Chapter 3

“Now, come along, everyone!” Uncle cried. “That’s enough talk! With the rains so late, we need to save lots of energy just to find enough to eat. Tails up then, Really Mads, and let’s head for the foraging grounds!”

Off they raced, dipping in and out of the dry tufts of spiky grass splashed with the stinky white tell-tale scent marks of hyenas. “Eyes sharp!” barked Uncle Fearless. “Stay together to stay alive! Don’t be fooled just because hyenas giggle. The louder they laugh, the hungrier they are.” So everyone was extra watchful as they came to open ground near a lofty camelthorn tree.

“I’ll take first sentry-duty!” cried Mimi in a huffy sort of voice. She darted up to the top of the tree like a monkey and scanned the horizon for signs of trouble. “Why I should look out for HER, I really don’t know,” she muttered under her breath.

With Mimi on guard, the others could put their heads down and dig, but the pickings were slim. Before the rains came, food was always scarce. The damp places, where the juiciest bugs and lizards and scorpions love to cool themselves, lay far below the surface and were hard to sniff out.

Skeema was chasing ants, throwing up a shower of hot sand to get at some of their eggs, when he suddenly came face to face with a crawler he hadn’t met before. It was a shiny, black beetle with white marks on its cheeks. It seemed to be eating the ants itself and was waving its long legs and pincers in a wild sort of way. Skeema was very fond of his food, especially scorpions, so he was used to the darting and threatening tricks that many delicious creatures use to try to avoid getting eaten. In fact, the sheer boldness of the little creature made him determined to find out what it tasted like. He lowered his nose almost to the ground to get within nibbling range. Then he began to knock the beetle around with his paw.

Crack-crack! The creature let out a double explosion from its back end! It sent twin streams of acid flying right at Skeema’s eye! With a yelp and a backward roll, Skeema flung himself away from the danger. But in a couple of seconds, he was nose down and back in the hunt.

“Careful now!” warned Uncle. “Black-and-white stranger—always a danger! I’ve told you that before. That’s an Oogpister you’re playing with, by all that stinks and stings! He’ll do real damage to your eyes if you let him! Give him some respect!”

“Respect!” muttered Skeema to the little squirt, thinking how clever it was and that, if ever he found himself cornered, a quick Oogpister move might come in handy.

When it was Skeema’s turn to keep watch, Mimi came down from her perch to feed. She was still very grumpy and complained to Little Dream, “I’m not hungry at all, and it’s all Uncle’s fault!”

She was dreadfully jealous. Instead of giving her lots of attention, Uncle seemed to be more or less ignoring her. He kept fussing over Radiant, offering her the best grubs and crawlers, no matter how difficult they were to find.

Mimi stamped around in a sulk, scratching at the increasingly hot sand and throwing it up in clouds when she could find nothing to eat.

Radiant noticed what was going on and trotted over to her with a fat bug between her jaws—a rare find in this dry season and one of Mimi’s favorites. “Here,” she said kindly. “You have it. You’ve done a lovely job as lookout. You must be starving, you poor thing.”

But Mimi was in a shocking temper by now. “I am not poor and I am not your anything!” she announced.

“Oh, right. Fine.” said Radiant, trying her best to pretend that she wasn’t deeply hurt by this outburst, “I was only going to give you a tip about finding some juice when things are frightfully dry, that’s all. I stumbled upon this little trick on my wanderings. Let me show you. What you do is, you find a shrub. Doesn’t matter how fresh-looking it is. You figure out where its roots might be running to and then you dig quite deep…”

“I know where to dig,” said Mimi with a haughty sniff. “Leave me alone.”

“Now look here,” said Radiant kindly but firmly. “Adults are not always right, but they sometimes have valuable experience that’s worth passing on. Kits should pay attention to adults. That’s how they learn. That’s the Meerkat Way.”

“I want Uncle to teach me the Meerkat Way, not a stranger!”

Radiant nudged the bug with her nose. “You’re hungry,” she said. “You’re upset. I suggest you eat this. It’ll make you feel better. But I’m officially a member of this tribe now, too, so I think you should make an effort to be a little more respectful to me.”

And with that she turned and made her way back to the burrow, obviously rather shaken.

Uncle trotted over. “Radiant, my dear!” he called. “Is anything the matter? Are you all right? Wait up, what-what!” And he scampered after her.

*

Little Dream and Skeema walked over to Mimi, who was standing on her own, looking very angry.

“It’s true what Radiant says about meerkats needing to look out for one another, Mimi,” said Little Dream. “Stay together to stay alive, remember?” he said, reciting the mob’s motto.

“Then Uncle should be staying together with us then!” sniffed Mimi, beginning to cry, “Not running around after females.”

Little Dream was anxious to comfort her. “Yes, but he did help us escape from our birth-burrow, and we all hated that, didn’t we?” he said. “And he brought us safely across to this lovely spot on the far side of the Upworld!”

“Well said, Dreamy!” agreed Skeema. “No more bowing and scraping to nasty Queen Heartless and her horrid kits! We got away from her—and we have Uncle to thank for that!” He gave his Snap-snap a squeeze and it squeaked loudly and defiantly.

“Good, old Uncle!” cried Little Dream. “And when you come to think of it, what happened to Radiant is just like what happened to Mama, isn’t it?” he went on. “I mean to say, it’s like when Queen Heartless got jealous of Mama and chased her out of the burrow, isn’t it?”

Little Dream had worked himself up by now. “I feel sure Mama’s still alive!” he declared. “She’s become a wanderer like Radiant used to be. It’s horrible to think of her all alone in the desert with no one to help her keep watch for enemies!” His eyes grew wide and full of tears.

Skeema decided that a quick play-fight might cheer his little brother up a bit. “Come on, Dreamie,” he said fondly. “Let’s not go over all that again.” And he wrestled him a couple of times and chewed a tick off his ear, for luck.