was nibbling a grasshopper when Fragrant’s kits and their babysitter were bundled into her presence. She was waiting on The Spoil, the loose sand heaped up just in front of the main entrance. Fearless had once been her husband but after his ‘accident’ with The Silent Enemy she had taken Chancer, Fearless’s younger brother, as her new husband. Chancer ruled the Sharpeyes with Queen Heartless now. He was the father of her royal kits.
So Queen Heartless hardly glanced at Fearless. He meant nothing to her any more. That was the meerkat way. It was something he simply had to accept. Still, if it was painful for him to be no more than a babysitter, he did his best not to show it.
The Queen puffed up her fine pale fur and sat up proudly, staring into the sun. Her back was to the newcomers as they crept, blinking, out of the burrow. The royal kits, Princes Spiteful, Needleclaw and Snatch stood beside her with Princess Dangerous. A little way off the rest of the tribe stood to attention or bobbed busily, scanning the skies and the sands all around for enemies.
The sun was still low in the sky, so the eyes of Skeema, Mimi and Little Dream were dazzled. Their first sight in this amazing new Upworld was of something shockingly bright and yellow-orange.
*
For a second, poor Little Dream thought that the Queen must be the sun itself. It hurt his eyes to look at her and he had to turn away. Most meerkats have dark patches round their deep-set eyes that allow them to look directly into the sun without damage to their sight. Not so, Little Dream. He was born with eye-patches that were so pale they could hardly be seen at all. The royal family were quick to notice this and Princess Dangerous could not stop herself from giggling. “Look at that one! Have you ever seen such silly eyes!” she whispered.
Skeema and Mimi looked dazed. They felt weak and chilly. Uncle had told them about the need to warm up their tummy-pads by standing in the sunshine and they tried to stand to attention as they knew they had to. Unfortunately, the journey through the tunnels had made them very tired and they wobbled and fell over. There was more laughter, this time from Prince Needleclaw.
The queen stopped nibbling for a moment. The grasshopper was still wriggling although she had just chewed its head off. “Have the new kits been marked?” she asked the King.
“Stand still,” ordered King Chancer and sprayed them with the royal smell.
Queen Heartless-the-Dazzling looked down her long and elegant nose at her damp new subjects.
“Now you share our Sharpeyes’ burrow,” she announced coldly.
Now you share our Sharpeyes’ smell.
Now and forever you are Sharpeyes!
“Repeat after me the Sharpeye motto: Stay alert to stay alive. And stay with the group.”
“Stay alert to stay alive,” repeated Skeema, Mimi and Little Dream. “And stay with the group.”
“You may now bow and scrape.”
The kits copied Uncle Fearless as he bowed and scraped and licked the royal face and fur, the Queen’s first, then the King’s. “Now you must greet the princes and the princess,” whispered Uncle. It turned out that the royal kits didn’t want to be licked. Instead, they formed a noisy gang and rolled the visitors over. Since they were much larger than Skeema, Mimi and Little Dream, they could do it easily. They went for Skeema first, snapping and snarling and turning him on his back in the hot sand. This caught Skeema completely by surprise. Still, he began to give as good as he got, returning with interest the bites and scratches he was given.
Uncle Fearless managed to get in among the scrapping bodies and whisper into his ear: “Give way, Skeema! Remember your place!”
Then it was Mimi’s turn to be knocked about, and finally, Little Dream’s. Mimi was nipped quite sharply but did her best to be brave and not make a fuss. Apart from Uncle, not one of the rest of the watching Sharpeyes moved or said a word.
When the royal kits turned on Little Dream he let out a warning call and words started to tumble out of him: “Wup-wup-wup! Don’t you pick on me or you’ll upset Bold Uncle Fearless and he doesn’t like bad manners and he’s our secret king and once he bit The Silent Enemy!”
“How dare you speak to us like that!” spluttered Princess Dangerous.
Little Dream took no notice. “And he is the King of the Click-clicks!” he went on. “And he’s not scared of Vroom-vrooms, and he can stand on a Blah-blah’s head, so you be careful!” It was the longest speech he had ever made.
A dreadful hush fell. This was unheard of! A kit – a commoner kit at that – speaking up without an invitation! In front of Her Majesty! Some of the humbler Sharpeyes began to murmur.
“Who does that kit think he is?”
“He must be mad!”
“It’s all that Fearless’s fault, putting ideas into his head! Secret king, indeed!”
“Yes, because he had The Madness himself – remember?”
“You’re right! Do you remember the time, just after the eagle owl attacked him and dropped him on his head? He twitched, he was helpless . . . he talked rubbish, poor kat.”
“Such a shame!”
The Queen silenced them all with a sharp cry. Nobody moved. She returned for a moment to her grasshopper, snapping off the legs one by one. For a moment there was no other sound except the whirring of insect wings. Then she said, “I have no time for any more nonsense. Tell me, Fearless, are you or any of these kits likely to be a danger to me or to my tribe?”
“N-n-not at all, Your Majesty.” Fearless was flustered but trying to seem steady.
“A babysitter’s job is to mind babies,” she said. “Not to fill their heads with nonsense. Mind them. Teach them how to be useful and how to obey. Anything else is . . . unwelcome. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely, Your Majesty. I—”
“Chancer, children, come!” she interrupted. “I lost more weight in the darktime than is good for me. I must forage for food without delay.”
With that, she turned and galloped off towards the hunting grounds.
Chapter 5
“I say, look here, my dear young Dreamer,” said Uncle as they stood alone by the burrow entrance on the very edge of the Upworld. “You mustn’t go about saying that I’m your . . . your actual king. I mean it’s awfully kind of you but it’s just not done.”
“Ah, but we like you being
