick with his tongue, and a clock and a tock, and with many a shriek of delight, the family gathered round it and did something very strange indeed. They began to make a dress for the tree, which dazzled and danced in the breeze, and to hang strange fruit of all shapes and sizes on it!

When they had finished dressing the tree, the adults went away. But then the kits saw another strange sight. The Blah-blah cubs began building a sort of tower out of sand!

“What is it? A nest for termites?” whispered Skeema.

But no. Gradually it became clear that what they were actually making… was some sort of tall Blah-blah like themselves! They dipped their hands into a bucket and began to smooth his skin with water. They made him eyes out of berries and a long red nose out of a pepper. They wound a scarf round his neck, as long and colourful as a rainbow. Finally they popped a bush-hat on his head.

“Look at that!” breathed Skeema, astonished. “We’d better go and tell the others about this!”

(#ulink_205db3ee-bb83-5e6a-bc83-42488323e682)

The race back to tell the rest of the Really Mads what they had just seen was won by Little Dream. Mimi and Skeema were so keen to be first with the news that they kept charging into each other and tripping each other up.

“Uncle… Uncle!” panted Little Dream, scattering the babies in all directions as he rushed among them.

“By all the paws that drum in the dust…! What is it, Dreamie?” cried Fearless, twisting his head from side to side to make best use of his one good eye. “Is there a rival mob on the rampage?”

“Tick-tocks!” gasped Little Dream. “Bonkers!”

“Tick-tocks?” repeated Uncle.

“Poor little chap. He’s got the jolly old hiccups!” suggested Radiant.

Mimi and Skeema arrived, bickering and rolling over and over.

“Steady! Untangle yourselves!” commanded Uncle. “You’re alarming the babies!” He could see now that there was no danger, but he wasn’t prepared to put up with a lot of nonsense from kits who ought to know better. “Now stop this argy-bargy and tell me what’s going on, or you’ll feel my royal teeth in your tails!”

“Sorry, Uncle Fearless,” panted Skeema. “But the Tick-tocks have gone daft.”

“You won’t believe what they’ve been up to!” gasped Little Dream. “… A tree… wearing sunshine!”

“I beg your pardon? Don’t you mean it was wearing leaves?” asked Radiant.

“They knocked over a tree,” Mimi explained. “Then they made it wear a beautiful dress like the Blah-blah females wear… only all bright and dazzling!”

“Who did, dear?” asked Radiant.

“The Tick-tocks!” said Skeema. “The Blah-blahs-by-the-water! And they weren’t eating leaves off the tree; they were hanging bright things on it!”

“Well, I never!” said Radiant.

“You’ve got no business to go wandering over there!” cried Uncle. He tried to sound stern, but he couldn’t quite keep the admiration out of his voice. “Why, you might have been pounced on!”

“There was a star on top!” said Little Dream.

“So bright!” said Mimi, her voice full of wonder. “It must have fallen from the sky in the darktime.”

“And there was a little Vroom-vroom, smaller than me hanging down from it like a fruit,” said Skeema. “And they hung other things on the branches… like… sort of…” Poor Skeema, he couldn’t think how to explain a dolly and a whistle and lollipops and a plastic water pistol, so he settled for… “a baby-Blah-blah!”

“A tree in a dress, dear? Growing fruit shaped like a little Vroom-vroom and a baby-Blah-blah? I don’t think so,” came the soft voice of Fragrant, his mama, bounding up to them. “I think you’ve been in the sun too long.” She raised her voice a little to reassure her anxious mate who was on sentry duty on top of the dune behind them.