Stevie’s Field Journals

No. 01

Meerkats can eat poisonous scorpions without anything happening to them

‍ ‍ I should not complain about my old school bike, Dad said, and asked if I would like a donkey instead when I kept complaining. Yeah, right, Dad. My old bike makes terrible squeaking and clonk-clonk noises when I go around corners. So, now I go to school early before the cool guys like Berni-shiny-hair and Andy-stiff-upper-lip come zipping along on their fancy new bikes. I'm sure they do a million miles per hour, and I do about five or six.

Maybe I should not complain because Pete, you know, the guy who sits in the back of the class, and his friend, Jo-Jo, walk to school. But imagine plodding along on a donkey! Or imagine riding a meerkat, who does 20 miles per hour, which is waaaay faster than the cool guys!

Meerkats are very small and weigh as much as two bricks of butter.

Gran's Wisdom Story:

Gran and I talked about meerkats the other day, and she said running fast is not their best quality. What?! Come on, Gran!

'Oh, Stevie, if only we humans could live like meerkats, the world would be so much better,' she said, and then followed it with, 'They drink no water, don't kill cows, chickens or pigs for food, and they don't become fat or need special warm clothes out there in the desert. No, they are happy to live underground in a hole and work very hard to keep it clean. They work even harder when out hunting for food, because they eat insects, lizards and sometimes little birds, which are not that plentiful in the desert. Unlike humans, snakebites do not affect meerkats. But best of all, they love their family and will go to war to protect them. I think I would like to be a meerkat.'

Good grief, so do I!