The Mystery of Meerkat Hill

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Precious leaned forward and, as she did so, the meerkat leaned forward too, his bright little eyes shining, his nose moist and glistening.

  “He likes you,” said Pontsho. “You can tell when he likes somebody.”

  “And I like him too,” said Precious. “Can I touch him?”

  “Of course,” said Teb. “Be gentle, though, as he can sometimes be a bit frightened.”

  Precious reached forward and placed a finger as gently as she could on the back of the meerkat’s head, as if to stroke him. His fur was smooth, a little bit like that of a well-groomed cat. It was a very strange feeling to be touching a meerkat.

  Kosi half-turned his head when she touched him, but Precious could see that he was not in the least bit frightened.

  “Where did you get him?” she asked.

  Pontsho pointed to the hill behind the house.

  “From the hill over there,” he said. “I think he must have been separated from the rest of his family. He was sitting on one of the rocks, looking very lost. We call it Meerkat Hill now, because of him.”

  “What does he eat?”

  Pontsho smiled as he answered her question. “He likes insects,” he said. “He loves worms. And he even likes to eat scorpions.”

  Precious made a face. “Scorpions!”

  “Yes,” said Teb. “He’s very brave.”

  “Brave enough to face up to a snake,” said Pontsho. “Even a cobra.”

  Precious drew in her breath. Cobras were very, very dangerous snakes and the thought that such a tiny creature as this could stand up to that deadly snake was hard to believe.

  “Tell her,” said Teb. “Tell Precious about the cobra.”

  So they sat down, with Kosi sitting down beside them, as if he too was listening to the story that Pontsho then began.

  THIS HAPPENED quite a long time ago,” began Pontsho.

  “Last month,” said his sister, correcting him.

  “Well, that’s quite a long time ago,” said the boy. “It didn’t happen yesterday, did it?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Precious. “I want to hear the story about the cobra. Just carry on with that.”

  Pontsho began again. “So,” he said, “this happened quite a long time ago—last month. Our grandparents, as you know, like to sit in the sun. Sometimes they sit and sleep, but sometimes they just sit. They’ve worked very hard all their lives, you see, and they’re a bit tired now.

  “Well, they were sitting there sleeping one afternoon. I had been off with Kosi to find some worms for his dinner that night. We found some very juicy-looking ones and his stomach was tight and full. He was very pleased with himself, I think.

  “The moment we got back to the house, I noticed that something was wrong. Or at least I saw that something was different.”

  Pontsho paused now, and looked at Precious, who was following his story wide-eyed. “What was it?” she asked. “What did you see?”

  “My grandfather has big feet,” said Pontsho. “When he sleeps he likes to take his shoes off, and so he had no shoes on. And do you know what I saw? I saw that a great big snake had curled himself round my grandfather’s toes! Snakes like to do that, you know. I think it keeps them warm. They love people’s toes.”

  Precious gasped. She did not like the idea of having a snake curled around her toes. “Go on,” she urged. “What happened next?”

  “I wasn’t sure what to do,” said Pontsho. “For a little while I stood quite still with shock. You know how you sometimes just stand there, unable to do anything. Well, that was how it was. And I was so shocked I forgot that I had Kosi with me.

  “He had seen the snake too. He had been sitting on my shoulder, as he often likes to do when we go for a walk together. Now he jumped down and began to move very slowly towards my grandparents. He moved like a cat will move when it’s stalking a bird. Very, very slowly, and very quietly.”

  Precious drew in her breath. “Did the snake see him?” she asked.

  “Not to begin with,” answered Pontsho. “But as he began to get closer and closer, the snake started to move. It didn’t move its coils—it just moved its head, which had bright black eyes like little pinpoints of dark light. And it put out its tongue, which came out like a tiny wet fork and then went back in. That’s how snakes smell things, you know—they stick out their tongue and then take the smell back inside.

  “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 your 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 garden hose, 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 bit the ground rather than a meerkat arm or leg. Kosi was safe, and 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.

  PRECIOUS 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 favorite 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 found 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 sa
me 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.

  Kosi made his way cautiously around the legs and ankles. Now and then he stopped, and would fiddle with a shoe-lace or gingerly touch a bony ankle; now and then he would dodge out of the way if a foot was suddenly moved. But then, finding a pair of particularly stout legs, he stopped and looked up. These legs were clearly very interesting to him, and he appeared to be unsure as to whether or not to climb them. They looked very much like trees to Kosi—even if they were, in fact, the legs of the Principal of the school, a rather strict man who did not like it at all when anybody did something wrong.

  “Oh no,” groaned Pontsho, as he saw what was happening.

  Kosi took a step forward and took hold of the Principal’s trousers. Up above, the Principal felt something, and perhaps thought that a fly, or even maybe a spider, had landed on him and would need to be brushed off. He was busy talking to one of the teachers at the time, and so he just leant forward, without looking what he was doing, and brushed the fly away.

  Kosi saw the Principal’s hand ap- proaching him and did what any meerkat would do. He leapt up as high as he could—and landed on the head of the teacher sitting next to the Principal. In nature, meerkats will always seek the highest or the lowest point when they are worried. The highest point gives them a good view of approaching danger, and the lowest point gives them refuge.

  The teacher screamed. She had no idea what was perched on the top of her head as she could not see what it was. But the other teachers could, and they all cried out.

  “He’s on your head!” they shouted.

  And then they started to laugh. It was, of course, a very funny sight, and although we shouldn’t laugh at people, there are times when it’s impossible to keep the laughter in.

  Happily, the teacher herself imagined how funny she must have looked, and began to laugh too.

  Pontsho felt that there was only one thing to do. He knew that it would get him into trouble, but he had to retrieve Kosi from the teacher’s head. So he stepped forward, into the teachers’ room, and called Kosi to him.

  Seeing Pontsho, Kosi straightaway jumped off the teacher’s head and scampered across the room to his owner.

  “Young man,” said the Principal sternly, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”

  Pontsho said he was sorry. He knew that nobody was allowed to bring animals to school, and he would not do it again.

  The Principal looked at him. He was frowning, and Pontsho knew that he was going to get into deep trouble. But then, quite suddenly, the Principal stopped frowning and a broad smile appeared on his face.

  “Well,” he said, “the rules say that nobody can bring a dog to school. They also say something about not bringing mice or other pets like that. But they don’t say anything about meerkats, do they?”

  “No,” said one of the teachers, beginning to laugh. “They don’t.”

  The Principal raised a finger. “That’s not to say that the rules won’t say that in the future,” he said. “But for today, I think it will be all right.”

  Pontsho looked at Precious with relief. She was standing at the door watching what was happening, and she was smiling too.

  “You should tell us a bit more about this funny little creature,” said the Principal. “Come on—don’t be shy.”

  So Pontsho told the teachers all about Kosi and about how he had saved his grandfather. At the end of this tale, the teachers all crowded around and were allowed to pat Kosi gently on the head. Pontsho swelled with pride, as did Precious, and, I think, little Kosi did too. Meerkats like attention. They like people to pat them on the head and say nice things. Rather like the rest of us, don’t you think?

  KOSI’S visit to school ended well but then, a few days later, when school had just finished for the day and Precious was starting her walk home, she came across Teb sitting by the side of the road—and she was crying. There was no sign of Pontsho.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulder.

  For a little while Teb was sobbing too much to answer, but then she turned to Precious and told her. “Our cow,” she said, “is going to have a calf. But she wandered off yesterday and she hasn’t come back. Pontsho stayed at home today to help call her.” Precious said she was very sorry to hear this news. She understood how important that cow was to Teb’s family. It was just about everything they had. And when the calf was born that would be important too, as they could sell that to somebody and use the money to pay for food.

  Teb dried her tears. “My mother doesn’t know what to do,” she said. “We’ve called her and called her, but we have no idea where she’s gone. Sometimes cows do that, my grandfather said. He told me that cows just wander off and never return.”

  Precious thought hard. She had already decided that when she grew up she would be a detective, and now here was a case right in front of her that needed solving.

  “Can I help?” she asked gently.

  Teb turned to her. “Could you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Precious. But even as she spoke, she wondered what she could possibly do to solve the mystery of the missing cow. But, after a moment or two, it came to her. Had they looked for tracks? When cows walk, they leave hoof-prints on the ground where they have been. Had Teb or Pontsho looked for these?

  Teb shook her head.

  “Then we should do so,” said Precious. “I’ll come home with you now and we can start to look for tracks.”

  Teb immediately brightened. “My mother will be very pleased if we find her,” she said. “She’ll make us all a reward of fat cakes!”

  Precious loved fat cakes, which are a delicious type of fried doughnut that are very popular in Botswana. But she did not like to think of a reward just yet. It was all very well having an idea, but as every detective knows only too well, not all ideas solve the case.

  When they reached the house, Pontsho ran out to meet them. At first they thought he might be bringing good news, but when they saw his face, they realized that this was not so.

  “We’ve called and called,” he said hoarsely. “But we haven’t found her.”

  Teb told him about the idea that Precious had come up with. Pontsho thought for a moment and then nodded. “Let’s look,” he said.

  They led Precious to the place where the cow had last been seen. This was a small clearing at the bottom of Meerkat Hill, right behi
nd the family’s house. There was a fence, but it was an old one, and it would have been very easy for a cow just to step over it if she really wanted to.

  Precious started to walk around the fence, taking great care not to disturb the ground. Detectives always do that, as you probably know: they don’t want to destroy any of the clues that may be lying around. And here was one, right in front of her.

  “Over here,” she called, pointing to the ground in front of her.

  Teb and Pontsho ran over to join her.

  “This is where she went,” said Precious. “Look. There are the marks of her hooves.”

  Teb and Pontsho peered down at the tracks in the dusty soil.

  “Now,” said Precious. “If we follow them, we’ll see where she went.”

  They set off, and everybody was very excited. So excited were they, in fact, that they did not notice that they had been joined by Kosi, who was following behind them, his little nose twitching with interest.

  Fortunately it had not rained. Botswana is a dry country, and the rain only comes in what they call the rainy season—those few months when the sky fills with heavy purple thunder-clouds and the thirsty country waits expectantly for the first drops. Had it rained, then the hoof-prints they were following would have been washed away. As it was, they were still firm and clear, even if here and there they were mixed up with the hoof-prints of smaller animals. It was easy, though, for Precious to tell the difference between the marks that a cow’s hoof makes and the marks made by a small deer, or a rock rabbit, or something like that.

  Pontsho had now spotted Kosi and had invited him to travel on his shoulder. The meerkat liked that, and sat importantly on his vantage point, as if it was he who was the detective and not Precious Ramotswe. Well, as we will shortly find out, there was some truth in that, but for now here they are, all following the tracks, the heart of each of them filled with hope that they would soon find the missing cow.