WHEN ECHO AND Stony returned they found me alone, finger painting on the wall outside Woolly’s cave. I had found a chunk of red ocher rock, smashed some of it into powder, and added some spit to make it into red dye. They watched as I painted the head of the smallest figure in a scene of four people—two larger and two smaller—sitting around a dining rock.
“Your family?” asked Echo.
I kept my eyes on my work.
“Where’s Woolly?” she asked.
I shrugged. “He hates me,” I finally said. “He’ll never let me ride him.”
“He just doesn’t trust you yet. He’ll warm up.”
“The Big Game is in two days!”
“Maybe if you trusted him more?”
“Why should I?”
“Because you need him.”
“I don’t need anyone,” I said.
“You don’t think you need anyone! That’s your problem.”
I glared at her.
She glared right back at me.
“How,” I finally said, “do you know that?”
“Lug,” she said, “you just told me you don’t need anyone.”
“I just meant … I … wish I didn’t. I wish I could just go and …” I glanced toward the distant cliffs that held my secret art cave. “Never mind.”
She gave me a puzzled look.
Stony grunted and gestured toward the boulder pile. We all turned to look, and through an opening between two boulders, we saw a big brown eye watching us.
“Why?”
“Just trust me,” she said, gesturing for Stony to come along too.
He followed, and I came trudging after.
“Woolly needs some time alone,” she explained as we walked down the boar trail. “Besides, I want you to show me that boar’s head you found.”
I led them along the trail until we reached the shadow of Mount Bigbigbig. After a little searching in the dim light, I found the dead tree near the solitary orchid.
“For stone’s sake!” I said, scanning the ground. “It was right here, I swear.”
We scoured the area but there was no trace of the boar’s head.
Echo and Stony exchanged skeptical glances. “I bet Crazy Crag took it,” I blurted out.
Stony’s eyes suddenly got very wide.
“Crazy Crag?” said Echo. “Come on, that’s just an old Llama’s Boys legend.”
“No,” I said. “My clan banished him when he was a boy, and he’s still alive.”
“How do you know?”
“Uh … u-um,” I stammered. “I didn’t want to alarm you guys, but … I ran into him when I found the boar’s head.”
Stony’s unibrow shot up.
Echo looked at me like I had more than a few stones loose.
“What?” I said.
Before she could reply, we heard the woodsplintering sounds of something massive running through distant foliage. It was followed by the faint thud of a smaller animal hitting the ground with a muffled squeal. A deathly silence descended. It was as if no bird or insect dared breathe, much less chirp or buzz.
“Something big is out there!” whispered Echo.
“I noticed!” I whispered back.
We stayed in place for a long time until the chirping and buzzing returned. When we finally got back we found Woolly resting on his side in a shady spot by the stream.
I eyed him suspiciously.
How was I supposed to ride a giant beast that I didn’t trust? And if I didn’t ride him, how would I ever see my family again? And if I did ride him, how was I supposed to avoid dying? These were the merry thoughts bouncing around my head as we bedded down in Woolly’s cave that night. The dark reddish walls and the stalactites studding its ceiling made me feel like I was in the cavernous mouth of some great stone-toothed monster. There was old bat guano on the floor but, eerily, no bats—as if the cave had become too creepy even for them. Stony, Froggy, and I slept toward the back, while Echo curled up next to Woolly, closer to the entrance.
The wind woke me in the middle of the night. I had goose bumps on my arms and legs. I glanced over at Echo. Her face seemed dangerously close to those sharp tusks, which gleamed ominously even in the dim moonlight.
“Echo,” I whispered. “Echo?”
No response.
I crawled over and poked her shoulder.
“Sleeping,” she mumbled.
I waited for more, but she kept her eyes closed. “Echo … do you feel like … like it’s been getting really cold lately?” I asked.
“I said sleeping,” she muttered a bit more clearly.
I listened to the gusting wind and shivered. “It’s not right.”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” She pushed up onto an elbow. “Why do you think I’m sleeping next to a woolly mammoth? Did you need to wake me up for this?”
“Aren’t you worried that it might keep getting colder and colder, until—”
“Until what?” she snapped.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I have a feeling it won’t be good.”
Echo closed her eyes. “I know it’s been getting a little colder, but I don’t think it’s a big deal. A lot of people in my village have been saying we could use a little cooler weather.”
“This doesn’t feel like weather. It feels like a major change. It’s never gotten this cold before.”
“I’m sure it’ll warm up again.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“It’s the middle of the night, Lug.”
“Finally,” I muttered, “something we agree on.”
“If you’re so cold, ask Woolly if you can sleep next to him. It’s nice and warm under his fur.”
“And what if he rolls over and crushes us? Did you ever think of that? He’s not some fuzzy little cave cat, you know!”
“Good night, Lug.” She snuggled back into the woolly mammoth and closed her eyes.
I rolled over, grumbling to myself.
I awoke to a scraping sound. I rubbed my stiff limbs in the faint dawn light and saw that Echo, Stony, and Froggy were still asleep. It took me a moment to remember that there had been a woolly mammoth in this cave last night. “Where’d you go, you oversize cave kitty?” I murmured.
I crept over to the entrance and peeked out. What I saw made me pinch myself.
Woolly stood outside the cave, holding the last remains of my lump of red ocher with the tip of his trunk. Near my painting of my family there was now a crude drawing of two mammoths—a larger one and a smaller one—huddled close. I stared for a long time.
“You … and your mother?” I finally asked, trying to hide my amazement.
Woolly turned and looked at me. He gave a slight nod.
I nodded back at him. “And … what about your father?”
This time the young mammoth looked down. It was just a small gesture but there was something heartbreaking about it from such a big, tough-looking beast. I reached out and touched his side, petting his thick reddish-brown fur. It was much softer than I had expected.
After a while, he looked up at my painting again.
“I miss my parents too,” I said. “More than I can say.”
Woolly reached out and gently touched my back with his trunk.
