The Great Meerkat Adventure
CHARLES R. NORTON
Published by
An Imprint of Melrose Press Limited
St Thomas Place, Ely
Cambridgeshire
CB7 4GG, UK
FIRST EDITION
Copyright © Charles R. Norton 2015
The Author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover by Melrose Books
978-1-910792-26-1 epub
978-1-910792-27-8 mobi
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by:
CHAPTER ONE
Our house was large and our garden long; it was the only home I had ever had and we were all happy living there. It was the middle house of three; on one side lived a big eagle owl and Mother always told us to keep away from him. On the other side lived a whole family of chimpanzees who played most of the day outside, but all went to bed at night in their house and then were very quiet indeed.
Our leader was called Mervin, and he was big, far bigger than anyone else, and he was the only meerkat to remember living somewhere else. He talked of being “free”, to which we said “yes”, but did not understand just what he meant. We had our family, our house, a large garden to play in and the humans kept us well fed… What could be better?
One day, after the humans had all gone away and there was nobody looking through our fence, Mervin called me and a few others to him, to “come to the fence and dig, we could get out and be free,” he said. It was teatime and we would have preferred to eat, but if he said dig, we had to dig.
Right next to the fence our little paws and claws dug down deep into the dirt until we came to the hard stuff. Grey, hard, stony stuff, and scratch as we might we could not get through it. Even Mervin, with his big claws, soon gave up and went in for tea.
Playing out one day soon after that I found a gap in the wire fence between us and the chimpanzees’ garden. Even though the hole was small I knew I could squeeze through if I wanted to. Now we had a way into next door’s garden, but when I told my brother, Mike, he said we must keep it a secret and shouldn’t tell Mervin.
Days later, Mike and I went out one night, stretched the wire, made a hole, and after looking for chimps, squeezed through it into the chimpanzees’ garden. We walked right across to the far side and could see fields and trees, but all around us was the smell of monkeys. We dug by their fence with our little paws in the cold night air, deeper and deeper, taking turns, one digging, one looking out for chimps or humans. Soon we had a tunnel under the fence; and up to the other side. We could get out now, perhaps that was where ‘free’ was?
We climbed out onto the grass and ran to some trees, found a stream of water and had a long drink. There was not a fence anywhere and we thought this is what Mervin must mean by ‘free’. We ran and rolled and ran again but we knew we had to go back home, and soon. We had gone so far we were nearly lost, but we found the tunnel and scampered back through. We filled it back in and padded it back down to cover our tracks. We tiptoed across the monkeys’ garden, through the wire and bent it back. It was our secret, nobody knew, and we promised ourselves we would go again sometime soon.
CHAPTER TWO
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.
CHAPTER THREE
The wood was not a wood after all, just a clump of trees alongside a big flat, hard piece of ground, with lots of white lines on it. Mervin was not too happy with us; he expected to be in a very big wood, a very safe wood, not a clump of small trees. We left those trees behind and crossed the flat hard stuff, found a place for the night, just like a cave, and all climbed in.
Mervin and the other strong ones pushed a boulder across the entrance; it went very dark inside, but felt very safe indeed.
“What