Precious and the Mystery of Meercat Hill (5 page)

“I was really worried,” Pontsho continued. “If the snake became angry, then he could very easily bite my grandfather. And if that happened, then there would be very little we
could do for him. A cobra injects poison through his fangs and it stops you breathing and makes your heart stop too. My grandfather would never wake up if that happened. It would be the end of
him.

“But then something really amazing happened. Kosi began to scratch at the ground as if he was looking for a worm, or even a scorpion. I could hardly believe it. Why would he suddenly be
hungry after eating all those juicy worms we had found? But then I understood what he was doing. He was attracting the attention of the snake.

“The snake moved his head again. He was watching the meerkat and he was clearly thinking: ‘Now there’s a tasty little creature that would go very nicely down my throat!’
A big snake, like a cobra, loves to eat meerkats – if he can catch them.

“Very slowly, the cobra began to unwind himself from my grandfather’s feet. Very smoothly, like a long piece of hosepipe, he moved across the ground towards Kosi. I stood quite
still, although I was terrified that Kosi was going to be caught by the snake. I love him so much, you know, and I would never find another meerkat if anything happened to him.

“The next thing I knew was that Kosi had jumped up in the air. This happened at exactly the moment that the cobra struck at him. He missed, of course, and his fangs ended biting the ground
rather than a meerkat arm or leg. Kosi was safe, and now he ran helter-skelter towards some thick grass with the snake sliding after him, its hood up in anger.

“Ten minutes later, Kosi came back unharmed. He had led the snake off into the grass and left him there. The snake never returned.”

“And what did your grandfather think?” asked Precious.

“He had been asleep all along,” said Teb. “So he didn’t mind. But he was very grateful to Kosi, of course. ‘Take good care of that meerkat,’ he said to
Pontsho.”

“And I do,” said the boy. “I really do.”

Precious smiled, and tickled the meerkat under his chin, just as she had seen Pontsho do. The tiny creature liked that, it seemed, closing his eyes with pleasure. He was so small, thought
Precious, and yet he had been brave enough to lure away a fully-grown cobra. Small and brave, she thought. Small and brave.

RECIOUS
thought a lot about Kosi over the next few days. Whenever she saw Pontsho at school
she would ask him how the meerkat was, and he would tell her of Kosi’s latest adventures. He had caught a large scorpion, he said, or he had stolen a piece of bread from the kitchen, or had
done some other thing that meerkats like to do. One of these things, Pontsho told her, was to ride on the back of the family’s cow. “He loves doing that,” said Pontsho. “He
sits on the cow’s back for hours, looking out over everything. It’s his favourite place, I think.”

Precious smiled at this and said she hoped that she would have the chance to see him again soon.

“Perhaps you will,” said Pontsho, and winked.

She was to find out what that wink meant a few days later. Going outside during the morning break, she saw Pontsho beckoning her.

She went to join him. “Yes?” she said. “Did you want something, Pontsho?”

He drew her aside. “He’s here,” he whispered.

Precious was puzzled. “Who’s here?”

“Your friend,” said Pontsho, pointing to his school bag. “Kosi.”

Precious looked down at the bag. To her astonishment, she saw a small nose sticking out of one corner, sniffing the air. Pontsho had brought Kosi to school.

She was excited, but at the same time she was more than a little bit worried. “You’ll get into trouble,” she warned.

Pontsho shook his head. “Nobody will find out,” he said. “He wanted to come, you see. He’ll be good.”

No sooner had he said that than he was proved quite wrong. Somehow Kosi managed to get the top of the bag undone. Then, with a wiggle and a twist – the sort of movement that only meerkats
can manage – he was out of the bag. Precious gasped as the meerkat, looking about him with interest, thought about what to do next. And then she gasped again – more loudly this time
– when the tiny creature decided to dash off across the playground and head straight for the one place she hoped he would not go: the teachers’ room.

This room was beside the classrooms and it was where the teachers went to drink tea while the children played outside. Its door was always left open, so that the teachers could see if anybody
got up to mischief outside. But that meant that for a meerkat, looking around for somewhere to go, it seemed like a very good place to investigate.

As Kosi vanished into the teachers’ room, Pontsho and Precious ran behind him, stopping short of the door itself, but standing where they could see what was happening inside. It was a very
funny sight, but one that still made Precious and Pontsho hold their breath in alarm.

Entering the room, all that Kosi must have seen was legs – a whole forest of legs. Now for a meerkat, there is nothing more interesting than legs. From the meerkat point of view, legs are
trees, and trees, as every meerkat knows, are for climbing up. That gives them a better view of what is happening in the long grass around them. Every meerkat is taught that and every meerkat
remembers it.