Dear mouse friends,
welcome to the
Welcome to the Stone Age . . .
and the world of the cavemice!
Capital: Old Mouse City
Population: We’re
not sure. (Math doesn’t exist yet!) But besides
cavemice, there are plenty of dinosaurs, way too many saber-toothed
tigers, and ferocious cave bears — but no mouse has
ever had the courage to count them!
Typical Food: Petrified
cheese soup
National Holiday: Great Zap Day,
which celebrates the discovery of fire. Rodents
exchange grilled cheese sandwiches on this holiday.
National Drink: Mammoth
milkshakes
Climate: Unpredictable,
with
frequent meteor showers
milkshake
cheese
soup
money
Seashells of all shapes
and sizes
measurement
The basic unit of measurement is based on
the length of the tail of the leader of
the village. A unit can be divided into a
half tail or quarter tail. The leader is
always ready to present his tail when there
is a dispute.
Geronimo
Trap
Thea
Benjamin
Bugsy Wugsy
Hercule Poirat
Grandma Ratrock
Copyright © 2014 by Edizioni Piemme S.p.A., Palazzo Mondadori, Via Mondadori 1, 20090 Segrate, Italy. International Rights © Atlantyca S.p.A. English translation © 2017 by Atlantyca S.p.A.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
GERONIMO STILTON names, characters, and related indicia are copyright, trademark, and exclusive license of Atlantyca S.p.A. All rights reserved. The moral right of the author has been asserted. Based on an original idea by Elisabetta Dami. www.geronimostilton.com
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Stilton is the name of a famous English cheese. It is a registered trademark of the Stilton Cheese Makers’ Association. For more information, go to www.stiltoncheese.com.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, please contact: Atlantyca S.p.A., Via Leopardi 8, 20123 Milan, Italy; e-mail [email protected], www.atlantyca.com.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
e-ISBN 978-1-338-15918-9
Text by Geronimo Stilton
Original title Ahi ahi Stiltonùt, è finito il latte di mammut!
Cover by Flavio Ferron
Illustrations by Giuseppe Facciotto (pencils), Livio Carolina (ink), and
Daniele Verzini (color)
Graphics by Marta Lorini
Special thanks to Shannon Decker
Translated by Julia Heim
Interior design by Becky James
First printing 2017
MANY AGES AGO, ON PREHISTORIC MOUSE ISLAND, THERE
WAS A VILLAGE CALLED OLD MOUSE CITY. IT WAS INHABITED
BY BRAVE RODENT SAPIENS KNOWN AS THE CAVEMICE.
DANGERS SURROUNDED THE MICE AT EVERY TURN:
EARTHQUAKES, METEOR SHOWERS, FEROCIOUS DINOSAURS,
AND FIERCE GANGS OF SABER-TOOTHED TIGERS. BUT THE
BRAVE CAVEMICE FACED IT ALL WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR,
AND WERE ALWAYS READY TO LEND A HAND TO OTHERS.
HOW DO I KNOW THIS? I DISCOVERED AN
ANCIENT BOOK WRITTEN BY MY ANCESTOR, GERONIMO
STILTONOOT! HE CARVED HIS STORIES INTO STONE TABLETS
AND ILLUSTRATED THEM WITH HIS ETCHINGS.
I AM PROUD TO SHARE THESE STONE AGE STORIES WITH
YOU. THE EXCITING ADVENTURES OF THE CAVEMICE WILL
MAKE YOUR FUR STAND ON END, AND THE JOKES WILL
TICKLE YOUR WHISKERS! HAPPY READING!
Geronimo Stilton
Warning! Don’t imitate the cavemice.
We’re not in the Stone Age anymore!
RUMBLE, RUMBLE,
RUMBLE . . .
It was a fabumouse morning in late
summer. The sun had just come up, a light
breeze blew from the sea, and the baby
pterodactyls chirped happily. Ahh — it was a
perfect morning to do some very important
work!
My name is Stiltonoot, Geronimo
Stiltonoot. I always have very important work to do because I run The Stone Gazette,
the most FAMOUSE newspaper in all of prehistory! (So what if it’s the only
one?)
Anyway, that morning I woke up early
and climbed behind the wheel of an
2
autosaurus.* I was ready to get my paws in
gear!
My sister, Thea, and my associate Wiley
Upsnoot were waiting for me impatiently at
the entrance to The Stone Gazette’s office.
“Boss, you asked us to be ready, and we
are!” Upsnoot squeaked. “But, um . . . what
are we ready for?”
“Inquiring mice need to know!” Thea
* Autosauruses are dinosaurs that transport objects and passengers.
Make sense?
continued. “Why in the name of cheese did you, the laziest rodent in
all of prehistory, wake up so early? And what are you doing on that autosaurus?”
I held up my paws to calm them
down. “I called you
for three very
simple reasons.
One: the summer
heat is already behind us. Two:
there’s still time
before the rainy
season. Three:
The Stone
Gazette
is more popular than ever! Make sense?”
“Uh, Boss?” Upsnoot said, tugging on his
tail. “I didn’t understand a single coconut
of what you just said . . .”
“Holey boulders, I left out the most
important thing!” I squeaked. “I asked you
to meet me at this unmousely hour because we have no more slabs on which to etch The
Stone Gazette.”
“What?” Thea cried. “But how will I
write my articles?”
Upsnoot launched into a Paleozoic panic.
“And how will I publish my famouse, informative, thirty-slab supplements like ‘How to Pick Your Autosaurus’?”
“Well, that’s why I called you,” I said. “I
need your help getting some extra stone
slabs from the cavern. This is the pawfect
time to do it!”
5
Without a second to waste, we r
ode the autosaurus up the plateau above Old Mouse City. When we reached the cavern, we got to work. Extracting slabs from the rock is a mousetastically exhausting job!
Even so, we worked all morning . . . until
Upsnoot accidentally dropped a slab right on my paw.
“
OWWWWW!
What
megalithic pain!” I hollered so loudly that
it started a landslide from the top of the
plateau!
Oh no!
Gulp!
Ow, ow, ow!
RUMBLE
RUMBLE
RUMBLE...
the rocks were rolling right toward us. We were going to be minced
mice!
Unbelievably, the avalanche stopped
just two millitails from us.
Phew
. . . we were saved by a
whisker!
STORM COMING!
When the big cloud of DUST caused by
the landslide finally vanished, we found a truly mouserific surprise right in front of our snouts: The rolling boulder had cracked other stones, carving out perfectly flat
slabs for our prehistoric newspaper!
Triple triceratops horns, it
was our
LUCKY
day!
I scurried over
to take a look at
the slabs, but
slipped on a rock
and
BANGED
snout-first into
the slab that Thea and Upsnoot were lifting.
Bonk!
The slab split
in two, and a
bump as big
as a coconut
popped up
on my head.
Fossilized feta,
what a day!
“Are you okay, little brother?” Thea
asked.
“Maybe you should let us take it from
here, Boss,” Upsnoot suggested.
My head was still spinning, so I nodded
and stepped off to the side. I grabbed the
Jurassic first aid kit and bandaged
my paw, while Thea and Upsnoot finished
9
loading the slabs. Then Thea lifted me onto
the autosaurus, climbed on herself, grabbed
the reins, and headed for Old Mouse City.
After riding for a while, Upsnoot suddenly
squeaked, “The sky is getting darker . . . a
storm’s coming!”
Fur and fossils — had the rainy season
come early?
Storm’s coming,
boss!
“Stay calm,” Thea said. “We’ll be back in
Old Mouse City before a single drop of
rain falls!”
But just then . . .
Boom!
A megalithically loud clap of thunder
made us jump out of our fur.
“I don’t like the sound of that!” Upsnoot
cried.
“Look over there!” Thea squeaked,
pointing.
As I followed her paw, I could see a herd
of mammoths racing across the clearing
around Old Mouse City. They galloped
wildly, making the ground tremble as
their fur swung in the wind.
11
Look over there!
Fossilized fossils, the mammoths seemed
super-scared — they were
shaken
up, frazzled,
and totally
terrified!
Mammoths are peaceful animals. They
would never hurt anyone. The worst thing they might do is get a bit stinky
sometimes . . . but they’re scared out of their fur of lightning!
Thea said firmly, “We need to get back to
the city before the storm reaches us!”
But at that moment, a gust of wind
made the autosaurus swerve. He ended up
smashing into the trunk of a Paleozoic
palm tree.
BANG!!!
14
You won’t believe it, dear rodent friends,
but we had hit the only tree within
hundreds of tails!
What megalithic bad luck!
Oh no!
!!!
CRASH . . .
BAM . . . SPLAT!
Thea didn’t get discouraged. She put her snout down and continued steering the autosaurus through the storm.
My sister must be the most determined
rodent in all of prehistory!
“Come on, big guy!”
Thea urged him. “We’re
almost there!”
Unfortunately, even
though the autosaurus’s
head was as hard as
granite, he was still stunned from
slamming into the
16
tree. Holey boulders, he was super-stumbly!
When we’d almost reached the bottom of
the hill, the poor autosaurus accidentally
stepped into a hole. He tipped to one side —
whoaaaaa!
Help!
Huh?
All the stone slabs fell to the ground,
breaking into a thousand tiny pieces.
CRASH!
But that wasn’t all . . .
Upsnoot and I were catapulted
forward! We both fell onto the path with
our paws in the air.
BA M!
wooooorld!
Good-bye, cavemouse
But since the path headed downhill, we
didn’t stop there. No, we began to roll in
a big heap of snouts and paws, forming a
megalithic landslide.
“Good-bye, cavemouse wooooorld!” I
squeaked.
“I’m too young to become extinct!”
Upsnoot cried.
We tumbled farther and farther until we
were more mixed up than mammoth
milkshakes! Finally, we smacked right into
the wall surrounding Old Mouse City.
SPLAT!
Ow, ow, ow!
My paws felt like mush, my back was
bruised, and my tail was tangled. Basically, I
was minced mouse!
“Ugh, I’m not feeling so great, Boss,”
19
Upsnoot mumbled, massaging his snout.
I nodded, and my head spun. “I was doing a lot better before, too.”
Thea and the autosaurus appeared above
us. My sister shook her head. “Oh, for all
the cheese in Old Mouse City! Are you two
okay?”
“I think so.” We nodded.
“Good,” Thea replied. “We should get
going. We need to get back to the city in
two shakes of a mouse’s tail.”
We finally made it back to Old Mouse City
soaked, bruised, and without a single stone slab for the newspaper. What a megalithic
disaster!
If all of that was bad, the fleeing of the
mammoths was even worse.
“What will we do without our mammoth
milk?” Thea asked, tugging on her whiskers.
20
Did you know that mammoth milk is the
most essential ingredient in mammoth
milkshakes, the favorite drink of the
cavemice? We had mammoth milkshakes in
reserve in case of EMERGENCY . . . but
they wouldn’t last long!
Great rocky boulders, we had to do
something — and FAST!
MAMMOTH MILKSHAKES ARE
PREPARED WITH CURDLED
MAMMOTH MILK, LEMON JUICE,
A PINCH OF SALT, AND WATER.
21
NO MAMMOTHS,
NO M
AMMOTH
MILKSHAKES!
Gasp!
I hadn’t even set paw in my cave when
the storm finally hit. There was
LIGHTNING, THUNDER,
and
hail as big as Paleozoic walnuts! In
no time, the city was submerged
in water and mud.
Old Mouse City ground to
a halt — no one could go to
the market, take a run along
the river, or bring the baby
autosauruses out for a
walk. It was a megalithic
mess!
The storm lasted all night. When it finally
stopped the next morning, it seemed like an
entire STONE AGE had passed!
I was about to scamper over to the
newsroom, when a shriekodactyl (a shrieking
pterodactyl, of course) began yelling
news across the city.
“Listen up, citizens of Old Mouse
City!” he announced. “By
order of the village leader,
Ernest Heftymouse, you
are asked to attend a
special assembly at the
Mammoth Milkshake
Pantry — right now!”
Triple triceratops’ horns!
If Ernest Heftymouse was
calling an assembly, the mammoth situation
must be even worse than I’d thought.
Listen up!
23
I left my house as FAST as my paws
would take me!
The Mammoth Milkshake Pantry was a big
cave under the plateau that overlooks Old
Mouse City. Inside, enormouse
stone containers hold the mammoth
milkshake reserves. The drink is so tasty
and hydrating that it’s one of the cavemice’s
prized possessions!
The pantry was packed with a crowd of
wildly worried rodents.
Ernest Heftymouse stepped to the front of
the room. “Dear citizens, I’m afraid I have
some megalithically bad news.”
So many cavemice!
Our eyes opened wide and we
all held our breaths.
It was quiet enough to hear a
A Mammoth Mystery (Geronimo Stilton Cavemice #15) Page 1
