Meerkat Madness

Loose sand began to drift on to them from the ceiling. The kits began to cough and whimper.

“Is it an enemy?” whispered Little Dream. Skeema jumped down from Uncle’s lap and darted round the chamber making spit-noises. He always liked to have a plan. His present one was to run to an escape tunnel. He found himself digging furiously at the chamber door to get out.

“It’s an earthquake, possibly,” said Uncle. “Hush, now, Skeema. Stay with the group.” “Vroom-vroom!” breathed Little Dream.

Chapter 2

After a minute or two, it was silent once more. Uncle sounded the all-clear – Yee-oh-oo-oo-oo! – then he mused, “Do you know, Little Dream, you may have been right. I suppose it could have been a Vroom-vroom.” He paused to have a sniff and a think. “But I doubt it. They never come over to this side of the kingdom of the Sharpeyes. No.” He clacked his teeth together to show that he had made up his mind. “I think it much more likely that the sandstorm was playing tricks in the tunnels.”

The kits relaxed. As soon as the danger passed they were asking questions about the Blah-blahs again.

“Do they stand on all fours?” Mimi wanted to know.

And Little Dream asked: “Why they want to hide their eyes all the time?”

“Ha-ha! Good questions! To answer yours first, Mimi: mostly they seem to move on their hind legs. And, as I mentioned before, they’re taller than ant hills. Do you remember our lesson, where I taught you all how to stand like sentries?”

“Yes, yes,” squeaked the cubs, wriggling and stretching out their hind legs.

“Well that’s how the Blah-blahs stand!” “I can stand!” squealed Little Dream and showed them. It was too dark to see him struggling to balance. Finally he fell on his nose. Bonk! The others heard him, but took no notice.

“Do you mean the she-Blah-blahs as well as the he-Blah-blahs?” Mimi squeaked. “Can the she-Blah-blahs stand? Like Mimi? Like me? Like me?”

“Oh, give yourself a rest!” said Skeema scornfully.

“Yes, Mimi, hush now,” said Uncle Fearless. “The Chief of the Click-clicks always has a female with him. Her legs are as long as the trunks of young baobab trees. She has a long, pale mane but no fur otherwise and she has longer claws than the male. Sometimes they shine bright like red berries. Her calls are softer than the males except her alarm calls. Oh my goodness, I remember once when a scorpion scooted right up to her paw! She could easily have pounced on it and sucked the juice out of it. But what did she do? She did a funny sort of war dance and ran away making a noise like a scared baboon – eee!-eee!-eee!”

Skeema enjoyed that. “Now make up something funny about the males,” he begged.

“He’s not making it up,” insisted Little Dream.

“Ah, yes, I was going to tell Dreamie about their eyes, wasn’t I?” said Uncle, ignoring Skeema. “The Blah-blahs look rather like meerkat kits in a way, because their eyes are dark and usually on the front of their faces, but they’re flat and square and very shiny.”

“What do you mean, usually on the front?” asked Skeema. “Can they move them to other parts of their face?”

“Oh, yes. Their eyes are joined to their ears by little arms. So sometimes the Blah-blahs lift their eyes up and put them on top of their heads.”

“Oh!” gasped Mimi.

“Oh, yes, they’re very strange,” said Uncle. “The Blah-blahs’ noses are quite small compared to ours, so perhaps they can’t smell very well and they depend on their eyes to keep them safe. Their eyes are so dark and shiny that when I first got close to the Chief and he was sitting down I thought I was looking at a mighty meerkat warrior from a rival tribe! It took me quite a while to realise that I was looking at myself!”

“Vrrrrr!” purred the kits, though not all of them quite believed this part.

“Now, now, it’s getting late,” said Uncle. “We must all get plenty of sleep. We have a big day ahead tomorrow, remember!”

“Oh, please,” begged Mimi. “Tell me just one little bit more.”

“Just two things,” put in Skeema.

“Oh, all right. I’ll just tell you one or two more things that made us Sharpeyes chuckle and that’s all. I’ll start with one of the Chief’s bodyguards.

Sometimes he carried a tiny spear and shield with him. I don’t know what he was thinking of. It was far too small to protect anyone!

And he spent hours squatting down, just scratching the shield with the point of the spear. Very odd! And instead of marking out his territory in the normal way by squirting things with his scent glands, he . . . ”

“He what, Uncle?”

“Now you are going to think I’m telling you a whopper. Every now and then he put a small white stick in his mouth and set fire to it! Then he blew smoke out of his nose. Honestly! He looked like a warthog snuffling about on a frosty morning!”

The kits kicked their little legs and laughed till tears ran down their faces. It made Uncle laugh just to listen to them. “Honestly-hee-hee!” he protested. “I’m not making this up! Oh, I can’t wait to lead you up into the sunlight and get your eyes working! I’ll teach you trees! Colours! Sky! Dry white sand, rich wet sand after the rains! You’ll see how a tasty scorpion dances when it’s cornered! I’ll teach you how to rub the stink-juice off a millipede by dragging it across the sand! Believe me, seeing is almost as much fun as smelling, what-what! Hang on! I must just have another scratch.”

“Look out everyone! Here comes another earthquake!” giggled Skeema.

“Help! A flea-storm!” squealed Mimi with a chuckle.

Uncle pretended to have a fierce fight with them – which was just what they wanted. They rolled about the chamber for a while, wrestling and yipping and play-snarling and snapping.

“Oof! That’s enough! You’ve quite worn me out!” puffed Uncle, dusting himself down.

“Uncle! Is it easy to climb a Blah-blah?” asked Mimi, wanting more, as usual.

“Oh, easy as sneezing! I remember one time I was . . . ” Suddenly he was alert and on his back feet again, shaking the kits on to the floor. “There! You almost got me started again!” he said with a laugh. “But it’s way past your bedtime.”

He rolled the kits into a bundle and stood over them in the guard position, growling gently but firmly. “No more talk. Busy day tomorrow. There are so many lessons for you to learn, you’re going to need all your strength.”

Chapter 3

The pups were very excited and also rather nervous. Still, they slept soundly.

Fearless was not so lucky. He was troubled by his usual nightmare. He dreamed of beaks and claws and fighting and falling. He flung out his arms and legs like a star! This always happened just at the moment when a giant eagle owl dropped him and left him falling towards the rocks. His jerking and kicking and shouts of terror shocked him awake – and woke everyone else.

Little Dream was the first to comfort him. “Safe, Uncle,” he said and held him tight. He groomed him for a moment, feeling through his fur for fleas. As soon as Skeema and Mimi had their wits about them, they were up and hugging him, too.

“I don’t know what all this fuss is about,” grumbled Uncle, trying to pretend nothing had happened, but trembling all the same.

“If The Silent Enemy comes down on us when we reach the Upworld, I’m going to bite his head off!” said Skeema, doing his best to sound brave.

“Good lad!” said Uncle. “That’s the spirit! But don’t you worry about enemies. We shall be perfectly safe so long as we look out for one another. You see, I was . . . well, I was on my own. I was caught off guard, what-what! It was hunger that did it. My mind was on a tasty rock lizard, d’you see? The eagle owl saw his chance, came out of the sun, snatched me into the air and took out my eye with his claw.”

“Poor Uncle,” said Little Dream.

“Never be off your guard!” warned Uncle. His voice grew stronger as he added: “Ah! But at least I gave him a taste of his own medicine! I pulled a great mouthful of feathers out of his chest! Ha-ha! That shook him! That showed him who was boss! He couldn’t hold me then, what-what!”

He decided not to mention that the eagle owl had dropped him from a great height and smashed several of his bones. This was not the time. He took a deep breath to stop himself from shaking at the memory of it. “But it was all rather a shock, I don’t mind telling you. It took me a very long time to get my strength back,” he went on. “My mind wandered. I was feverish! I was weak as a grub! The rest of the Sharpeyes thought I had the Meerkat Madness. They didn’t think I’d live. So naturally, they had to choose another . . . ”

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence and so Little Dream said, “Never mind. You can be our secret king.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Skeema and Mimi. “Three cheers for our secret king!”