CRACK!
The noise was audible even to those of the colony just below ground. It was the next day after Danso and Timon had talked, and after some urging, Timon had readily agreed to attend the sentry class that Max was preparing. He jumped as the echoing snap resounded over the dusty ground. Max had just whipped his little pointing stick against his thigh, making an impressive display as he stood at sharp attention, glancing with a faint air of contempt over the rest of the kits who were assembled before him. Some of them actually looked scared despite the fact that they were all older than Timon. Trip and Daren were there, standing next to him. Unfortunately there was also Gamba and Tupac were present, but they were farther down the line. Finally, there was one face that Timon had only seen sparsely, perhaps not more than eight or nine times in his life.
It was Mosi's third son, Nyack, standing apart from the line as though he was an observer rather than a participant. He was around Daren's age, but as far as being physically imposing went, he was no better off than Timon. Where he was not disadvantaged, though, was in looks. He had a musculature that could be called scrawny, but it was fitting for a young, developing kit of his proportions, as he was a little on the short side, and his dark tan fur was soft as his paws. He stood with a ramrod straight back, and a full head of dirty brown headfur, with a tinge of orange just putting off the main color. He had many long, narrow stripes running down his back, unlike the large, blockier ones typically seen on the other meerkats. What were most striking about this young thing were his eyes.
These were the color of a cloudy blue sky, foggy and unique. This only added to his quiet aura, for he never spoke unless spoken to as far as Timon knew, and it had actually worried one or two of the other members of the colony, that he was wrong in the head and wouldn't work for the better of the common good.
But work he did. He had come along far faster than Timon could ever hope (but then, everyone always did), and was a good pupil. A disquieting, but fair meerkat overall.
Max suddenly broke the stiff silence with his snapping, authoritative voice.
"All right, youngsters! It's time you all learned one of the most valuable arts of meerkat society. And that is the art of sentry duty!" He began moving up and down the line of meerkat kits, most of them male, with a smattering of females (Sauda was learning to work with the digging crews), looking them all in the eye as he passed by, gesticulating with his pointer stick.
"Without the sentry there is no life in the colony! Digging, scouting, foraging, all quite important, but what use are they, I ask, if there is nobody watching their backs? Nothing! Nothing at all! And that is how we live, is it not? Each and every meerkat keeping a careful eye on the one next to him. Our lives are intertwined. And this is why the sentry is a fundamental part of our lifestyle. Perhaps one day, one of you will be called upon to serve in this honorable position. Which is why you are here. To see if you have a future in preserving the lives of each and every one of the colony!"
He snapped the end of his stick downward, landing on Trip's chest.
"You, mister, could be holding the lives of those here in your very paws one day Just think of which one of us could be killed in an instant because of one, tiny slip-up by our little friend here. Perhaps… you! Or you!" he said, moving down the line and poking random kits with his stick, explaining in detail all the ways they could be slain if the one next to them left his post for even more than a moment.
"Don't forget that what happened just over a week prior could happen at any moment in our lives! Snakes, eagles, and even other meerkats looking for trouble, who don't want anyone to know they passed by… legions of animals, just waiting for us to leave the safety of the colony, drag us out into the open and rend us limb from limb!" he exclaimed, getting himself worked up as he illustrated the rending part with paw motions.
"Okay Max! … I think you've made an impression," remarked Oji as he came over. He had volunteered to help mainly because he didn't want the kits coming back with nightmares. Max sniffed and looked at the line of petrified kits, all standing stock still with their eyes wide as dinner plates as they all imagined if the one next to them was going to be the one that didn't defend them correctly. Someone gulped audibly.
"If I don't tell them, who will?" said Max, crossing his arms. "It's best they know what they're dealing with if they're going to get it right!" Oji sighed, knowing he wouldn't be able to reason with the irascible meerkat.
"All right, all right. Let's just get this started so I can get back and make sure Shakina doesn't kill our Dinari trying to teach him to catch scorpions."Max turned back to the kits, arms still crossed.
"In order to discover the true prowess of our observation and sneaking skills, which will come in handy should I instead recommend you as scouts, we will be doing a little test. One by one, each of you is going to stand on that rock, that one, right over there." He pointed at a large, flat stone, near the location of Buzz's underground monument, noted Timon. Max continued, unabated.
"But before we do that, you need to memorize a system we use. Tried, true, and simple. Three steps to survival. Scurry… sniff… and flinch. Oji, you will show them the correct form." The other meerkat sighed and put a paw over his eyes.
"Aw Max, do I have to? It's embarrassing." Max gasped.
"Embarrassing nothing! It's saved lives! Now get going!"
"I'll give you saving lives…" muttered Oji as he walked into full view, standing at attention.
"Watch closely," said Max to the kits.
"Scurry!" he shouted. Oji hunkered over and scuttled along on his hind legs, paws held loosely in front. He did his best to look alert and partially terrified, as he knew Max wanted, but for the most part he looked like he had just been sent to his nest without dinner.
"Sniff! And what's with the face? You're being hunted, mister! This is not a flamingo strutting contest!" Oji jutted his narrow snout into the air, sniffing loudly, eyes wide with an appropriately "hunted" look to them.
"And flinch!" Oji decided to exaggerate and sprang into a 180, landing on one footpaw with his limbs splayed out, looking under one arm. Trip sniggered, and Timon saw other kits exchanging smiles. Probably not quite the impact Max had in mind. All expressions of humor faded at once when Max turned on them again.
"Observe and remember! Follow this process and you will survive. You're all going to be repeating this on the test I've set up for you. The entire class will sneak past the sentry, who will eventually be played by all of you, whilst you repeat exactly what Oji did here. And stop that," he snapped at Oji, who was making a variety of "panic state" motions behind Max's back, earning several giggles from the class.
Oji simply grinned as he dropped his arms to his side.
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Half of the class, thought Timon, half the class has gone as the sentry, and I got spotted by almost every single one.
This made number twelve. The kits let out a collective sigh as Max halted the entire process once again, and this time even before Timon got half a foot from the starting point.
"No no no!" he said with exasperation, waving his stick with vigor.
"You're still disturbing the grass too much, don't stick your paws out so far when you crawl! I know we're not training to hide, but at least make it challenging for Trip!" he snapped, jabbing his stick in Trip's direction. Oji came forward to placate the fuming meerkat.
"Come on, Max, give the kid a chance."
"We've given him a dozen so far, Oji!" Max replied, throwing his arms in the air. Timon got up and dusted himself off.
"Hey, that twig was old anyway, it probably just snapped by itself… I'm not doing that bad, right Trip?" he called to the older meerkat, who just grinned good-naturedly.
"As if! I saw you before you even ducked down properly!"
"And what are you doing, acting like this is a joke, eh?" interrupted Max on the spot. Trip's smile fell from his face, caught in the act.
"Uh… well, I just-"
"You wouldn't joke with a mamba, would you!"
"Max!" Oji said through his teeth, poking the other male on the shoulder. "This isn't life or death! Trip is the oldest one here, you'll scare them to death before the day is out! Can't you lighten up just one moment and-!"
"Timon! Let's see if you can spot better than sneak!" shouted Max, ignoring Oji, who spluttered.
"Yes Uncle Max," said Timon obediently.
"Nothing doing with the "Uncle" business! I'm 'sir' when I'm the teacher."
"Yes, Sir Uncle Max," corrected Timon with sincerity.
"No! I told y-… forget it, get it up there," said Max, wagging his stick back and forth, then turning to the kits.
"All right, class! This next round is for Timon's benefit… don't go easy on him."
Timon snorted from his position on the rock.
"As if they'd ever do that anyway… okay! Let's get focused here, Timmy, lots of eyes on you right now… don't wanna screw this one up." He turned away from the others and cracked his knuckles, trying to get into "the zone" just in case sentries had something like that. He even put on his best tough-guy face for effect. Today was going to be a good day, he told himself. Nobody would get as far as a whisker length before he spotted them.
He only had to do it perfectly… exactly… right.
"Okay… okay. Now, what am I supposed to do? Sniff… scurry… and… what was it?"
He placed a paw on his chin, looking absently into the sky as he began to forget what his actual assignment was. A twig snapped somewhere behind him, prompting him to-
"Flinch! Of course!" He spread his arms and smiled triumphantly, then his face fell again.
"Oh, wait… Is that really the order? What if… what if I sniff when I'm supposed to flinch? Will that cost me my head?" he asked himself in a panic, putting his paws around his neck, remembering the graphic stories Max had told.
"Or what if I flinch before I scurry? Does it matter? If I don't flinch right, I can't jump, but if I don't scurry, I can't run, and if I don't sniff, I can't smell!"
Timon had, by now, worked himself into a hysteria with the thought of messing up the entire practice in front of everyone, completely unaware that the lesson had started long ago, falling into the practice of worrying about procedure while a real crisis developed directly behind him. Most of the class was already sliding their way along, sniggering at how easy the day had suddenly become. Maybe Max would be convinced it was all hopeless and send them home early!
Daren looked up from his spot in the grass, hardly two feet from Timon, who had his back turned and seemed to be talking to some other invisible meerkat. Shaking his head, he moved on. Timon continued his ranting.
"There's just so much to think of! I'm gonna let everybody down! I… I can't. I told dad I'd do it right today. I've got to just… turn around… and tell them I'm ready. Yeah. Show them I can do it. Okay… let's go!" he said loudly, whipping around to face… nothing.
"Hey… where'd everybody-… oh no…" Turning with drooping ears, Timon came face to face with a very irate looking Max. The rest of the group stood behind him; with a sinking feeling Timon realized the entire class had slipped by without so much as a peep... or at least none that he had heard. Oji was sighing and looking at the ground, Trip and Daren were looking on helplessly, and the rest of the kits were busy with trying to smother their barely contained giggles.
Gamba simply stood there, a highly amused smirk on his face.
"Let's… try that again," Max said quietly.
They tried it again for the next two weeks.
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"No, Max, I don't need to hear it again…" said Meeca, standing with her paws clenched over her stomach as Max paraded about in front of her, throwing a very impressive fit after another four full hours of unsuccessful attempts at teaching Timon how to guard his post. The past couple weeks had been alternating through hard studies of everything a meerkat did. He had failed with flying colors in all of them. Timon's fourth month of life had slipped by, unnoticed in the flurry of teaching attempts. Every night Timon came home, he had hardly looked his parents in the eye before settling down for the next day of drills. His friends had tried to be supportive, but they couldn't be there for him all the time. Gamba had not attacked him like he had in previous days, but every time the gang saw him, they were sure to throw a few insults his way, even going so far as to spatter him with dirt or shellfulls of water when no one was looking. Nyack was the only one that had paid him any real attention… well, if one could call staring vaguely in his direction every once in a while attention.
Max hadn't heard his sister-in-law's request to stop talking, meanwhile, and continued on about the disgraceful way Timon had been distracted and abandoned his post for a passing beetle after fifteen minutes of standing alone, pounced on a stick instead of another classmate, and other incredibly humiliating things that Meeca had merely blocked out a long time ago. She put his paw over her eyes and heaved with a great sigh. Timon stood against the wall; shoulders hunched and paws behind his back, ears folded down. It didn't help to keep the words from biting into him. He shut his eyes tight. The images of the other kits sniggering behind Max's back only became all the clearer.
He didn't think he had done that bad. He was only four months, give or take a couple weeks. Surely that cut him some slack? It hadn't stopped him from becoming the laughingstock of all those that had seen him, though. And surely they would go home and tell their parents, what fun they had had watching the class clown fail at everything except standing still.
"… don't see how anyone could be so completely useless!" Max's words came roaring back in a rush as he dragged himself out of his stupor, immediately wishing he hadn't.
"He's young, Max," said Meeca, using the argument Danso had used for a long time, but even she didn't sound convinced at all. Not this time. Max interrupted harshly.
"There are others hardly days older than him, and they were picking up on everything I said. They were attentive. They practiced what I told them to do. Timon couldn't even get the 'scurry, sniff, flinch' routine right! We had to have him shadow Oji before he came close! Ohhh, I can hear the names they're cooking up for him at the nursery. The Non-Watch Kat, maybe! That's perfect! Oh, wait, they used that last week! He attacked a stick, Meeca, a stick over a regular meerkat today! This was funny two months ago, when he was still learning to talk, but he's got to get the basics now! Imagine what he'll be like if this doesn't go like you plan! He's going to be alone for the rest of his miserable life!"
Actually, that doesn't sound so bad right now… thought Timon, close to tears.
"I can't understand it. Not a single thing we did hasn't been riddled with errors for the past two weeks! I've heard of non-attentive kits before, even taught a few myself, but this-!" He paused to jab a finger at Timon. "This just takes the cake! I can't work with something I'm not given, Meeca, I-"
"I get it, Max," snapped Meeca sharply, closing her eyes tight.
"You've done all you can. I thank you for your help," she continued. Her voice was in a low monotone, sounding like she was reading from a script. In a sense, she was… she had expected a talk like this would happen after the fifth day. After a pause, her eyes opened. They were tired.
"Now, please leave, my son has had enough trouble as it is these last few moons," she commanded. Max knew from her voice this was no time to argue. With a disdainful grunt, he exited the chamber.
Timon was busy finding interest in the ground when Meeca turned to look at him.
"Well… I'm glad your father wasn't around to hear that," said Meeca, trying to keep the mood light. Unlike the others, she still had a bit of hope for her son. After this, she had a hard time keeping it from fading further.
"I tried hard, ma, I really did… I didn't want to fail, really I didn't, I didn't want anyone to laugh at me, I didn't want to get called Tunnel Klutz, I… I didn't! Never!" Tears ran down his cheeks in rivulets, beginning to pool in the dirt as they fell to the floor.
"I just want to make you guys proud of me, I only wanted to hear Max say I did a good job… really I did, I did…" He finally collapsed, sobbing openly as he sank down to his knees, putting his paws over his face. Meeca sat at her son's side, watching him cry. Superficially, it looked like indifference… but with each shake of Timon's shoulders, another piece of her heart was torn off on the inside. Timon continued to babble on, seeming to forget his mother was in the chamber with him.
"What's the point? I couldn't even walk right when I was little, I've buried the tunneling teams three times, and I can't even get in time with the digging song! Why can't I do anything right? What's the point?"
He went on like this for some time; other meerkats studiously avoiding the small burrow, shaking their heads as they went by at the embarrassment the child inside was turning out to be.
"I tried…" Timon whispered brokenly when his sobs had disappeared into hiccups. Meeca looked away for a moment. Both of them knew the futility behind Timon's words. Trying never counted, not in this world. Tinder and Bali had tried. So had countless others, they had tried, tried to live, to love.
Fearless Buzz tried. And he was as dead as the rest of them.
"Oh, sweety…"
Gently, she put a paw on her son's shoulder. Timon looked up, trying to see through the blurry sacks of red his eyes had become. Slowly, Meeca's paw slipped down around Timon's waist, and then her son jumped forward, the tears flying out anew as he cried into his mother's chest. And for the first time in a long time, Meeca felt a tear of her own slide out.
Danso came in an hour later. Timon was sent to bed, and husband and wife began to talk.