Merry Meerkat Madness Read online

  “That’s true,” admitted Skeema. “But Uncle, look at it this way: If the chickie is still alive, he won’t live through the night cold unless there’s someone there to keep him warm. We’re his only hope. Don’t you think we should at least try to find him?”

  Uncle cleared his throat. Harrrumph. “Well, now, look here, I don’t know which is the deadlier enemy: your cheetah or your jackal. Your cheetah will outrun you and your jackal will outsmart you. Still, I must say those young Tick-tocks got me thinking when they brought water out here to comfort a poor distressed ostrich. They risked a good kicking, you know. I know that’s silly, but it’s also rather impressive— this giving thing they do in the Season of Plenty—don’t you agree?”

  “Absolutely!” chorused the kits.

  “So, here’s the thing. Can we honestly call ourselves the Really Mads and not take a few risks for others ourselves?”

  “No!” yelled the kits. “No way! Let’s go!” and their excited cries were copied exactly by Fledgie. No way! Let’s go!

  “Come along then. Brace yourselves for an adventure, my brave-hearts!” said Uncle, feeling proud to be in charge of them. “We’ll start by following these jackal tracks toward the place where the sun drops out of sight in the sky. Westward, ho!”

  “Westward, ho!” cried the others.

  Chapter 5

  In the heat and in the featureless, foreign territory where few trees cast shadows, the Really Mads had a hard time. They all understood the risks they were taking. They all knew that they were wide open to attack every step of the way.

  Concentrating on following the trail of the Black-backs meant heads down and noses twitching. That was dangerous. The Silent Enemy may be dead—the eagle owl that had taken Uncle’s eye in that fateful battle long ago—but there were plenty of goshawks and martial eagles circling in the sky that were just as deadly.

  “Good thing we’ve got Fledgie flying overhead, keeping a lookout!” puffed Skeema, galloping on strongly, eager as a small hound.

  “Hear, hear!” said Uncle. “Remind me to make him an honorary Really Mad when this is over!” He might have added, “If we ever get home alive,” but he was too good a leader to say so out loud.

  The tracking was made harder because the paw prints of the jackals often got trampled by the hoofprints of vast numbers of other creatures that were moving about in search of the greenest grazing, as was the way in the Season of Plenty.

  Uncle could feel the ground trembling as hundreds of gemsbok, eland, and red hartebeest went pushing along to the east of them, but not near enough to be a danger.

  So on they went, dodging among blue pea, driedoring, and candle thorn bushes, now and then risking a detour among tall whispering herbs and golden grasses leaping with hares and springbok. “Too tall, too tall!” muttered Uncle, knowing that this prairie was just the sort of territory where cheetahs creep, scheming to get within sprinting distance of anything edible. He raised his

  voice and cried, “Boltholes! Boltholes!” to the kits as a warning for them to be ready to get underground at a moment’s notice.

  But there were no holes in sight when the earth trembled and the grasses parted just in front of them and suddenly they were face to face with a muddy, snorting creature with wild eyes and swept-back piggy ears. It was a male white rhino calf, twenty times their size. When he saw the meerkats he skidded to a halt and squealed with fright.

  “A square-lip!” shouted Skeema. “What do we do, Uncle?”

  “S-stand together!” cried Little Dream bravely. “Make ourselves big!”

  “It’s only a baby!” added Mimi. “He won’t hurt us, will he?”

  “The baby’s not the problem,” said Uncle, as his one eye settled on a movement in the grass behind the calf. “It’s his mother we need to worry about! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!”

  There was a snarl and a furious shriek and the sound of thunder from somewhere just behind the rhino calf. It was indeed the calf’s mama! If she had kept her enormous head down and simply carried on charging, no doubt she could have skewered all four of the Really Mads on her deadly twin horns or, more likely, squashed them like bugs. Luckily she took a moment to display her favorite threat-move. She stood with her great, long head down, snorting and bellowing and then sweeping her horns from side to side along the ground like a scythe.

  “Head for those camel thorn trees!” yelled Uncle. “And whatever you do, don’t look back!”

  The kits didn’t need to be told twice. They dashed for the clump of trees like mice with an aardwolf on their tails. They had gotten as far as a large, blotchy yellow boulder that was lying in their path when, without warning, it decided to stand up. “Jump!” yelled Skeema and the four of them had to spring like gazelles to clear it.

  “Sorry, Mister,” puffed Little Dream, who was last over. But the leopard tortoise (that’s what the boulder was) was too busy chewing a desert thistle to even notice, let alone demand an apology.

  The mother rhino was gathering speed now, nosing her excited baby along as she charged.

  Fledgie swooped low over the Really Mads’ heads. “Keep going! There’s a nice safe hole straight ahead!” he chirped encouragingly. And sure enough, they saw it—and smelled it—under the tangled roots of the nearest camel thorn tree.

  Uh-oh, thought Uncle. Let’s hope the owner of this hole is not at home when we get there, what-what! Though he was wise enough to keep the thought to himself, knowing they’d just have to risk it. “DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!” he shouted, and the Really Mads plunged into the darkness of the den.

  “Phew!” gasped the Really Mads as they collapsed in the safety of the bolthole, panting and listening while the rhino took out her temper on the trunk of the tree. It was a while before she lifted her head and trotted proudly away.

  As soon as the coast was clear, the kits emerged from the hole.

  “What’s happened to Fledgie?” asked Little Dream, glancing up at the sky.

  “This might attract his attention,” said Skeema and he gave his faithful Snap-snap a couple of squeezes. SKWEE-SKWEE!

  “Skwee-swee,” came an echoing call and very soon the cheerful drongo was fluttering down to join them.

  “A close call!” exclaimed Uncle, snuffling among the scrapes and hollows churned up by the rhinos’ pounding hooves. The little mob looked all around in dismay. The Black-backs’ trail seemed to have disappeared completely. “Harrumph,” said Uncle, looking down into each of the little faces that were raised toward his. “I’d say that our chances of finding Sprintina’s chick are now—um—what’s the number that comes before number one?”

  “Don’t ask me,” chirped Fledgie. “I told you, I’m not good at counting.”

  “I think it’s ‘hero,’” said Skeema. “Or something like that. What do you think, Dreamie?”

  “I don’t think it’s ‘hero,’ because that’s what Uncle is,” said Little Dream thoughtfully. “But nothing comes before number one, surely.”

  “That’s the one, Dreamie!” cried Uncle, patting him on the back. “Nothing! Well done. That’s just the word I was looking for! As I say, we’ve got just about a nothing chance of finding any lost chickie now. So we’ve got to decide as a team. Do we give up? Or shall we do the wild thing and…”

  “…TREK ON!” exclaimed the kits, holding their chins high, finishing his sentence for him.

  “Good show! Just what I hoped you’d say,” said Uncle. “I’m proud of you!”

  “Skwee-skweeee!”

  “Wha…? Who was that? Was that your Snap-snap making me jump, Skeema?”

  “No, matey, it was me!” tweeted Fledgie. “If you all would just let me get a chirp in edgeways, I was going to tell you that I’ve spotted a big old nest in the sand—down by the riverbed over that rise there!”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” yelled Uncle. “Let’s move on!”

  Chapter 6

  The nest that Fledgie led the Really Mads to was a sorry sight. At its best, it should
have been a neat circular pit in the sand with perhaps ten or twenty eggs packed neatly together in it. But this was a shapeless mess. There were hundreds of prints in the scuffed-up sand. Nevertheless, it was still possible to pick out the wide three-toed marks of ostrich feet, running in all directions away from the place. Sadly, these were easily outnumbered by the tell-tale four-clawed paw prints and skid marks and scrapings of jackals in a feeding frenzy.

  “All the eggs are gone,” murmured Little Dream, gazing sadly at the signs of destruction.

  “The jackals have taken them all,” groaned Skeema.

  “Well, we expected that,” said Uncle.

  Great, soft bunches of giant tail plumes and wing feathers lay scattered on the ground. Mimi began to nose among them. “So pretty!” she crooned sadly. “So warm and soft!”

  “That’s the way,” said Uncle, giving himself a good shake-up. “Good thinking, Mimi! The least we can do is tidy up a bit. Lend us a paw, everyone.”

  The meerkats began to scrape the nest back into shape with their long claws. They lifted the loose, red sand gently and because, in a way, they felt they were building a small monument here by an almost dried-out riverbed in a strange and barren land. Meanwhile, Fledgie swooped about, picking up ostrich-feathers in his beak, gathering them into a heap. It lifted everybody’s spirits to keep busy, and suddenly there was a cry of surprise and delight from Little Dream. “What is it?” asked the others.

  “I thought it was a stone or a pebble or something,” said Little Dream, pulling away gently at some loose sand from a heap lying just to the side of the ruined nest. “But then I thought I heard a noise.” He carried on brushing and blowing carefully and he very soon laid bare something smooth and white and oval.

  The others rushed to help, and in no time they uncovered it completely. There it was, in spite of their worst fears: an ostrich egg, as big as the kits themselves!

  “Is it warm?” asked Fledgie, hopping about excitedly.

  As one, the Really Mads threw their arms around it to feel it.

  “A group hug, eh?” chirruped Fledgie. “Well, that’s one way to warm it up, I suppose! Move over so that I can get my ear against the shell!”

  They stood back while he settled himself on the pointy end of the egg and bent forward to press his ear against it. “It’s not easy,” he muttered. “This shell’s really thick. Wait.”

  The Really Mads held their breath. For a while there was nothing but the usual desert song of rustling cicadas, calling birds, and snorting animals.

  The waiting got too much for Mimi. “I’m sure I can hear something!” she whispered. “Like a chip-chip or something.”

  “You mean a sort of tapping?” breathed Uncle, delighted.

  “No, it’s a sort of a cheep. I can hear it now, too,” said Skeema. “What do you think, Fledgie? Is that a little voice in there?”

  “What’s it saying?” whispered Mimi urgently. “Tell me, tell Mimi!”

  “Give us a chance! Shussshhh!” scolded Fledgie. “Wait. I’ve got it now. It’s a voice. There it is again…”

  Now Uncle lost his patience. He was bursting to know. “What’s the voice saying, by all that’s tense and teasing?” he demanded.

  Fledgie pulled himself upright and spoke. “It was ever so faint, but I think it said: ‘Mom, where are you? Too cold.’”

  “Is that all?” gasped Uncle.

  “That’s it,” replied Fledgie. “And now it’s gone quiet again.”

  “It’s Sprintina’s last chickie! It’s got to be! We’ve found him!” cried Little Dream, hardly able to contain himself.

  “Now, now,” said Uncle. “Let’s not get carried away, Dreamie,” said Uncle kindly. “I know it said ‘Mom.’ And I understand that mother ostriches bond with their chicks by talking to them while they’re still inside the shell. So it might be Sprintina’s chickie, but we don’t know for sure, do we?”

  “Then we have to take the egg to Sprintina and find out!” cried Skeema, who felt much the same as his brother. The trouble was that, try as he might, he couldn’t think up a plan for moving it.

  “Far too big and heavy!” sighed Uncle. “Why, the whole mob of us—Fledgie included—could hardly lift it! And it’s almost nighttime. If we don’t dash home soon, or at least get below ground, we won’t be able to survive the cold.”

  “But if we leave the egg by itself in the open, the chickie will die and never see its mother!” wailed Little Dream.

  Instead of talking, Mimi was busy moving the pile of ostrich feathers that Fledgie had collected up. “Now, Mimi! Really!” scolded Uncle. “This is no time for thinking about adding to your fancy headgear! We have a serious problem!”

  Mimi was very proud of her headband, and quite rightly. She was the only meerkat princess in the Kalahari to wear a crown decorated with porcupine quills and the feathers of a secretary bird. But for once, her mind was not on herself. “Well, the rest of you can go back to the burrow if you like,” she said. “Or you can go and spend the night in a bolthole somewhere. I intend to stay here and keep the chickie warm!”

  “It’s all very well you warming the chickie,” said Uncle. “But how exactly are you going to keep from freezing?”

  “The same way ostriches do!” cried Mimi triumphantly. “By wrapping us all up with feathers!” To demonstrate, she jumped on board the egg and arranged the softest, warmest plumes around her.

  “Brilliant!” cried Skeema. “I couldn’t have thought of a better idea myself!”

  “Good show!” said Uncle. “It’s a very clever scheme. But, Mimi, I’m afraid it will take more than plumage and pom-poms to stop this little guy from freezing. If indeed it is a boy. He’s going to need all the fur coats we can muster as well! So move over, my dear, and we’ll all cuddle up together.”

  “Me too?” chirped Fledgie doubtfully, glancing toward the sinking sun.

  “No need for that,” said Uncle. “But I was thinking,” he continued, “ostriches do tend to run around in circles when they get excited. It’s just possible that Biff is running around in circles not too far away.”

  “So you want me to go and look for him? No problem! Leave it to me! I’ve never tried navigating by starlight, but I’ll do my best to locate him. I’ll find him if I can!” chirped the brave little drongo.

  “Bravo!” cried Uncle. “Because if the chickie does happen to hatch, he’s going to need his papa to teach him the Ostrich Way—how to do pecking and strutting and kicking and such, what-what!”

  And so it was, one cold and frosty Christmas Eve in the Kalahari, that a little mob of brave and determined meerkats did their best to protect a stranger’s egg and keep it safe and warm. And while they settled down, a little fearfully, to watch and wait, they called goodbye and good luck to an equally brave and determined little fork-tailed drongo.

  “See ya later, incubators!” he sang.

  He rose into a sky that was lit by stars, one of them astonishingly bright.

  Chapter 7

  “Wh-while m-meerkats watched their nest by starlight…”

  Little Dream hummed to himself as he peered up at the star-pricked blackness. He was shivering as he hummed, though not really because of the cold. He felt cold, certainly, mostly on his ears and nose when he popped them up above his ostrich-feather bed. But he was also shivering because he couldn’t stop thinking of all the frightening things that might be lurking close by in the dark. Composing a song helped him keep his mind off them.

  He was pleased with his first line and tried to think of another good one. A lion sent up a warning roar. It was so long and low and rumbling that Little Dream imagined the sound filling the nearly dry riverbed and rolling down it like floodwater. He hurried on with the next line:

  “All seated on the sand…”

  He didn’t much like that one and tried another:

  “They hoped the egg might hatch…” That gave him an idea for a way to finish the verse, but just as he was about to compose the next lin
es Uncle began to stir.

  “Grrr!” growled Uncle suddenly. “Get off, you pest!” Try as he might to keep awake, Fearless had fallen asleep for a moment and was now dreaming. Up came his back foot and started knocking against his nose, jerking Mimi and Skeema awake.

  “Wazzat?” blurted Skeema. “Is there a raid?” He grasped Snap-snap tighter, ready to make him go Skwee-skwee! in the face of any intruder.

  Mimi was up on her hind legs in a flash, making spit-noises. “No, no,” said Dreamie. “It’s just Uncle having one of his bad dreams.” Fearless stirred again in his sleep and mumbled the start of his battle-cry:

  “Shaky-shaky! Boom-boom! Call!”

  Knowing how tired their dear old guardian must be, the kits did the sensible thing and sat on his head until he felt warm enough and safe enough to slip back into a peaceful sleep once more.

  “No raid. All’s well,” said Little Dream, trying to sound confident. “I’ve made up a song. Would you like me to teach it to you?”

  “All right, if you must,” said Skeema, stifling a yawn.

  “Let’s hear it, then,” said Mimi sharply. “But cuddle up closer to the egg, both of you. We’ve got a job to do, remember.”

  “Yes, yes,” agreed Skeema, too worn-out to be bothered to squabble.

  So Little Dream cuddled up to the egg and sang the whole verse through for them:

  “ While meerkats watched their nest by starlight

  They hoped the egg might hatch,

  A flea came down on Uncle’s nose

  And he began to scratch.”

  Mimi and Skeema really liked it. In fact they made up a nice tune for it and sang it over and over until they had learned it by heart. They only stopped because they suddenly realized that something was tapping in time to the music on the shell of the egg! Quickly they pressed their ears to it. “It’s coming out! It’s hatching!” they gasped. Then they realized that the tapping was on the outside. It was made by Uncle’s digging claw.