‘But we were only strawberry picking …’ professed Oscar innocently, as Mama Katie stared at them suspiciously. She could see their clothes were grubby from being out for so long, but they had returned safely and once they had been given a stiff talking to, she was quite sure they would never be that late ever again, especially Jack! He just loved the great outdoors far too much to risk being grounded again for so long.
* * *
Papa Mortimer had just arrived to pick up Henratty and Lyndi Lou. They said their goodbyes and Jack and Oscar then went upstairs to get ready for bed.
Whilst Oscar was in the bathroom, Jack began to unload the gadgets from his army jacket, but as he got to his metal detector, he could see something shimmering that was wedged in the groove of the metal detector where the magnetised rod was extended from. What was that, he thought as he looked more closely at the gadget. A diamond …Where did that come from?
He then prised the little stone off the rod, looking somewhat surprised but pleasantly so. ‘At last, I told papa there were diamonds on his land,’ Jack said to himself, but he decided he would not say anything to anyone, not even Oscar! Well, not just yet, as firstly he needed to find the exact location of the diamonds – the last thing Papa Brian wanted was loads of potholes on his land. He flicked the diamond up in the air, caught it and placed it among his other precious stones that he had collected in his treasure box. Jack was now ready for his next adventure: in his mind he had decided to call it The Meerville Treasure Hunt, as he grinned to himself.
* * *
Cairo had just returned to the MightyKats’ base, Meer Space Station. He affirmed to his leader, Zammo, that “Mission Strawberry Fields” had been accomplished. He had not only erased the memories of the Brians’ and Mortimers’, but all the other meerkats’ memories in Meerville Town that had any knowledge of the recent events. He had also adjusted the clocks at the households of the Brians’ and Mortimers’ to make it seem like Jack, Oscar, Henratty and Lyndi Lou had arrived home earlier than the actual time they had in fact arrived, which was, indeed, ten o’clock, as Jack had cleverly observed. Once they were all asleep, he would go back and amend the clocks with the correct time and no one would be the wiser, not even Jack!
The MightyKats were all looking at the screen into Jack’s bedroom, as they smiled knowing he would keep his little treasure a secret until he discovered the exact whereabouts of the diamonds, a location he would never find, as he would be searching in the wrong place. The one thing the MightyKats were certain of, was that there were no diamonds on Papa Brian’s land and the possibility of those meerkats ending up in that mineshaft ever again was zilch!
Zammo switched the screen off knowing The Land of Arkvale was safe again from those vultures, The Larkans of Skylark, and set the station to hibernate mode as the MightyKats retired once more in anticipation of their next mission …
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Copyright © Henrietta Defreitas, 2015
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ISBN 978-1-78148-439-5 in electronic format
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