“Come on guys. Let’s go back to the village. Here slothy slothy slothy. Here slothy slothy slothy,” said Angus lamely as he slapped his knee.
The sloths ignored him. One yawned widely and defecated. Angus walked back around the bend to where Ivy waited, hidden from view.
“Okay. I’m stumped. How do we get them back down the hill?”
“How would I know? I’m a dire wolf, not a sheepdog.”
“Ivy, you’re a genius!”
“That is true.” She squinted at him suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”
“We don’t need a sheepdog. We need a sloth dog! And you’re perfect for the job. You’ve only got to herd them down the hill.”
“What? Have you seen the size of those things? One kick and I’m done for.”
“No way. Their front claws are far more powerful than their back legs. You’re more likely to be gouged to death.”
“You’re not helping,” Ivy growled.
“No, what I meant is that you shouldn’t come at them from the front. Run around behind them. The wind is blowing down the mountain. It will carry your scent to them. Once they smell you, they’ll move farther down the hill. All you have to do is bark at them and continue moving down the hill and they’ll run back to the village.”
The dire wolf shook her body from her head all the way to her tail. Her tail curled upward and Ivy pranced forward. “Okay. Let’s give it a try.”
She picked her way through the underbrush and darted off. Angus lost sight of her within seconds. He was pleased with himself. Once again, he had been dropped into a foreign world and he was using his brain to figure it out. There was nothing he couldn’t do! He flopped proudly in his snowshoes back down the trail.
The sound of distressed lowing and the vibration of the cedar trees alerted him that he hadn’t exactly thought of absolutely everything. And then the dire wolf began baying aggressively and pandemonium broke out. Angus looked down the narrow trail girded by trees on both sides.
He looked up the trail at the herd of ten to fifteen foot tall beasts frantically barreling their way down the tiny path. His eyes scanned the forest looking for an escape route. With a yell of shocking realization that he was about to be trampled to death by a bevy of overgrown possums, he lifted his knees to his chest and raced down the trail slapping the snow with his pine bough snowshoes.
The sloths’ bellowing, Ivy’s barking, and the deafening sound of blood beating in his frantic ears spurred Angus forward. His legs pounded the ground in a steady stride. His arms pumped with mechanical precision. He pulled the frosty air into his lungs and exhaled in an unbroken rhythm. The forest trail opened to the snow-covered grasslands outside of the village. Angus moved out of the way of the path and rested his hands on his knees. He bent over and gasped for breath.
After several minutes had passed, Angus looked to the trailhead. The sloths had not yet made their appearance. He had thought they were directly behind him. Where were they? He listened intently. Ivy’s barks sounded far away now. Had the sloths evaded her?
He approached the trailhead and peered into the forest. Trees swayed about fifty feet up the trail. And then he saw the slow advance of the sloth column. They lumbered slowly forward, bellowing in fear. Each footstep was swallowed by heavy wet snow.
Unlike the dire wolf’s paws, the sloths’ claws did not spread over the snow. Every bit of their tonnage drove not only into the snow but squelched into the muddy earth beneath. In his panic to get away from the dumb brutes, Angus had neglected to observe their physical characteristics. He could have ambled slowly in front of them and been perfectly safe.
Angus jogged to the sloth corral and summoned several of the boys to help him. The boys spread out across the field and herded each of the giant animals into the pen as they appeared one-by-one at the bottom of the trail. Ivy brought up the rear and ran from one side of the field to the other, barking ferociously to move the few stragglers toward the boys. After the last sloth had been shut securely into the corral, Ivy trotted over to Angus.
“Great work!” Angus patted her head. She bared her teeth, raised her hackles, and nipped at him.
“Ouch!” He yanked his hand back. “Good thing I’m wearing a mitten. You could have hurt me!”
“Would have served you right! Do you always go around patting people on the head? It’s insulting!”
“Sorry. It’s just that you look so much like a dog.”
Ivy snarled.
“Sorry,” mumbled Angus right before lurching forward precariously.
“Gus! Brilliant idea having your pet herd the beasts into the corral.” Billy thumped him soundly on the back. “Who knew you could train a wolf to work alongside humans?”
“Yeah, she’s really smart,” agreed Angus.
“Thanks,” said Ivy out of the side of her mouth.
“The two of you are a good team,” agreed Granny walking toward them. “Why don’t you go home and get some lunch? Check back with me later. I may have another job for you.”
She watched Mommy weave. Brown yarn in, treadle, squish. Brown yarn in, treadle, squish. All that brown yarn grows into brown fabric. Brown coats. Brown pants. Brown hats. Brown. Brown. Brown. Everything brown. She hated brown.
The stranger’s sneakers weren’t brown. They were bright, colorful, and sparkly. They were beautiful. She held one in her hand and reverently fingered the hard, glittering stones. She knew where to get these stones. She’d followed him in there. Lots and lots of pretty, colorful stones.
She would get her own and be sparkly and colorful too. She’d surprise Gussy when he got back. When the mean stranger was gone.
Angus hurried back to the hut. He removed his snowshoes and strode inside, Ivy close at his heels. Bonnie brushed past them on her way out. The direwolf sat down and scratched frantically, first behind one ear and then behind the other.
“What’s that doing in here?” asked Mother from her seat at the loom. Angus glanced around, not sure what she was referring to.
“That animal,” clarified Mother.
Ivy was inspecting her foot. She sniffed and licked at it, then collapsed in a groaning heap in front of the fire.
“We’re going to have some lunch,” explained Angus.
“What we’re going to have are fleas. That animal is infested with them.”
Ivy whimpered and began gnawing at her midsection.
“She worked hard this morning. We both did. I couldn’t have rounded up all the sloths without her. Can she at least stay for lunch?”
Mother rose from the loom’s bench. She regarded Ivy with undisguised distaste. “Feed it outside.” She handed Angus two bowls of stew and held the drape while he and Ivy hustled out the door.
Angus brushed snow from a pile of logs beside the door and sat on the makeshift bench. Ivy settled beside him in the snow. She lapped at her bowl. He gulped his soup and placed his empty bowl on the ground beside hers. She licked both clean.
“Do you see my snowshoes?” asked Angus.
Ivy craned her neck. “Did you leave them here?”
“I think so.” Angus wrinkled his forehead. “I took them off before we went in for lunch.”
He stood up and searched around the yurt. Ivy reluctantly abandoned the bowls to help him. When after ten minutes they had not found the snowshoes, Angus said, “Somebody stole them.”
“Who would do that? Nobody in the village even knows what they are.”
Angus and Ivy stared at each other and chorused, “Except for Bonnie.”
Angus was indignant. “That stupid kid! The snowshoes don’t belong to her! Who does she think she is, stealing my snowshoes! What gives her the right?”
“She’s your sister, I mean Gus’s sister. I think sisters tend to do that, take things that belong to their brothers.”
“It’s not fair! Annoying, irritating little thief!”
“She’ll bring them back.”
“But I need them now! I wanted to go back up
this afternoon, search for the World Jumper, and get out of this world!”
“You can build another pair.”
“It will take me too long. It will be too dark to see anything by the time I’m done.”
“Then it looks like we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
Angus had been hoping to get away before he had to clean up sloth dung again. “She’d better not break them,” he muttered.
Mother came out of the house dressed in her coat and boots. “Gus, I’m off to the meat house to help preserve the beast that was killed this morning. Please keep an eye on Bonnie until I’m back.” She hurried off.
Perhaps it was because he was still fuming about Bonnie’s theft. Maybe he was trying to remember where he had lost the World Jumper. It might have been the unfamiliar reference to a sister he’d only had for twenty-four hours. Whatever the cause, he hadn’t heard a word Gus’s mother had said.
Chapter Sixteen: Bonnie’s Pet
Bonnie had never gotten there so quickly. She knew all the secret animal trails through the forest. Not for her the large human path to the plateau. The animals knew how to get places quickly and quietly. Just like her. And the snowshoes the stranger who looked like Gus had made were magic. She stripped them off and shimmied up her lookout tree near the clearing.
She watched the monster leave the cave, stretch, yawn, and head north. The regular time. Countless afternoons she and Gus had watched the monster together. It always ventured outside in the early afternoon.
But she and Gus had never ventured into the cave. Until that first time when Granny had almost found out. But that hadn’t been Gus, had it? That had been the stranger who looked like Gus.
The monster would be gone for only a short time, but long enough for her to get what she’d come for. She would race like the wolf over the snow in the stranger’s snowshoes. She would cross the plateau, enter the monster’s lair, and get some of those shiny rocks. Then she’d be sparkly.
She slid down the tree like a squirrel and reattached the magic snowshoes. Her arms and legs pumped her across the windy expanse. She removed the snowshoes, placed them within the cave’s opening, and hurried to one of the dimly glittering walls. She hadn’t been able to get one of the stranger’s hard gray tools out of his special belt, but maybe one of the crystals would be loose enough to wiggle out with her fingers?
She was running her hands over the bumpy walls when she heard it. A tiny sound at first. If she’d been talking or tapping at the hard surface she would have missed it. It sounded like crying. Like scolding. Like a tiny baby complaining. She followed the mysterious noise to the rear of the cave. The light barely reached that far. The sound was louder. The baby was noisier now.
She bent down and vaguely glimpsed grass, leaves, animal fur. And something else. The something that was crying at her. Begging her to help it. She reached down and picked up the ball of light brown fluff. It regarded her solemnly with glowing yellow eyes. A pink mouth opened into a small O and said, “Mew.”
The crystals forgotten, Bonnie refastened the snowshoes and raced away across the plateau, over the animal trails, and to the village, her new pet wrapped securely in her fur coat.
“Angus, you almost fell into the fire! Go take a nap!” The dire wolf nudged his leg with her muzzle.
They had just returned home after a grueling afternoon of hauling feed, cleaning the sloth corral—Billy had neglected to show up; big surprise there—and repairing the fence. Actually, to be precise, Angus had.
Ivy had spent the afternoon snoring in a pile of snow while he’d labored. His previous life of math problems, research reports, and science projects had not prepared him for the physical demands of this paleolithic existence. He longed for the comfort of his laboratory. He needed to find the World Jumper, but he was too exhausted even to contemplate the hike through the forest.
He grunted, “Maybe a short nap before dinner.” He stumbled to the sleeping room and collapsed on his pallet. He curled into a ball and was asleep within seconds.
“Gus! Wake up! Where’s your sister?” He was shaken awake by his mother.
He blinked sleepily at her. No, that wasn’t his mother. That was Gus’s mother. It took him a moment to remember that he wasn’t home; he was in a yurt in a frozen world populated by megafauna.
“Where is Bonnie?” she demanded.
What was she asking? Oh yes, the annoying little girl who was always following him around and getting into his stuff.
“I don’t know. I was sleeping.”
“I gave you one job. Look after your sister while I’m working. That’s all.”
Angus considered that for a moment. “She wasn’t here,” he said sitting up.
“I know she’s not here. I looked for her and all I found was you, fast asleep, not watching her.”
“No. I mean she wasn’t here when I got back from helping Granny. The house was empty. Actually, I haven’t seen her since lunch.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You should have come and gotten me! It’s been hours. The sun is setting. She could be anywhere by now!” Mother’s voice was high-pitched, quick, frantic.
Angus remembered last night’s sentry duty, the blood on the snow, the lion. If that little kid was out there alone after dark, he didn’t want to think what might happen.
He raced to the door and jammed his feet into his boots. “I’ll go look for her,” he said grabbing his coat. Ivy trotted to his side.
Mother pushed past him to the doorway. “We’ll go to Granny and have her put a search party together.”
The curtain flapped open in Mother’s face. She backed away quickly and cried out, “Bonnie!” She grabbed the little girl in her arms, hugged her tightly, and twirled her around. She balanced her on a hip and then grew stern. “Where have you been, you naughty girl? I’ve been worried sick about you! You know you’re not to wander off on your own!”
The little girl wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and cooed, “I’m sorry I worried you, Mommy. I was playing on the other side of the village.” She stuck her tongue out at Angus over her mother’s shoulder.
Angus peered outside into the gloom. His snowshoes were propped against the side of the hut, next to the doorway. At first glance, they appeared to be none the worse for wear. He pulled the drape closed against the cold and removed his boots and coat. Mother was bustling around the fire, preparing a fresh pot of stew for dinner. Bonnie had stripped off her outer garments and was warming herself by the fire.
The dire wolf was rifling through Bonnie’s discarded clothes, sniffing as though she was trying to inhale them, and whining nervously. She backed away from the little girl’s coat, hackles raised and lips rolled back in a snarl.
“What is it?” whispered Angus.
Ivy turned, tail between her legs, and cocked her head at Angus. He followed her to the sleeping room and asked quietly, “What’s wrong? What did you smell?”
She growled softly. “Lion.”
Below the hut, out of earshot, the kitten was mewing.
Throughout dinner Angus watched Bonnie intently. Where had she been all afternoon in his snowshoes? Why did her clothing smell like lion? She spooned one mouthful of stew in after another, seemingly oblivious to his stare. Had she done something dangerous? Gone somewhere she shouldn’t? She was a little kid. She could have been hurt.
He should have watched out for her better. Or at all. A sharp pang of remorse shot through him, an unfamiliar feeling. Guilt, fear, and an intense desire to protect the annoying little creep competed with the urge to yell at her for being so reckless and impulsive. Impulsive, like Angus himself. A family resemblance?
“Okay, you two. I want you to go right to sleep. We all had a very late, exciting night yesterday and we need our sleep,” said Mother. “No arguments,” she added needlessly as both the children retired to their pallets.
Ivy stood by the door whining. “And you can sleep outside,” said Mother. “Probably have fleas all over my hous
e as it is.” She cleared away the bowls and pushed aside the drape for the dire wolf.
Ivy wandered a small distance from the hut and relieved herself. She lifted her nose to the air and breathed. A faint odor of enemy drifted on the air. She heard soft voices in the distance. The sentries were chatting at the gate. She didn’t sense danger but where was the smell coming from?
She walked back toward the yurt. The cat smell grew stronger but it was sweeter than Ivy had remembered. The odor was confusingly non-threatening. No matter. It was a dark night and she was ready for a snack. She dug a tunnel under the fence and crawled through.
In the distance a distraught mother searched for her child. A deep, guttural wail echoed through the forest.
Chapter Seventeen: Cruising with Granny
Gus braced his legs against the dashboard and gripped his seat so tightly his knuckles ached. He was inside one of the strange, shiny animals. It was called a car and what they were doing was called driving. Trees, houses, and other cars swept past at a dizzying rate. He was definitely not enjoying this hallucination.
“I don’t know what you got into this morning, young man. You had your parents in such a state. But you’re with me now, so you’d better keep your behavior in check.” Without warning Granny turned the steering wheel and the black car sped up a ramp. A horn blared behind them.
Gus had thought they were driving quickly before. His stomach lurched as they entered the wide road traveled only by other cars. No animals, no humans, nothing but shiny cars and trucks racing past each other. His hands grew wet and clammy as his mouth went dry. A close encounter with the monster might frighten him, but at least in such a case he’d be able to run or fight. His life would be under his own control. Of course, he reminded himself, he was only dreaming. The fever might kill him, but this dream wouldn’t.
Granny swerved and crossed two lanes of traffic in less than one minute. Gus clamped his eyes shut and wished for another dream. Something relaxing, like being caught in the middle of a mammoth stampede. Anything but this horrifying driving.
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