Читать книгу The Great Meerkat Adventure - Charles Norton - Страница 7

Across from our beds there stood an island, and Mervin said we should try to go there. If we could get to it we could claim it and call it ‘Meerkat Island’, and make it home perhaps.

“Mum, what does EMPRESS mean?”

“I don’t know, it’s a human word silly.”

“OF is easy; even I know that little word,” I said. “So what does DURBAN mean?”

“Oh it’s some kind of hat, a long piece of material or something. Now be quiet.”

Late that evening we were all warned to be very quiet as two humans with roly-poly bags over their shoulders were coming towards us. Luckily for us they turned and walked up a wooden path that led up onto our Island, and then they disappeared.

“That’s for us, that’s the way onto our Island, come on everybody, time to move,” called an excited Mervin.

All together we walked up the steep wooden path to the very top where Mervin turned to the left to go to the opposite end of the island, away from those two humans.

We climbed high and followed him along a cold branch and dropped down onto something a bit soft. The strong ones pulled at the soft stuff and made a space that we could all climb down into where we found, to our delight, a nice dry and clean cave.

Fat and full, and now with a new home, we were all well pleased with the efforts of our leader, Mervin. In just a short time the young ones had to go to the toilet so had to keep to the rules and leave the cave.

“Go find some sandy place away from here,” their mothers said firmly. Off they set, but could not find anything like soft sand or bushes. It was the same for us all; just find a private place behind something tall and dark.

The grooves in the floor were good to lie in and made a comfortable bed, the night wore on, and after settling down every meerkat slept well until the sun came up early next morning.

The roof was pushed back a little to let in some sunlight and it was then Mother looked at us and exclaimed, “Your faces… just look at your faces! Both of you have gone all pink in the face!”

We looked at each other and could see she was right, and there were many other rather pink faces all around.

“I do not feel so good, Mother, my stomach is so tight and I am so fat.”

“Me too, Mum,” said brother Mike. “Fat and full and kind of tight everywhere.”

With that Mike did a big loud burp and Mother put her paw in his ear. She scalded him with shouts of “Manners!” and things like that.

Then things started to happen to his meerkat tail. Usually hung low, it started to rise, and rise some more. When it was pointing skywards, he made a big loud noise like thunder, long and loud. He nearly got another paw in the ear, but then lots of other meerkats had the same problem. Then Mervin woke up and complained about the noise, then he too was told his face was pink. He knew he did not feel so well either. The noise was loud, the smell was bad, as tail after tail rose skywards out of control and noises followed.

Mother and Mervin, Marcos and Mario all had the same problem, and the air in our cave was dreadful. As the sunlight shone in I could see blue, and red, and yellow, and other colours rising skywards, and the smell! Willing hands rolled back the soft roof, and fresh air rushed in. I looked around and it was plain to see pink faces were returning to grey and fat meerkat tummies were gradually going back down to normal.

Some had to leave for a while; some just had to climb out into the clean air and breathe deeply. Tails went down and slowly the air, and the colours, began to clear. The worst was over. Many trips were made to find the sandy spots outside, but all anybody ever found was hard slippery places that nobody cared for.