Meerkats by Rhianna

She was waiting for the right moment to turn it off, but she just couldn’t. She tried, but she just stood there, transfixed, face blank. Nobody had spoken for the last four hours, and they just stood there, in silence, watching ‘Dance Moms’. They couldn’t care less if it wasn’t from their nationality, as they watched anything they could grab their large, chubby hands on.

The box set came to an end, and so her father put on a documentary about meerkats. She wished she could scream, “WHAT IS GOING ON‽I WANT TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING!” but she couldn’t. They were just too cute. A meerkat was prowling around, and then another one joined it, and they started digging in the sand. Happily, they started yapping together, about who-knows-what. Back in the lounge, everybody just stood there.

Then the meerkats looked straight at the camera, and began to look sad. She wondered why. She hoped they would lighten up a bit. In a trice, they pounced at the screen, and began to claw away at the screen. They got through, and jumped straight out of the television! “Okay, okay. Baaaadddd kitty. Baaaaaaaddddd kitty. Please go away!” said her brother, his belly wobbling as he leant over to grab the crisps. He was seventeen, and already twice the size and weight of their eighteen year old cousins. The cousins were mildly obese. So that says a LOT about him. “HOW COULD YOU‽ YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF THE POOR CREATURES, AND YOU’VE BEEN WATCHING THE STUPID DOCUMENTARY FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS NOW! TWO AND A HALF!” she shouted. She was working herself up into a state now, and ran out the room.

By this time, the sitting room (well the main one, because they sit down 99.999% of the time) was absolutely jam-packed with meerkats, more meerkats and even more meerkats. They began to search for a better place, so they took a left and began to raid the pantry and kitchens. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t touch the food, and they only took the orange juice, and the milk. Then they came back with a load of cards and board games. They played blackjack, monopoly, snap, and Lego.

They carried on playing for another half an hour, with the family staring with open mouths. They were practically gasping for breath, except the little girl. She knew what was happening, and what was going to happen next. So she got her camera out, and took a bunch of pictures. She must have shied them away, because the next minute they left the door open behind them, and started waving goodbye.

The family thought it was only fair that instead of watching the television, they started socializing and playing monopoly until the day ended. They were sad to see the meerkats go, but they knew that they had taught them a valuable life lesson.

The next morning, the girl went to school. She took her photos with her for show and tell, and when it was her turn, all they said was, “Nice Photoshop.”