Chapter 8:
The drawing of straws went around once again. The winner, once again, was Uncle Max.
"What memory are you going to share now, Uncle Max?" Pumbaa asked as he wagged his tail.
"Nothing embarrassing, I hope," Timon mumbled to himself.
"I'm thinking... I'd start with Timon's last day in the colony," Max said as he tossed his winning straw aside.
Timon slapped a paw over his eyes. "Oy... not my last day in the colony."
"I don't know... I've heard that one already, Uncle Max," Pumbaa said.
"But I haven't. Go ahead and tell it, Uncle Max," Zuri said as she leaned against Timon.
Timon glared at her. "You love to hear embarrassing stories about me, don't you?"
"Nah... I'm just curious."
Ma looked over at Timon, and then she walked over to Uncle Max. "I don't trust you with all the details, Max. You're sharing the memory with me."
"You don't trust your own uncle, Panya? I'm hurt," Max said.
"You're my uncle by marriage, remember? You're Buzz's uncle."
"Oh, fine. Then would you care to start?"
"Fine. I will. The sun had just risen and I was going over to Timon's nest to wake him up--"
"Timon had his own nest?" Pumbaa blinked.
"Hey, I wasn't that much of a loser, still living with his mother," Timon growled.
"May I continue?" Ma asked.
"Sorry, Ma."
4 years ago...
The sun was rising, casting a golden glow over the grasslands. It was the only time of the day that the meerkat tunnels, or the Pit of Shame as Timon calls it, looked glamorous. Of course, Timon would normally sleep well past this time of day, so he would normally see the tunnels as mere holes in the ground he had to live in. He was, as expected, still asleep in his nest, breathing softly. He flipped over from his stomach onto his back as his mother approached him.
"Timon? Are you awake yet?" she asked.
Timon mumbled as he flipped back onto his stomach, "Mm, five more minutes, Ma..."
Ma pouted his lips, tapping her foot. "All right, you asked for it." She picked up a nutshell filled with water and dumped it over Timon's head, causing him to sit up and cough.
"Stumpy, when are you gonna grow up!" Timon growled as he shook the water out of his hair. He then noticed it was his mother with the water dripping from the nutshell in her paws. He nervously smiled. "Morning, Ma. Why the rude awakening?" He then frowned. "You woke me up, so that means... I'm late for tunnel digging! Oh, man, Uncle Max is gonna skin me for this!" Timon jumped out of his nest as was about to run off, but then his mother grabbed onto his wrist, stopping him. "Ma, you want me to get into trouble with Uncle Max? I happen to like my skin!"
"It's a very attractive skin, sweetie, but that's not why I'm keeping you from getting to work. We're actually ahead of schedule, and Uncle Max asked me to... well..."
"He doesn't want me to dig today? What, is he afraid I'm gonna set a new record for tunnel breaking?"
"The week is still young..."
"You think so, too, Ma? I'm so hurt."
Ma smiled as he put a paw on her son's back and led him down the tunnel. "I thought you'd be glad you weren't digging today. You can spend some time outside. And it's a beautiful sun this morning."
Timon waved a paw in front of his mouth as he yawned and was lead outside. "It's dawn? No wonder I'm so tired."
"I mean it. Look."
Timon rubbed his eyes and looked towards the sun. "Yeah, pretty, Ma. I'm going back to my nest." He turned to walk back to the tunnels, and then he stopped when he saw the unusual golden color cast over the tunnels. "Uh, did you guys do some redecorating while I was asleep?"
"This is how the tunnels look in the morning this time of year, when you're still asleep. You try so hard to fit in, you forget about the simpler things."
Timon put a paw to his chin. "To think we miss this every morning because of digging tunnels..."
Ma suddenly frowned. "What are you thinking, Timon?" She didn't get a reply as Timon suddenly ran for the tunnels and dropped in. "Wha--? Timon!" She ran after him, jumping down into the tunnel entrance.
The meerkats were working hard and singing the tunnel digging beat as Ma made her way through them, trying to find Timon. "Timon!" She passed through a line of meerkats carrying stones. "Excuse me. Have you seen my son? Has he been through here?" She kept walking, calling for him. "Timon!" She noticed Uncle Max walking by with a stone, singing off-beat. "Uncle Max?"
"YAH!" Max yelped. He dropped his stone and flinched.
"Uncle Max, relax. Have you seen Timon?"
Uncle Max clasped his paws together. "No, I haven't. And what a day it's been! No fractures, no lacerations, no concussions, contusions, or injuries of any sort. As a matter of fact, there's no sign of Timon's handiwork anywhere!"
Ma frowned at him, almost starting to regret she agreed to keep Timon from digging today. Suddenly, both she and Uncle Max frowned when the ceiling began to crack and crashed down on them. Ma's head popped out from the dirt and she looked towards the only structure standing, with a certain meerkat standing under it.
Uncle Max, without turning to look, silently began to fume. "That... would be... TIMOOON!"
Timon winced softly as his uncle's voice echoed, and then slowly turned to look at the colony. He nervously chuckled. "Hey, everybody!"
"Ha ha... nice work, Timon," Pete said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Way'ta go, tunnel klutz!"
"Who else could break a hole!"
"Four in one week! A new record!"
"Not again..." Ma sighed in quiet despair.
"What? It's called a skylight!" Timon boldly exclaimed. He watched as his "skylight" crumbled around him. He sighed and lowered his eyes, depressed that he messed up again.
His mother came up to him and tried to salvage what was left of the situation as she dusted some dirt off of Timon's fur. "Ho ho. Wow, isn't that creative? A skylight!" She nervously laughed and then she took Timon by the arm and started to lead him away. "I'll just have a word with him."
"I... I was just trying to shed a little light on our pathetic existence," Timon said as he watched the meerkats begin to repair the tunnel.
"Your heart's in the right place, but you're trying too hard."
"I can't help it, Ma. Every time I hear 'Digga Tunnah' I keep expecting to hear Dad's--"
"It's the same excuses every time. 'I'm just trying to make Dad proud.' 'I'm trying to make the colony like me again after what happened to Dad.'"
"It's been almost two years and they still won't forget it."
Ma sighed as she began to brush some more dirt out of Timon's fur. "Timon, this can't go on. Just this month, you've pulled down four walls and collapsed two tunnel exits." She licked her paw to smooth out Timon's hair. "We have to look after each other. Our survival depends on it."
"What's the point? All we do is dig so we can hide, and hide so we can dig!" He felt his hair poof up to a bunch of spikes. He combed his hair back the way it normally was as he walked over to some tall blades of grass. "I wanna be where we don't have to dig tunnels and live with out heads stuck in the sand!" He pushed the blades aside and looked out towards the sun. "What's so bad about dreaming of a better home?"
Ma walked over to where he was. "I wanna show you something." She looked out towards the sun. "Look, Timon." She looked at him, who was looking at her. She pushed his face to look. "Go on, look. Look out to the horizon... past the trees... over the grasslands..." Timon knew this sounded familiar. His father Buzz said about the same thing to him when he was a pup. But maybe now... maybe his mother was going to say something different. He smiled as he looked out towards the outside world. "Everything the light touches... belongs to someone else!"
Timon frowned and released the grass he had pushed aside. "Funny, I thought you were going a whole different direction with this."
"Well, what can I say? It's nature's design." Timon knew that sounded familiar, too. They both gasped when Uncle Max suddenly appeared from behind the grass.
"She's right!" He grabbed onto Timon's arms. "We're food for other animals, a moveable feast." He held Timon close. "Feared by no one and eaten by all!"
"But when they die, they become the grass. And we eat the grass... right?" Timon asked.
"Not exactly. We can't digest grass. We're grass-intolerant."
Ma snatched Timon away. "OK, Max! Thank you, you've been a big help." She began to walk away with Timon. "Honey, I--"
Suddenly Uncle Max poked his head out from the grass in front of them. "Meerkat, it's what's for dinner!"
"Thank you, Uncle Max," Ma growled as she pointed off into the distance.
Max growled and then walked away. He walked back towards the tunnels. "Try to give a little insight, and they bite your head off. In-laws... oy." He looked at the position of the sun, and then turned to the digging meerkats. "All right, who's on sentry duty?"
A few meerkats stopped digging and walked up to Max. "That's us, Max," a meerkat said.
"Fine. Pick your stations and remember--"
"We know... scurry, sniff, flinch," they said as they walked away.
Max mumbled something under his breath, and then was about to go back to digging when Ma and Timon came up to him. "Max, I just thought of a the perfect job for Timon!" Ma said.
Timon licked both of his paws and roughed his plastered down hair back to normal. "Ma, I really don't think--"
"A job Timon won't mess up at, Panya?" Max asked as he cocked an eyebrow.
"What do you think about Timon on sentry duty?"
"Timon the sentry! Why don't you save the hyenas the trouble and kill me now? Just kill me now!"
"He has a point," Timon said.
"All you'd have to do is watch for hyenas and yell if you see one. Look at Iron Joe," ma motioned to a meerkat in the distance.
Iron Joe has been sentry one too many times. He seemed to be in the middle of a nervous breakdown. "Don't close your eyes! Don't look away! Somebody's gotta guard us! Somebody's gonna protect us!" Two other meerkats picked him up and carried him away as he began to sob.
Timon watched Iron Joe be carried away. "Well. Now I'm convinced."
"Listen. It's outside, up in the breeze, under the wide open sky. Isn't that what you want?" She grinned to Uncle Max. "Or maybe you would rather have him go back on the digging crew."
Both Timon and Uncle Max weren't thrilled with that idea. They both held their paws out to her and yelled, "NO!" The three looked over when they heard additional voices yell their disapproval to Timon digging. The whole colony was listening. They cleared their throats, and tried to act uninterested in the conversation. Timon gave them a bit of a look.
Ma clapped her paws together. "Good... then we all agree. Timon, listen to Uncle Max. He'll teach you everything you need to know." Max shook his head, as if thinking he's going to be wasting his time. She put her paw on Timon's shoulder and quietly added in a serious tone, "And honey, try to make this one work."
Timon lowered his head and closed his eyes. "I'll try, Ma."
"And I haven't made my will out yet..." Uncle Max mumbled under his breath.
To be continued...