Читать книгу The Great Meerkat Adventure - Charles Norton - Страница 5

The eagle owl next door was sitting out on his perch, and some humans had come to see him. Funny things, humans; they stand and peer and sometimes laugh, then wander off, and for a while all is quiet. It was while it was quiet he spoke to us.

“Some of you have got to go tomorrow. I don’t know where, don’t know who, but the van is outside waiting right now.”

Panic set in. Who? Where? Has Mum got to go? Will we lose her? Perhaps I have to leave and never see the others again? We ran in, found Mervin and told him what we had just heard.

“Let’s look outside for the van first before we panic. Let’s face it, there are rather a lot of us these days!”

Eager meerkat eyes peered out and saw a large white van, with lots of cages built into it, parked outside, just as the eagle owl had said.

“Who is going to go?” was the question.

“Not me,” was the only answer, so nobody knew what to do, especially Mervin.

We had our tea then thought some more; what were we going to do? It would not be so bad if we knew we could go to a nice place in family groups.

Then brother Mike spilled the beans about our tunnel. He sat there and told our secret to Mervin.

“I always wanted to be free,” he said, his eyes flashing as he thought of a plan. “Tonight we go, half of us run away to freedom. Those who want to come can do, those who want to stay, can do, but me, I’m off with whoever wants to come.”

We sat and thought for some time, then we had a show of paws. Lucky for us the split was even.

Mervin would lead, Mother was going, I was going, my brothers were going, and a new leader was staying behind. We sat and had our last tea together and ate plenty, then packed a little to take with us, then got quite excited at the thought of freedom in those woods not far away.

Our troop of 30 meerkats made its way out in the early evening darkness and sat close to the loose wire in our fence. Mervin split us into pairs, and said, “Keep in your pairs, look out for each other and, all being well, we will meet up free in those woods. You lead, Molly and Mike, you know the way. I’ll go last with your mother.”

“Be sure to close the wire up tight, Mervin. Perhaps one day it can be used again.” With everyone ready, Mike bent the wire enough for us to squeeze through, and after a quick look for chimps off we set. We ran fast across their smelly garden, straight to the hole that was still full of soft earth. Our paws flashed time and again, and dirt flew everywhere. No neat piles this time, just dig and squeeze through.

Mike got through and then pulled me roughly through; we waved our paws to the others and waited a few seconds until the second pair were almost at the hole. Off we ran for the woods. We were on our way to somewhere, but had to wait an age for all the others to join us. Mervin and Mother brought up the rear and at last as one meerkat troop we set off into the woods to look for a new, safe home. It must be far from humans. We never felt safe around humans, they are so big.