“ONE HEAD BUTT from that llama and you were out like a whacked dodo,” muttered my father.

“Where are the rest of the guys now?”

“On the practice field, breaking in their beasts for the Big Game. Except for Stony—he’s already at the Council Circle.”

“They’re going to banish him too?”

My father nodded and walked over to the back wall. He picked up the little club and brought it over. “Take it,” he said huskily. He cleared his throat. “You’re going to need it out there.”

I found all my other thoughts swallowed up by a desperate wish that I hadn’t disappointed him. Not today. Not ever.

“Don’t cry!” I whispered to myself as I took the club. I knew that my father—like all cavemen—disapproved of crying. At least if I’m banished, I thought, I’ll never disappoint him again.

Just then, my least favorite hairy figure darkened the cave entrance. Boulder the Bountiful lumbered in with his usual air of haughty menace. “Let’s go,” said Boulder to me, jerking his thumb behind him. “The Clan Council awaits.”

“Boulder—please,” my mother half whispered, “is there anything we can do?”

“Afraid not, Lugga,” he said. “Clan rules.”

My father turned away so that no one could see his face.

Even Windy looked worried as I walked past her out of the cave.

A cold breeze nipped at me as I followed Boulder across the public clearing—a yard of packed dirt and scattered stones that served as a common area for the several dozen caves around it. Women and children peered at me from inside their dark entrances. Their looks suggested they might never see me again, which I found somewhat discouraging. Despite the clear blue sky, it was another strangely chilly afternoon. I turned away from the sun to look back at a series of jagged red cliffs to the east. There I could make out the long thin outcropping that marked my secret art cave—like a giant stone finger beckoning me.

I wished I could go there now and spend the rest of my life painting. Paintings didn’t tell you what to do, or call you names, or make you feel small or worthless. And, unlike people, if a painting turned out to be unpleasant, I could always change it. Even better, if I didn’t like a certain person, I could always paint their face to look like a Llama’s b—

“This way!” snapped Boulder, yanking me out of my bright warm daydream into cold reality. He nudged me past the last home cave and around to the back of our village. We passed an unused drafty cavern and then the huge stable cave that housed our clan’s captured jungle llamas. There was always a boulder in front of its entrance, but today there was also a caveman named Cliff guarding it.

“Any suspicious activity?” Boulder asked him.

Cliff shook his head. “Nothing, boss.”

One of our clan’s llamas had mysteriously disappeared from the stable cave a few days ago and everyone had blamed it on the Boar Riders. The odd thing was that they had never stolen a macrauchenia before, but no one seemed to care about that. With the Big Game coming, tensions were running especially high.

Boulder and I entered the jungle along one of the narrow llama trails that our clan used for moving through the thickest parts of the forest. We crunched along the strangely yellow leaves underfoot, the bare trees allowing the cold breeze to follow us into the jungle.

“No weapons in the Council Circle!” Boulder suddenly barked, yanking my new club out of my hands. I thought I glimpsed a fleeting smirk beneath his bushy black beard, like the flash of a snake in the undergrowth.

We walked until we came to a clearing that used to be a beautiful orchid garden surrounded by thick green bushes. Now the flowers had all withered and only the yellowing bushes remained. A dozen cavemen sat on rocks around the circle, grumbling disapprovingly and looking very self-important. Stony sat on the ground in the center, petting his frog. I sat down next to the boy and he shot me a friendly arch of his unibrow.

Boulder remained standing and addressed the council in a booming voice. “You all know these two worthless weasels,” he declared. “They have failed to catch even the smallest jungle llama for our clan. They are not worthy to be called cavemen.” He took a long pause for effect. “Let us banish them!” he shouted.

Some of the men looked slightly uncomfortable, but a councilman named Frogface—who was Bugeyes’s father—nodded vigorously. Then, one by one, each man nodded his head in formal approval of the Big Man’s judgment.

Boulder was grinning slyly as he turned to Stony and me. “You, Stony, and you, Lug, are hereby banished from the great and honorable Macrauchenia Riders Clan!”

I stared numbly as Stony got up and wandered off along a llama trail as if taking a casual stroll. In moments, he had disappeared into the jungle.

“That’s it?” I asked Boulder.

This time he risked an open smirk.

“But that’s … not fair,” I said.

The Big Man just shrugged.

“Look, I know you don’t like me, but what about poor Stony? He can’t even say anything to defend himself.”

Boulder pointed a thick hairy finger toward the jungle. “You can both defend yourselves out there.”

I thought I had one last hope. If I could somehow make myself useful to the council … maybe …

I turned to the other men. “It’s been getting colder and colder out there!” I said.

There was a puzzled silence.

“What’s your point?” Boulder demanded.

“Well … maybe we could all work together?” I said, my voice cracking with desperation. “You know … try to do something about the cold? I know you’re all a bit more … um … well padded … than I am. But if it keeps getting colder, then we all might—”

“Little weakling is scared of a little cold!” Boulder sneered. “He is like the naked mole rat that eats the poo of a macrauchenia and lives in a hole in the ground.”

“A true caveman doesn’t care about weather,” spat Frogface.

“Don’t worry, Lug,” said Boulder, “it’ll get warmer again. But you will never be a Macrauchenia Rider.”

I saw that there was no hope. “Can I at least have my club back?” I asked. “It’s a gift from my father.”

The Big Man looked around as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “What club?”

I could feel the tears coming on when something just behind Boulder caught my eye. I cocked my head and peered at what looked like the end of a bone sticking out of the bushes. It quivered slightly.

“So,” I said, looking back at Boulder, “not catching a jungle llama gets me kicked out, huh?”

The Big Man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Yeah?”

I pointed dramatically at the quivering bone. “Well, everyone knows that spying on a Council Circle is strictly forbidden!”

Boulder turned, his back hair bristling. He grabbed the bone and yanked it hard—dragging a yowling Bonehead out of the bushes. He might have pulled the bone loose from his son’s nose and cracked the boy’s skull with it if the foliage hadn’t rustled again. Everyone watched as a sheepish Bugeyes stepped out after Bonehead.

I cleared my throat. “So, are you going to banish your own son too?” I asked, pointing at Bonehead.

Now I had him. Everyone knew that Boulder was grooming Bonehead to be the next Big Man. I was as good as off the hook.

Boulder’s milky blue eyes darted around the circle. A thick vein pulsed in his forehead. And then a nasty little grin crossed his lips. “Bonehead and Bugeyes,” he barked, “you are banished too!”