Your Mother Was a Neanderthal Read online

  Fred made a funny gurgling noise. “Let me go or I’m going to Ug Caa all over you.”

  Fred broke loose from the guy holding him and squeezed between the logs into the fresh air. Sam and I were just about to follow when we heard Fred scream the loudest scream I’ve ever heard Fred scream.

  “Caaa!!!”

  SEVEN

  Fred dove back inside like a bullet. A split second later something large, furry, and mad crashed into the logs behind him. Dirt and dead leaves showered down on us. A huge paw with wicked long claws shot between the logs. and swiped the air. Everyone dove for the ground. Through the cracks and holes between the logs I could see fangs, claws, and a cat as big as a small bus.

  The gigantic cat swatted at the roof logs and roared its disappointment at missing a meal. More dirt and dead leaves rained down on us. And then, with one log-creaking bounce, the cat jumped and was gone.

  Duh uncovered his head. “Caa.”

  “Cat?” said Fred. “That was no cat. Why didn’t you tell me there was a monster with fangs out there?”

  “Most likely a saber-toothed cave cat,” said Sam.

  “Thank you once again, Mr. Superior Brainpower. I feel so much better now that I know the name of the thing that almost ate me for breakfast. Now do you have any bright ideas on how to get us out of this jam?”

  Sam looked at the raggedy bunch of cavemen crouched in the dirt around us. “Okay, let’s look at this logically.” He picked up a stick and drew a dot and a letter in the dirt. “We are at point A, a hole in the ground with a bunch of guys with no weapons, no tools, and quite possibly no brains.”

  The cavemen looked at Sam’s drawing and hooted.

  “We would like to get to point B.” He drew another dot and labeled it B. “Joe’s room in New York.”

  Duh and the rest of the cavemen looked closely at the marks in the dirt.

  “But the only way to get to B is go past C, a rather large killer cat, into D, the cave, to find E, the cave painting.” Sam ended with a wild flourish of dots, lines, a triangle-headed cat, an arc for the cave, and three stick figures for the painting.

  “Do you follow?”

  The caveguys studied Sam’s drawings and nodded and grunted to themselves.

  “But how do we do that?” asked Fred.

  “How do we do that?” said Sam, tapping his head with his stick. “How? Hmmmm. Now that’s a whole different question. Magic, I guess.”

  Sam and Fred turned to me.

  “I’ve still got my straw,” I said, hopefully.

  “Would you forget that stupid straw trick. We need some big magic,” said Fred. “Why didn’t you learn spells to make us invisible, or gigantic, or able to blast fire out of our eyes, or something useful like that?”

  “I didn’t think we’d need any magic if we kept The Book with us.”

  We all stared at Sam’s drawing again, looking from A to B, worrying about C and D, wondering how we would ever find E.

  “Now I really wish we had some weapons,” said Fred. “One blast of an Uzi would turn that monster into a scaredy-cat.”

  Sam looked up. “As Archimedes once said—Eureka.”

  “We’re going to make machine guns?” I said.

  “No. We’re going to scare the cat,” said Sam.

  “With what? Your good looks?” said Fred.

  Sam pretended not to hear. “With the one thing man has power over, that the animal does not.” Sam stood up and paused for effect. “Fire.”

  “Hey, yeah,” said Fred. “That always works in those Tarzan movies.”

  “But where do we get the fire?” I said. “We lost our matches. And I think these guys eat everything raw.”

  Fred gagged. “Don’t mention eating again.”

  Sam broke his stick and began rubbing the two pieces together. “We’ll invent fire.” He rubbed and rubbed. The cavemen watched closely. The sticks got warm. I took over and rubbed. The sticks stayed warm. Fred grabbed the sticks and rubbed. The cavemen hooted. Fred rubbed. The cavemen hooted. Fred rubbed harder. The cavemen hooted. Fred rubber harder. And then ... the sticks broke.

  Fred fell over backward. “This is never going to work. Joe, you must remember some magic.”

  One of the cavemen picked up the sticks and tried rubbing them together.

  I thought about magic to scare the cat. I thought about my straw trick and suddenly had an idea. “How about this,” I said, pulling out the straw.

  Fred rolled over. “If you show that straw one more time I’m going to take it and personally shove it—”

  I took a jagged piece of rock from the ground and used it to cut one end of the straw in a V. I put it to my lips and blew a blast on my new straw horn. The caveguys’ eyes bugged out.

  I wrapped the fur cover around me and danced around, waving my arms and honking the straw. The caveguys dove for the ground again.

  “Now that’s how you scare a cat,” said Sam.

  I threw off the fur, and cut the straw into three pieces and made a point at the end of each piece. “That’s how we scare a cat,” I said, handing Fred and Sam a straw.

  “What do you mean we?” asked Sam.

  “I mean three heads and three straws are better than one.”

  Fred grabbed the fur and wrapped it around the three of us.

  “Do we really want to do this?” said Sam. “Maybe we should think this through.”

  Fred stuck two branching sticks behind our heads and said, “Horns.”

  The cavemen stayed frozen on the ground, looking at us in bug-eyed amazement. Duh stared at us and touched the fur with one careful finger. Fred blew a blast on his straw. Duh jumped five feet.

  “Okay, you guys,” said Fred. “This is it. We have to charge out there and look like the meanest two-horned, three-headed beast on earth.”

  We shuffled up to the opening at one end of the pit where the roof met the ground. “And blow your horn like your life depends on it,” I said.

  “I think it does,” said Sam.

  Duh pointed outside. “Caa?”

  “You said it,” said Fred. “Ready, set, go!”

  And the meanest two-horned, three-headed, straw-honking beast on the planet charged outside to face down one saber-toothed prehistoric cat.

  EIGHT

  One of our horns stuck between two logs and stayed there. Sam tripped and fell between Fred and me. We didn’t really charge outside. We more or less fell outside.

  Then I saw it.

  Caa, the cat, was crouched next to a tree not thirty feet away. Fred was right. This was no cat. This was five hundred pounds of muscle, big claws, and long, sharp saber teeth. And it was staring at us like we were its next breakfast snack.

  I turned into a statue. I couldn’t get my muscles to move. My throat dried up and refused to push any air to my straw.

  Sam crawled around under the fur honking, yelling, and trying to find a spot to poke his head out.

  The giant cat laid his ears back just like I’ve seen my cat do before he pounces. Fred blew his straw and waved one fur covered arm. The cat lowered into a crouch. I squeaked and waved one arm. The cat was just about to jump, when Sam found an opening and poked his head out next to our feet. He blew one piercing straw honk.

  The surprised cat jumped straight up and kind of half flipped backward in midair. A two-headed beast was one thing. But a two-headed beast suddenly growing another head was something not to be messed with.

  The cat gave us one last look, then took off into the woods.

  We threw off the smelly fur and jumped around tooting our straws and slapping high fives. Duh and his caveguys peeked out of the pit.

  “Come on out and breathe the fresh air, Duh,” said Fred. “The three-headed, one-horned honker beast has won!”

  “Caa?” asked Duh.

  “Caa voom,” said Fred.

  It felt so good to be alive and out of the smelly pit. We all laughed and hopped around like crazy men.

  Duh slowly crawled ou
t, checking all around him. The rest of the men followed him. They all stood blinking in the sunlight, not quite sure what to do.

  “So much for point C,” said Sam. “But perhaps we should consider a way to reach our ultimate goal, point B, without returning to point D for E.”

  Duh, the cavemen, and Fred looked at Sam like he was crazy.

  I translated. “He’s glad we got rid of the cat, but he doesn’t want to go back to the cave to look for the cave painting.”

  “Come on, you chicken,” said Fred. “If we all march to the cave we can take on Ma.”

  The caveguys suddenly got very wide-eyed and quiet.

  “You guys look like you saw a ghost,” said Fred. “All I said was Ma.”

  Three guys dove back under the log pile.

  “Ug Ma,” said Duh. “Ug Ma.” He held his hands up like claws and showed his teeth.

  “Ah, that’s just a bearskin and a head. Just like the dinosaur head,” said Fred. “I’m not afraid of those fakes.”

  Duh shook his head. “Ma.”

  “I don’t know,” said Sam. “Maybe Duh knows something we don’t know.”

  “They probably have the cave painting, and they definitely have my hat,” said Fred. “So let’s go. »

  “Let’s not and say we did,” said Sam. “Maybe we can make our own Book.”

  I looked at the scrawny bunch of caveguys blinking in the sunlight. “These guys are our ancestors. And they don’t know anything about fire, clothing, or shelter. The women have figured out all that stuff. Even if we don’t find a cave painting or The Book, we should at least get the men and women together. Otherwise we might not have a human future to go back to.”

  “Excellent point,” said Sam. “In the interest of survival of the species, I guess we should get these guys out of their pit and help them meet a few girls. But how are we ever going to get these prehistoric nerds to help? They’ll run away if you even say ‘Boo.’ ”

  “You’re right,” said Fred. “But what if we said something else?’ Fred jumped up on a stump. “Okay, caveguys, listen up. We are going to the cave. You are coming to help us.”

  “Very convincing,” said Sam. “They look real interested.”

  “But what’s in it for you?” said Fred. “Boog.”

  The men looked up.

  “Lots of boog. Bit heaping piles of boog. Squirming, stinking mountains of boog. All the boog you can eat.” Fred pointed toward the volcano. “Onward to boog, men!”

  The men milled around. They looked at Fred. They looked at their leader, Duh. You could almost see Duh thinking. He furrowed his brow, and then finally walked toward Fred.

  Fred chanted, “Boog, boog, it’s good for your heart. The more you eat, the more you—”

  The caveguys joined in. “Boog, boog ...”

  Sam and I honked our straws. Everyone followed Fred and Duh down the path toward the cave. We were on our way to boog, The Book, and Home Sweet Civilization Home.

  And we probably would have made it. But something rumbled.

  “What was that?” I said.

  The something rumbled again. The ground shook beneath our feet. It wobbled and jumped and shook like jello, throwing everyone down.

  “Earthquake!” yelled Sam.

  And it was.

  NINE

  Trees shook.

  Rocks crashed.

  The ground wiggled and suddenly split open right behind us.

  The cavemen’s logpile home fell into the cracked earth and disappeared. Then everything stopped. No birds, no bugs, no prehistoric beasts made a sound.

  I sat up and dusted off my animal skin. “That could have been ... I mean, that was almost ... we were almost ...”

  “Smashed into little bits and buried under a ton of prehistoric garbage!” screamed Sam.

  “Calm down, Sam,” said Fred. “Things could be worse.”

  “Oh yeah? How?” said Sam, looking a little wild-eyed and crazy. “We’re trapped 40,000 years in the past. Everything we meet tries to eat us. And now even the ground underneath us is falling apart. And you say things could be worse? How could things be worse?” Sam smacked himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand.

  Duh and his men stood up carefully and moved to the edge of the new ravine. They looked down at the pile of broken logs at the bottom. They looked at Sam. Duh let out a wild yell, then smacked himself in the head. And all at once, all of the guys started yelling, moaning, and smacking their heads.

  “That’s how,” said Fred.

  Sam yelled. The caveguys yelled. Sam moaned. The caveguys moaned.

  “And how,” I said.

  The noise of Sam, Duh, and the caveguys grew louder and louder, and suddenly much louder.

  Duh stopped beating himself up, listened, and then yelled something that sounded like “Woo Maa! Woo Maa!” Everyone ran for the trees and left Fred, Sam, and me staring at each other.

  “Woo Maa?” said Fred. “What’s Woo Maa?”

  Sam stood frozen, looking off into the space over our heads.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I think we’ve lost Sam.”

  Sam croaked, “Woo ... woo ... woo ... ma ... ma ... ma—”

  “We’ve definitely lost him,” said Fred.

  Sam raised his arm to point and croaked again, “Oh, no. Woolly mammoth!”

  “He’s snapped. He thinks we’re the cavewomen,” I said. “It’s okay, Sam. It’s me, Joe.”

  And right then I was stopped by an ear-popping trumpeted blast of noise. Fred and I turned to look behind us. There, standing at the edge of the clearing, not twenty feet away from us, stood the largest and most crazed-looking beast you will never want to see as long as you live. You’ve seen them in books. And you’ve seen their relatives in zoos. And I’m telling you, you don’t need to see them any closer.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “Woolly mammoth!” yelled Fred.

  At that moment I understood where the word mammoth came from. This thing was huge. It was gigantic. Enormous. Mammoth.

  The mammoth jerked his head back and fixed us with one tiny eye. Fortunately, he seemed just as surprised to see us as we were to see him. Unfortunately, he stood about ten feet taller and weighed about two tons more than us. And most unfortunately, we were standing in his way.

  We stood face to face, not knowing what to do. Fred bent down slowly and picked up a stick that had broken off to a point.

  “Our only chance is to scare him off.”

  “Let’s not do anything that might make him mad,” I whispered. “We could turn and run,” said Fred. Sam inched backward. “That sounds good to me.” “But we’d probably get trampled from behind.”

  “That doesn’t sound so good to me.” Fred eyed the huge, hairy ancestor of an elephant in front of us. He raised his stick and then rew it as hard as he could. The makeshift spear sailed through the air and stuck the mammoth right between the eyes.

  The mammoth blinked and slowly shook its gigantic head and pointy tusks. Fred’s spear fell to the ground like a used toothpick. The mammoth lowered those pointy tusks in our direction and trumpeted.

  “Time for another disappearing act,” I said. “Because now I think you made him mad.”

  The hairy monster shook its mammoth head again and raised one mammoth foot.

  And that’s the last thing I saw because we turned and ran for the trees. We dodged around bushes and rocks. The mammoth smashed through the bushes and rocks. We were running as fast as we could, but the mammoth was still gaining on us and there was nowhere to hide.

  We ran. Mammoth footsteps shook the ground behind us. We ran. Hot, smelly, mammoth breath blasted the back of my neck. I knew we were goners. But I wondered if our math teacher would believe the note from home: “Dear Mr. Dexter, Please excuse Joe, Sam, and Fred for not doing their math homework. They got run over by a woolly mammoth.”

  TEN

  Fred led the way in an all-out sprint. Sam followed him. I followed Sam. One large
, angry woolly mammoth closely followed us all.

  We were just about to become woolly mammoth toe jam when Fred yelled, “There.” He pointed to two trees about five feet apart. Fred dove between the trees. Sam dove between the trees. I tripped, jumped, hopped, and felt the tip of one giant tusk push me between the trees.

  The woolly mammoth’s head followed us, but the rest of its monster body didn’t. It slammed into the two trees and wedged there fast. The mammoth trumpeted and shook its tusks, but it couldn’t move forward or backward. We took one look and ran until we couldn’t hear its mad blasts anymore.

  We finally collapsed and sat under a giant fern, just trying to breathe and stop our hearts from pounding.

  I searched the prehistoric and unfamiliar forest all around us. “Man,” I said. “What next?”

  Sam studied the small patch of sky that showed through the branches overhead. “By the look of the overcast sky and setting sun, I would say next we better find shelter before night falls.”

  “Oh, great,” said Fred. “Mr. Brainpower is back with more bright ideas like ‘Find shelter before night falls.’ I liked you better when you just drooled and said ‘Woo woo woo, ma ma ma.’ ”

  “So whose bright idea was it to poke a woolly mammoth with a pointed stick?” said Sam.

  “Whose bright idea was it to come to the Stone Age in the first place?” said Fred.

  “You almost got us killed.”

  “You got us lost.”

  “Nat-Li.”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  “You’re a Neanderthal.”

  “Wait a minute, you guys,” I said. “Who just said ‘Nat-Li’?”

  We all looked at each other.

  “Not me,” said Fred.

  “Not me,” said Sam.

  “Nat-Li.”

  “Over there,” said Fred.

  We crawled over fallen trees and around smashed rocks, following the sound of the voice calling Nat-Li.

  In a few minutes we were standing on the edge of a familiar clearing.

  “It’s Ma and her clan,” I said. “We’re back at the cave.”

  “Yeah,” said Fred. “But what happened to the cave?”