Chapter 3:

Kito followed his mother Zuri until he saw a large beetle scurry in front of him. Forgetting about visiting his uncle and following his mother, he started to follow the beetle. He followed it past his family's nest and over to the warthogs' nest, where it stopped in front of a sleeping warthog piglet.

"I've got ya now..." Kito pounced on the beetle and grabbed it between his paws. But his paws were wet from the rain, so the beetle slipped out and landed directly into the warthog's yawning mouth. The warthog ate it in his sleep, licked his lips, and let out a satisfied sigh. Kito laid in front of the warthog, aghast. He shook his head to clear it and stood. He pried the warthog's mouth opened and peered inside. "Hey! Bango, that was my mid-morning snack! Give it back!"

"Huh?" the warthog, Bango, grunted as he opened his eyes, feeling the young meerkat walk into his mouth.

"I've heard of sleepwalkers, but sleep-eaters? That's a new one on me."

"Wha ahe ou aling aou, Ieo? I--"

"Don't talk with your mouth full. Besides, I can't understand a word you're saying." Bango sat up and spat the pup out. "Ech... now I gotta take a bath," Kito complained as he picked a bit of the warthog's saliva from his fur.

Bango rotated his jaw around a few times and smacked his lips. "Sorry. It's already raining. What do you need a bath for?"

"Because I don't wanna smell like warthog morning breath. Now what did you say while I was in your mouth?"

Bango cleared his throat. "I said, 'What are you talking about, Kito?'"

Kito jumped up and grabbed onto Bango's nostrils, pulling him down to his level. "You ate my bug is what I'm talking about!"

"What?" Bango folded his front legs together in front of his chest, almost looking insulted. Kito was still holding onto his nostrils when he did, so the pup had to climb up onto the warthog's snout to keep from falling off. "I would do no such thing, eating someone else's bug." He then let out a burp. He put a hoof to his mouth and blinked, surprised.

"Oh, really?" Kito asked, dryly.

"Well... not on purpose," Bango blushed.

"So exhale that bug, or I'm going in after it!" Kito dropped down to the ground and tapped his foot. "I'm waiting, Bango."

"I don't think you want me to--"

"Then say 'Ah.'"

"Why would you want me to say ah--?" Just as the warthog opened his mouth, Kito jumped back in and began to head down his throat, until someone grabbed onto his back foot and pulled him out.

A blond female meerkat pup released Kito's foot and wiped her paws on her fur. "Why are you trying to give our cousin indigestion, Kito?"

Kito grumbled as he wiped his fur off. "I was not, Shani. I was trying to get my bug back."

"You want a bug that's been in a warthog's stomach? Gross!"

"It's a guy thing. You, a girl, wouldn't understand."

"I understand that what you were going to do is wrong on so many levels," Shani said, folding her arms in front of her chest.

"Aww, what do you know?"

Shani leaned over and sniffed her brother's fur, and then twitched her nose. "Besides that you smell like warthog morning breath?" Bango snickered, and then cleared his throat when Kito shot him a look. "I know Mom says girls are always right, and she's the boss. So nyeh."

"Nyeh yourself."

Bango shook his head, and then he noticed Timon and Ma walking in the distance. "Hey, there's Uncle Timon and Mrs. Panya." Kito climbed on top of Bango's head to see.

"Sure is."

"Is it just me, or does Mrs. Panya have a super-serious face on?"

"It's not just you." Kito grinned, "Maybe Grandma's gonna ground him. That'd be funny."

Shani climbed up onto Bango's head, pushing Kito's head down to see. "Nah, that doesn't look like a grounding face to me," she said.

"Um, Shani?"

"Hm?" Shani glanced down at Kito, noticing she had pushed him down to see. "Oh, hey, bro."

"Hello. Could you, possibly, maybe, oh I don't know... get off?!" Kito pushed his sister off, causing her to roll backwards and land on Bango's back. "I'm gonna see what's on Granny's mind. Wanna come with, Bango?"

"Do I have a choice?" Bango asked with a worried face.

"Not really. How about you, Shani?"

Shani dusted herself off as she looked up at her brother. "You're gonna go spy on Daddy and Grandma. Is that what you're saying?"

Kito feigned innocence. "What? Where would you get an idea like that? No, we're just, uh... gonna watch them without them knowing."

"Oh." Shani pouted her lips out, and then shrugged. "OK." On that note, Bango followed the direction Timon and Ma went. When they found them Bango kept down low enough not to be seen. Kito and Shani climbed back onto the top of Bango's head to see. "Scoot over, Kito," Shani softly growled.

"I'm not taking up any room. Bango's head is just too small," Kito growled back.

"Hey!" Bango snorted.

"Shh!" both pups on top of his head whispered.

"All right, Ma, are we alone enough yet?" Timon asked as he sat on the ground and rubbed his feet. "We've been walking so long I think I'm starting to get blisters."

"This'll do, I suppose," Ma said, sitting in front of Timon. She sighed as she looked up at the sky through the leaves. "We took the walk so I could think of what to say to you. But where do I begin?"

"Well, I have a feeling Titus and I were closer than you've hinted at before," Timon said, folding his arms in front of his chest.

"You're right, you were. Very close. I guess I'll start out in saying... you weren't an only child, Timon."

"Not an only child?" Timon blinked and thought for a moment. A look of realization washed over his face, and then he turned back to his mother. "You mean--? Are you saying Titus was my--?"

Ma bowed her head. "Your brother."

Kito and Shani looked at each other with surprised exressions. "We have an Uncle Titus?" they asked.

"The way Mrs. Panya is acting, I'd say we had an Uncle Titus," Bango whispered. They quieted down to continue listening to Timon and Ma talk.

"You never told me I had a brother? Why were you keeping it from me?"

"He disappeared when you were a few weeks old. You didn't act like you remembered him when you started talking. You weren't looking around the tunnel or anything, wondering where he was. I didn't tell you because I was just trying to spare you the pain of losing a brother in addition to a father."

Timon looked away from her and stood. "No, Ma... you wouldn't tell me about him because you wanted to forget about him."

Ma furrowed her brow and stood. "Oh, you mean like when you forgot about your father?" Timon's face winced. "In just under six months I've lost a son and a husband, and think of how I felt after you left the colony for those two years and all those times your life was in danger. How would you feel knowing all you had left was taken from you? I'm just trying to forget that pain."

"But you said you never found him. I mean, disappeared isn't the same as dead. He could still be alive somewhere out there!"

"That's what Pete seems to think, but chances of that are very, very slim, Timon." She softly sighed and put a paw on Timon's cheek, turning his face to hers. "Even if he was still alive, he wouldn't know we were his family. And we wouldn't know what he looks like today. I'm sorry, sweetie."

Timon exhaled through his nose, and then turned to walk away. Ma went to stop him, but stopped herself. She watched after him for a moment, and then went in the other direction.

"Wow. I've never seen Daddy so... sad," Shani said as she slid down the front of Bango's snout and land on the ground.

"Grandma, too. They're always so cheerful," Kito said.

"Are we done spying on them yet?" Bango asked.

"Yeah, but we weren't spying."

"Yeah, just keep telling yourself that," Shani said as she walked away from the two of them.

"Hey, you were just 'not spying' on them, too, y'know!" Kito yelled after his sister. He sighed and rested his elbows on Bango's head. "What are we gonna do now, Bango?"

"Hope that they cheer up on their own?" Bango suggested as he turned and started walking away.

"Nah, that could take days."

"Maybe if we gathered their favorite bugs together they'll forget they were sad about Uncle Titus. Maybe they'll even forget about arguing over the fact that he might still be alive."

A little lightbulb lit up in Kito's head. "Bango, that's it!"

"Great! So you wanna start now on the bug gathering, or--?"

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant. I mean, we can find out for sure if Uncle Titus is alive or not!"

Bango stopped walking and looked up at the meerkat riding on his head. "Kito, no one would know what Uncle Titus looks like. He hasn't been seen since he was a little bitty baby."

"Can't be too hard," Kito said as he drummed his fingers on Bango's head. "We just gotta look for someone who looks like Dad. If the grown-ups aren't gonna do anything about it, then we'll take this into our own paws!" Kito paused a moment before adding, "Or hooves." He shook his head. "Whatever."

"We? As in, you and me?"

Kito looked around briefly. "Do you see anyone else here I could be referring to?"

"Uh-uh!"

Kito leaned forward to look at Bango, giving the warthog piglet an upside-down view of the pup. "Was that 'uh-uh' for 'I don't see anyone else here you could be referring to', or was that 'uh-uh' for 'I don't wanna be involved in this'?"

"I don't wanna be involved in this."

"Aww, what's the matter, Bango? Chicken?" Kito asked in a taunting tone.

Bango stood firm. "Yes. We've never left the oasis without our parents before."

Kito jumped onto Bango's snout. "You won't be alone. You'll have me, your bestest, best cousin to go with you." He laid down on Bango's snout and looked at him straight in the eye. "If we don't go, Dad's gonna stay depressed, and it won't be long before Uncle Pumbaa starts acting depressed, too. You know how sensitive he is."

Bango sighed. "Dragging my parents into your family affairs? That's low."

"No, that's a guilt trip."

"Well, maybe if we had some kind of help to point us in the right--"

"Some kind of help? Who would we go to for--?" Kito suddenly smiled, sat up and snapped his fingers. "Rafiki!"

"Rafiki?"

"Yeah, you know, the all-knowing magic blue-faced monkey shaman of the Pride Lands. He helped bring our dads together and hinted where to find the oasis in the first place, right?"

"Right..." Bango nodded slowly.

"So, maybe he'll know if Uncle Titus is alive! We'll go to the Pride Lands and look for his tree before we look for Uncle Titus on our own. He'll get us going in the right direction!"

Bango bit his lower lip and looked away from Kito for a moment. "Well, if we can get Rafiki's help, I guess I can agree to go along."

"Great!" He then nervously smiled when Bango narrowed his eyes at him.

"Just out of curiosity, Kito..."

"Yes...?"

"Are you making me go along so you don't have to walk the whole way there?"

"Uh, well... that, and..." He cleared his throat, grabbed onto Bango's ear, and whispered into it, "I really, really, really don't want to go alone."

"Good answer," Bango nodded. "So, when do we leave?"

"Tonight."

To be continued...