by John Grant
At long last, apart from the occasional snore, silence fell on the caves of the Neanderthal folk. Littlenose slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the cave. The fire cast a warm glow of light, and a faint moonlight shone through the entrance. Littlenose collected a handful of kindling and a flat piece of bone which he had hidden, and set to work. The sky outside was beginning to lighten with the coming day when he finished. He took a last look at his handiwork and went back to bed.
He had hardly closed his eyes, it seemed, when Mum was calling him. It was time to get up and fetch the water and the firewood. Rubbing his eyes, Littlenose got on with his morning chores, and it wasn’t until he got back to the cave that he realised that Dad wasn’t there. “Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“Have you forgotten?” said Mum. “Dad has gone fishing with some friends. He left early. He won’t be back until after breakfast. Breakfast isn’t quite ready, so take your bedding out and give it a good shaking.”
Bewildered, Littlenose dragged his fur bedclothes out into the fresh air. His plan was going all wrong. It depended on Dad being at home for breakfast. He started shaking the dust and fluff out of the bedding. Suddenly, he gave a yell. “I’ve got something in my eye!”
“Let me look,” said Mum. “Stay still! I can’t see if you’re jiggling about like that. Sit down.” Still rubbing his eye, Littlenose followed her into the cave. “Here, where there’s light to see,” said Mum, and she pushed him down on the rock where Dad normally sat to eat. “Now, let’s see . . .” Mum started to say. “Good gracious!”
Littlenose was lying flat on his back, and the rock seat had sunk out of sight into the sandy floor of the cave. Into the hole that had taken Littlenose half the night to dig! The pieces of stick holding the rock in position had broken under his weight. But it should have been Dad who collapsed, when he sat down to breakfast. Then Littlenose would have jumped up and down shouting, “CROCUS!”
Mum said, “You’re not hurt, are you? Dad had better have a look at it when he comes home. Let’s see that eye of yours, then we’ll have breakfast.”
Littlenose could have wept. What a start to Crocus Day! He was sitting with Two-Eyes under his favourite tree when he heard a shout. People were hurrying from their caves towards the river. From what they said, Littlenose gathered that Dad and his friends had had extraordinary luck with their fishing, and the whole tribe was required to help carry home the catch. He might as well go along, too. Everyone was milling about among the high rocks along the river bank, their excited voices echoing loudly. Littlenose watched for a moment. Then a broad grin broke out on his face. He would play the biggest Crocus Day joke of all time. Involving the WHOLE TRIBE!
He raced to where the wild bull horn was hidden, and dragged it back towards the river and a handy patch of tall rushes. Then, puffing his cheeks out, he blew until he thought he would burst.
The bellowing sound blared out, echoing and re-echoing among the rocks. The people stopped in their tracks.
“A woolly rhinoceros!” cried one.
“ENRAGED!” cried another. And they ran and scrambled in all directions, falling over one another as the sound seemed to echo from everywhere at once.
“IT’S COMING OUT OF THE FOREST!”
“Across the river!”
“OVER THE HILL!”
And Littlenose lay among the rushes and laughed and laughed. He’d give them just one more for luck. Again the wild bellowing filled the air.
“It’s getting closer,” shouted someone. “Back to the caves!” Next moment it was a stampede.
“This is where I shout, ‘CROCUS!’” thought Littlenose.
But as he opened his mouth, he realised what had happened. The patch of rushes where he was hiding was between the river bank and the caves. Shouting in terror, the whole tribe raced for home, trampling through the rushes and everything else in their path, including Littlenose, who found himself flat on the ground under several dozen pairs of hard Neanderthal feet.
As the sound of the retreat faded in the distance, Littlenose picked himself up, spitting out mud and pieces of rush.
“CROCUS . . . everybody!” he said, as he felt his bruises.
Two-Eyes appeared, wearing a very I-told-you-so look. Littlenose looked around for the horn. It was in a million pieces. “Come to think of it, Two-Eyes,” he said as they set off home, “Crocus Day is a pretty silly idea anyway.”
His immediate problem was to think of a good story for Dad regarding the mysterious behaviour of his rock seat.
And, in any case, it was another whole year before he would have to think of a Crocus Day joke.
Squeaky
Littlenose was one of the very few of the Neanderthal folk who kept a pet. He had Two-Eyes, the baby mammoth, and was very fond of him indeed. Yet, as Two-Eyes had found out very early on, being Littlenose’s pet was hard work. Littlenose loved to play games with Two-Eyes, but he also loved to play tricks on him, and not very pleasant ones at that. The latest had been when Dad had gone to look for gulls’ eggs in the marshes. Littlenose and Two-Eyes went with him to help. However, as their idea of helping was to run in all directions at once, falling over tussocks, each other and Dad, they were soon told to go away and sit quietly.
Two-Eyes promptly lay down and fell asleep, but Littlenose was bored. He started to make a flower chain with marsh marigolds, but it broke, and he threw it down in disgust. Then he tried skimming stones on a pool, until one of them just missed Dad, who shook his fist at Littlenose. Then Littlenose had a wonderful idea, and he laughed just thinking about it.
He began picking the soft, fluffy heads off the cotton grass. Then he tiptoed back to Two-Eyes, who was still asleep, and began to stick them on to the little mammoth’s black fur. Two-Eyes didn’t wake, and Littlenose gathered more and more of the white tufts and stuck them on until not a hair of black fur could be seen. Two-Eyes was completely white. The real fun came, of course, when Two-Eyes woke.
Mammoths were very fussy creatures, forever preening their fur with their trunks, and Two-Eyes went quite mad when he found himself covered in cotton grass. He trumpeted and squealed, and he ran around pulling the white fluff off with his trunk. Then he saw Littlenose standing laughing. This was too much. He put down his head and butted Littlenose, who sat down with a thump, but didn’t stop laughing until Two-Eyes had disappeared in the direction of home.
When he got home later with Dad, Littlenose was not really surprised to find that Two-Eyes was nowhere to be found. When Littlenose and his tricks became too much for him, Two-Eyes would sometimes go off to visit some wild mammoth friends for a week or two.
But, as the weeks became a month, then two months, Littlenose missed Two-Eyes very much. He became quite downhearted, and even the arrival of Uncle Redhead on a short visit didn’t cheer him up much. In fact, he felt even worse because Uncle Redhead seemed to talk about nothing but pets. “There was this friend of mine,” he said. “He had a pet lion. Bought it from a man for twenty red pebbles.”
“Was it tame?” asked Mum.
“That’s what my friend asked,” said Uncle Redhead. “And the man he bought if from said, ‘Sure, it’ll eat off your hand’.”
“Did it?” asked Littlenose.
“No,” said Uncle Redhead, “it ate off his leg!” And he went into gales of laughter at his own joke.
Uncle Redhead left next morning. He shook Littlenose by the hand and said, “Goodbye and good luck,” and gave him an apple. He didn’t feel like an apple just then, so he put it carefully among his things in his own special corner of the cave.
When he did decide to eat his apple he had a surprise. There were small teeth marks on it. “Who’s been eating my apple?” he thought. He wasn’t long in finding out. He heard a scuffle and a squeak, and lifting up his fur hunting robe he saw a very small mouse crouched in a corner. It squeaked again and watched Littlenose with black, beady eyes. Littlenose stared back. It was a handsome little animal, with a glossy coat and a long tail. And i
t didn’t seem all that afraid, for it stood up on its hind legs suddenly and squeaked even louder than before.
“I think it wants the apple,” said Littlenose under his breath. And he bit off a small piece and carefully held it out. Just as carefully the mouse edged forward and took a gentle nibble before darting back to its corner. Littlenose laid the piece of apple beside it. “Here you are, Squeaky,” he said. “You can be my new pet.”
Littlenose played happily with Squeaky, who was very tame, until he heard Mum calling him for supper. Picking Squeaky up carefully, he took his place while Mum served the meal. Dad hadn’t come in yet, and Mum was just filling a clay bowl with stewed rhinoceros, when she gave a terrible scream and leapt up on the large boulder, which served as a table. Littlenose jumped up in alarm, while Mum shrieked, “Get it out! Get that horrible brute out of here!”
Her cries brought Dad at a run. “What is it?” he shouted. “A bear? Sabre-toothed tiger?”
“A MOUSE!” cried Mum. “There!” And she pointed to where Littlenose stood, still holding Squeaky.
“It’s Squeaky,” said Littlenose, “look!” And he held Squeaky out for Mum to have a better look. But Mum didn’t want a better look. She lifted the bowl of stewed rhinoceros above her head and cried, “Come one step closer . . .” She didn’t need to say any more. Dad grabbed Littlenose by the scruff of the neck and ran him out of the cave. “Don’t come back until you’ve got rid of it,” he said, and trying to keep his face straight he went back in to comfort Mum.
“What on earth am I to do?” thought Littlenose. “I can’t just leave Squeaky outside by himself. He might get eaten or stood on.” Then he remembered his secret pocket. Neanderthal boys didn’t as a rule have pockets, but Uncle Redhead had once shown Littlenose how to fashion one in his furs. Now Littlenose carefully tucked Squeaky into his pocket, where he curled up happily and promptly fell asleep.
Dad looked up as Littlenose came back to the cave. “Have you taken care of the mouse?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Littlenose, quite truthfully, then sat down and got on with his supper. For a time there was silence except for the crunchings, slurpings and gurglings normal to a Neanderthal meal. Then Mum said sharply, “Stop fidgeting, Littlenose, for goodness’ sake.” Littlenose gave a sickly smile and sat still for a moment, but he was finding it more and more difficult.
Squeaky, after a short but refreshing nap in Littlenose’s pocket, had decided to explore. Making his way through a mouse-sized hole in the pocket he was wriggling his way inside Littlenose’s furs. His tiny claws scratched, and his tail and whiskers tickled, making it agony for Littlenose to sit still.
“What’s the matter now?” said Mum, as Littlenose stopped eating and sat with hunched shoulders and screwed-up eyes. Before he could answer, Mum leapt up, scattering food in all directions and shouting, “There it is again!”
Squeaky had at length worked his way right up inside Littlenose’s furs, popped out at his neck, then leapt down to his supper. Littlenose didn’t wait to be told this time. He grabbed Squeaky and fled, while Mum had hysterics and Dad shouted after him.
Littlenose made his way to his favourite tree, and sat down with Squeaky on his knee. “Much as I like you, Squeaky,” he said, “as a pet you’re not much of a success. Two-Eyes at least got me out of trouble from time to time, but all you seem to be able to do is get me into it.” Squeaky said nothing, but Littlenose thought that he looked a bit sorry for all the upset he had caused. One thing was certain, squeaky could not return to the cave. Littlenose would have to find somewhere safe for him. He found an old, cracked clay pot, into which he put Squeaky with some berries for his supper. Then he tucked it into a space among the roots of the tree for safety. He said goodnight, then went home to bed, hoping things might have calmed down a bit by then.
By next morning, Littlenose had made up his mind. He retrieved Squeaky from the old pot and spoke to him very seriously. “We are going to find Two-Eyes,” he said. “It’s high time he came home. For one thing, he knows how to behave as a pet should, and can give you a few tips. For another, you’ll like him, although he is just a bit bigger.” Then he put Squeaky carefully into his pocket.
Littlenose had thought that finding Two-Eyes would be easy. He climbed a high hill and gazed across the land hoping to spot a lively mammoth herd, but nothing was moving as far as the eye could see. Then he tried looking for tracks. One thing about mammoth herds was that they left roads rather than tracks. As they moved from place to place they crushed the grass, flattened the bushes and trampled even small trees with their great feet. Even a single mammoth made footprints like no other animal. Yet Littlenose hunted high and low all morning without seeing as much as a crushed leaf or a single footprint. At midday he had decided to give up and go home, and was already on his way when he stopped and looked at the ground. The earth was sandy, and pressed into it was an unmistakable footprint. A mammoth footprint!
“It’s Two-Eyes’. I know it is,” he shouted out loud. And he took Squeaky out of his pocket to have a look. “Maybe he’s already on his way home,” he went on, completely ignoring the fact that Two-Eyes was a baby mammoth and made fairly small footprints. This was huge!
But minor details like that rarely bothered Littlenose. He scouted around for more footprints and quickly found another. Then another. He could now make out a whole line stretching into the distance. All he had to do was follow them, and there at the end of the trail would be Two-Eyes!
And a very long trail it turned out to be. He even lost it at one point where it left the soft ground and crossed bare rock. He picked it up again at the edge of the forest, where it was so clear that he raced along with his eyes on the ground, not looking where he was going. Where he was going was right into a clump of bushes that had been chosen by a black bear for a quiet nap. It was just dozing off when the sky fell on its head. At least, that’s what it thought. Littlenose had blundered right over the bear and sat down hard on its head. The bear quickly leapt up, but Littlenose was quicker and was soon high in the branches of a tree, while Squeaky clung to a twig beside him. The bear stood on its hind legs, its head swaying from side to side as it tried to discover what had disturbed it. After muttering and grumbling to itself, it ambled away into the forest.
Waiting until the sounds of the bear had died in the distance, Littlenose scrambled to the ground. Then, with Squeaky safely back in his pocket, he hurried along the mammoth trail. It left the forest and began to cross the bare heath. Littlenose was by now very weary. The footprints led to a brownish-coloured hummock by a pile of boulders, and Littlenose made up his mind that he would sit down and rest there.
But halfway, he stopped in amazement. The hummock was growing. Higher and higher it rose, and he saw that what he thought had been brown grass or bracken was fur! The hummock was now standing on four mighty legs. Could it be . . .?
A glimpse of long curved tusks and a trunk told him that it could. It was a mammoth he had been trailing all right, but a very large grown-up one, not with a herd. Then he remembered his father speaking about rogue mammoths. They lived alone, and were more bad-tempered than anything you could imagine. The creature was half-turned away from Littlenose, and he hoped that it might go on its way without seeing him. Then it wheeled round, spread its ears and gave an almighty roar as it raised its trunk in the air. Littlenose didn’t wait to see what it would do next. He ran.
Almost immediately he felt the ground shake beneath him. The rogue mammoth was in hot pursuit. Its long legs ate up the distance between them. Its eyes were red and angry, and firmly fixed on the fleeing figure of Littlenose, while the sharp points of its tusks pointed straight at him. Littlenose glanced over his shoulder, and in that instant he tripped and fell. The roaring of the mammoth grew deafening.
And then there was a moment of awful silence.
Littlenose saw that the mammoth was no longer looking at him. It was gazing at something in the grass. Then it took a step backwards. It was shaking
with fright, and instead of roaring, it squealed and whimpered, then turned in its tracks and ran. In no time at all it was out of sight. But what terrible thing had frightened a rogue mammoth? “Squeaky!” cried Littlenose. “I didn’t know that mammoths were afraid of mice. I thought it was only Mum.” And he sat Squeaky on his shoulder and set off in the direction of home.
And who should be waiting for him when he got there but Two-Eyes. Littlenose threw his arms around the little mammoth. “How I’ve missed you, Two-Eyes!” he cried. “But you must meet your new friend, Squeaky.” But Squeaky was nowhere to be found. Life as Littlenose’s pet had proved just a bit wearing, and he had gone on his way.
Littlenose’s cousins
Littlenose heard Dad shouting long before he reached the cave. There was nothing new in Dad’s shouting, but this sounded different. “Probably something I’ve done,” thought Littlenose, and he crept towards the cave entrance, trying to catch what Dad was shouting about.
“But it’s only a one-apartment cave,” Dad shouted again. “How can it possibly hold eight people? Why did you invite them in the first place?”
“We owe them a visit,” came Mum’s voice. “They were very hospitable when we visited them in the mountains. It’s the least we can do.”
Now Littlenose understood. His Uncle Juniper and his whole family were coming to stay. Uncle Juniper lived many days’ journey away in the high mountains, where he gathered the berries of the juniper bushes for a living. Juniper berries were highly prized by the Neanderthal folk for making medicine, and every autumn Uncle Juniper came down from the mountains to sell his fruit at the market. He was really very famous, but because he lived so far away, very few people had actually met him.
