have to leave. Still, I’m afraid it’s just not safe any more – especially for the littl’ies. A lot of the escape tunnels will have collapsed already, I’m certain. And what’s the most important thing for a meerkat home?”
“If danger’s about, you need to get out!” chorused the kits.
“Which means…?” prompted Uncle Fearless.
“Boltholes, boltholes and more boltholes!”
“Right answer!” declared Uncle. “Always be ready for anything! That’s the ticket, my clever kits! We’re all right for a short while in this rather Whiffy Old Scrape, but it won’t do in the long run, what-what! Now, are we all set for a look-about?”
“Not half! I could eat a hippopotamus,” declared Skeema.
“Then Upworld, here we come, by all that does and dares!” cried Uncle, and upwards they scurried.
It took only a few moments before they saw the first glimmer of light at the entrance to the tunnel they were in and their hearts began to beat faster. “Steady as we go,” said Uncle. Little Dream waited for orders, but Skeema and Mimi were not so patient. They pushed and shoved in a race to be the first to squeeze out of the bolthole and into the sunshine.
“Wait!” said Uncle firmly.
Cautiously, he lifted his nose and sniffed, picking out traces of all manner of creatures: kudu, zebra, wildebeest, springbok, antelope, giraffe and elephant. “Hmm, the Big Ones are gathering in numbers,” he muttered. “They’re after the new shoots. No matter. By the smell of it, I’d say they passed this way a while ago in the darktime, but you never know.”
“Any sign of lions or leopards?” whispered Skeema. “Any cheetahs?”
“Good thinking, my boy!” said Uncle. “Where the great herds go, the pouncers follow, eh? Quiet, now!”
He twitched his sensitive ears in another direction. He heard parrot squawks and bird calls, the clap of storks’ bills, the chattering of monkeys in the branches overhead. A low, rasping laugh – “Herrr-harrr-ha-hah-harrrr!” – made him duck for cover. “Brown hyenas, by all that’s bullying!” he said. The kits clung to him until they felt the tension go out of him. Only then did they start to breathe again. Uncle shook himself free and – ever so cautiously – lifted his head once more and looked about him.
It isn’t easy to look around with just one eye. Fearless had to swivel his neck like an owl. An owl. Inwardly, he cursed The Silent Enemy, the eagle owl, that long ago had caught him off-guard and swept him up into the sky. Before Fearless had been able to struggle from its grip, the bird had half blinded him. Now, far off, Fearless spied a bateleur eagle circling. Another deadly foe! He muttered a low Wup! Wup! but then added softly for the benefit of the others, “As you were. It’s a long way away. Good. Stand by to surface.”
“Have the rains gone?” came impatient Mimi’s voice. “Oh, let Mimi come up and see, me, me!”
“Just keep your fur on while I run through my check list!” barked Uncle. “Now then. Sun’s up? Check! Skies blue and clear? Check. No danger up? Check. No enemies close, no runners, no creepers, no sidewinders or crawlers? Check. But dear-oh-dear!”
“What’s the matter?” called Skeema.
“You’d better come up and see for yourselves,” said Uncle with another sigh.
One by one Skeema, Mimi and Little Dream pulled themselves out of the bolthole entrance, lined up beside him and looked about. They found themselves among the roots of a clump of fever trees that rose from a high patch of rocky ground. Without a word, Skeema took sentry duty at the top of one of them. Horrified, the kits saw at once that streams were running fast into the main entrances to the burrow. A muddy lake had formed in the shallow valley where the yellow foraging-grounds once stretched out. The scrubby bushes and low thorn trees that they knew so well had disappeared under deep water that stretched as far as Shepherd Tree Clump.
“Gone,” muttered Uncle. “Far Burrow and all our best hunting-grounds!”
“Take cover!” Skeema called suddenly and Uncle and Mimi and Little Dream threw themselves flat on the damp and still chilly sand. The cloudless blue sky had turned pink and now began to gabble and honk.
“What’s happening, Uncle?” squeaked Little Dream. “Is it an attack?”
“Nothing of the sort,” snorted Uncle. “Just a bunch of flamingos, that’s all. Quite a sight, eh? They’re heading for The Great Salt Pan to feed. They won’t harm us. Come along now, let’s get on with Warm-up.”
Uncle stood tall, placed his paws under his (rather fat) belly and heaved his warming-pad up towards the rising sun. “One-two-three… HUP!” he cried, as he did first thing every suntime. Skeema, Mimi and Little Dream copied him, pretending that their own tummies were as big and round as Uncle’s and echoed his “One-two-three… HUP!” as, grinning round at each other, they hoisted them high. Sharing a joke always helps when things get tough.
They stood quietly like that, watching the thousands of rosy flamingos flapping busily onward above them, stretching their long necks towards their feeding-grounds.
“I wish I could fly,” said Little Dream, pretty much to himself. “Last night I dreamed about flying. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to lift yourself up and up… higher than the highest tree in the Upworld?”
“And what would you do then?” asked Uncle affectionately. In the early morning sunlight, he felt some of his customary vim and vigour swelling in him, like the sweet juice that plumps up a wild tomato.
“I would look for Mama,” said Little Dream softly. “And when I found her, I would fly down and lead her home.”
Uncle was so touched, he had to clear his throat. “Hurrumph! Lead her home, you say?”
He didn’t really see how his sister, Fragrant, the kits’ mother, could possibly be alive. The night she had gone missing, there had been wild dogs on the loose. No one could seriously believe that a lone meerkat could survive a pack of hungry Painted Ones on the prowl. However, he felt sure that this was not the time to say so. The Really Mad Mob had come very close to losing everything dear to them, so his duty as king at the moment was, as he saw it, to keep everyone’s spirits up.
“In that case,” he added gently, “we shall just have to make sure we build a splendid new one, shan’t we? Meanwhile, we all know what we must do at this present moment, which is…?”
“Get some food inside us and Crack On!” came the resounding reply.
Crack On is the Meerkat Way.
And
