A few days since the cobra incident I found it sad to report that we hadn’t seen sibling No.2 since that night Mother carried him out of the den. I will say that the smell within our humble abode significantly improved afterwards, however…I miss playing with him. I really do wonder what happened to him and why Mother and Father don’t seem to care anymore.

As the nights passed, my siblings and I got better and better at catching termites – we’d basically become professionals at this now. “Ouch!” Well, minus the odd bite from a stubborn snack every now and then. The downside of this was that Mother had completely stopped giving us her delicious milk. “Farewell, my sweet aperitif to a satisfying day of foraging for food and playing…Do I even dare to ask where I plucked aperitif from?”

With more days passing, as well as my siblings’ and my bodies growing larger, we had started to spread out the foraging zone. Mother would take siblings No.3,4 and 5 to one area, while Father took myself and sibling No.1 to another one. It must be noted that sibling No.1 often cheated on his bounties! “Those were my termites, sibling No.1! I will remember this!”

Returning to the den, as usual, it came to everyone’s attention that there was a new scent close to the entrance. Sniffing at it, none of my siblings or I knew what it was, although I did find it strangely familiar. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite recall what it reminded me of, however I had the sneaking suspicion it wasn’t good – considering how on edge Mother and Father seemed that day.

Over the next few days, only either Mother or Father kept us company at one time while the other seemed to have gone off somewhere. That strange scent kept getting stronger every now and then but every time my siblings and me went to have a sniff, our parents would nudge us back into the den or towards the termite mounds. It was a little weird, though, since the ground looked like something had been there for a period of time before.

At some point, Mother and Father closed the entrance to the den on one of our foraging trips – which confused us all. I jumped onto Father’s back, since I was big enough to manage that now, and nipped at his ear as if to ask him what he was doing. Unfortunately, due to my diminutive size compared with Father, he simply did a light shake of his body and gently threw me off him. I did not at all land on my face! Nope! Not at all!

While at the termite mounds, sibling No.1 and I continued our friendly rivalry with one another to see who was the better aardwolf. Of course, when judging these things, you should always go by the quality of the catch and not the quantity. Yes, not the quantity! “I swear yours are not as nutritious as mine, sibling No.1!”

As we argued (barked at one another) and tackled each other, Father eventually decided it was time to stop – picking me up in his mouth and carrying me to a different spot for termite foraging. “See, sibling No.1! Father loves me more than you! Why else would he come to my rescue?” Staring smugly at my less intelligent sibling, I realised that he completely ignored me and had gone back to foraging in the mound. “How dare you ignore me?! Father turn back! Let me have a piece of him!” Squirming in Father’s mouth, my protests were simply ignored as we headed for – what I assumed was – a better location.

With the night drawing to a close, we heard Mother’s call in the distance and stopped actions so we could head back home. Although…we weren’t heading in the same direction as our den was. I had wondered if we were going to stay up even during the day, but my thoughts abated from that direction upon noticing we were moving away from the termite mounds.

After a few hours of non-stop walking, we eventually arrived in an area we’d never explored before. At some points of the trip my siblings’ and my paws had started hurting, and so our parents carried two of us in their mouths for parts of the journey. Not wishing to overburden Mother and Father, I retained a stiff upper lip as I endured the phantom blisters forming on my paws. Sibling No.1 was carried the most, though; I knew he was a weakling with no stamina!

Eventually, we arrived at what looked like another version of our previous den. It seemed that Mother and Father had been coming over in the past few days to dig it out for us. Although, I do wonder why we moved dens in the first place, but at least Mother and Father were no longer as tense as earlier.

Exploring the new den with my siblings, we soon noticed it was larger than our previous abode – which meant we could play more actively inside now! We immediately forgot our painful paws as we started chasing each other and tackling one another in the new space. Father left us, while Mother just came in and lay down to watch us play.

After a while, my siblings and I completely ran out of energy and promptly fell asleep in a large heap next to Mother – who licked us all affectionately. My ears twitched when Father returned, causing me to wake up to see him regurgitating some termites for us little ones. “Ah, Father! You’re so hardworking!” The scent of food woke the other siblings up, resulting in a mad scramble occurring between us all. I – of course – was the main victor, with sibling No.1 a close second; poor sibling No.5 had to wait until the end due to not wanting to get her claws broken, I assumed.

When we’d all finished gorging ourselves on food, we went back to sleep since our paws were still in pain and we didn’t need to go out for food that day. I noticed just before drifting into slumber Father nuzzling Mother before they switched places and Mother left the den. Thinking on it, Mother didn’t eat anything all of this time…she must have been really hungry.