Ned made a sort of crooning noise in his throat and tickled each of the sabre-toothed tigers under the chin. Then he beckoned to me. I seriously couldn’t move. Now I know exactly why a rabbit freezes in the headlights of a car. It’s like being paralysed by feeling fear and awe at the same time.

Ned took my hand and guided it under the chin of the first tiger. It felt warm and soft. There was a rumbling in the tiger’s throat, which felt a bit like the start of an earthquake.

“No WAY!” I laughed as I realized what the rumbling was. “It’s purring!”

I lost the paralysed feeling at once. These tigers were amazing!

“Flint,” said Ned, pointing at the tiger I was stroking. “Scratch,” he added, pointing at the other.

Scratch licked Ned’s grimy hand.

“They really love you,” I said. “Two sabre-toothed tigers as pets? Now that’s cool.”

“You like them?” Ned asked.

His big eyes looked shy and proud at the same time.

“Ned, I think they’re the most awesome pets I’ve ever seen . . . apart from my T-rex, of course.”

“I found them,” Ned said, running his fingers through Flint’s fur. “Parents dead, like me. Bert wanted kill them. I said no. I brought them up.”

Wow! Ned must have really wanted a friend. I felt kinda sorry for him. I draped my arm around his shoulders.

“Come on, caveboy,” I said. “We’re gonna have some fun!”

Ned and I had a blast that day. We climbed gigantic trees that were so high, the tops of them were hidden by clouds. We sneaked into the back of the cave and used berry juice and chalk to make some more paintings on the walls. (I drew me arriving in Morph. Ned drew a sabre-toothed tiger eating a woolly mammoth.) Ned showed me how to make a stone knife, and I showed him how to make a wheel out of wood. I even taught him how to high-five!

When I found a couple of thin planks of wood, I remembered those huge tree roots I’d jumped over earlier. I had a mind-bogglingly fantastic idea. I was going to bring skateboarding to mankind several centuries early!

“Ned, get ready for the best feeling in the world!” I told him.

Ned looked a bit puzzled, but he watched as I carved the edges of the boards and made some axles and tiny wheels. Trying not to think about how much easier this would be if I’d remembered my Adventure kit, I used old-fashioned wood joints and dowels to fix the wheels to the axles. I made two Stone-Age skateboards!

“This is going to rock the Stone Age!” I said with a grin. “OK, Ned, time to learn the basics.”

Ned was amazingly quick to pick up a few skills. I guess people had to learn fast or die in those days! Soon we were slicing our way through the forests on the huge roots. I showed Ned a few tricks, and although he fell off a few times and landed on his head, he loved every minute of it.

“Check it OUT!” I yelled as I popped a perfect double ollie.

“Catching air!” Ned bellowed as he somersaulted over Flint and Scratch . . . and landed in a thorn bush. I officially had the BEST time messing around in the Stone Age with Ned, Flint and Scratch! You do not know what fear is until you’ve ridden on the back of a sabre-toothed tiger! Ned made them race faster and faster through the thick forest – I felt as if someone was playing ping-pong inside my stomach. It was so exciting! I squeezed up my eyes and let out the loudest shout I could.

“WHOOOOHOOOOO!”

I couldn’t even hear my own voice above the roars of the tigers! Suddenly I felt Flint’s rippling muscles tighten beneath me. It seemed impossible, but he started to run even faster, and he stopped roaring. I clung on with my arms around his neck, and the wind whistled past my ears.

“Scent of prey!” Ned hollered from close behind me. “We go hunting!”

The trees were thinning out, and on an open stretch of land ahead I could see a herd of deer. The tigers raced forwards on silent, deadly feet. As I bent low over Flint’s back, I could see his white, curving sabre-teeth glittering in the sunlight.

Suddenly the deer spotted us. The whole herd jumped as if they were one animal and started to run. I buried my fingers deep in Flint’s fur and clung on as tight as I could. Adrenaline was pumping around my body and my heart was hammering against my ribs.

Metres away from the nearest deer, Flint’s body went stiff and he sprang through the air, claws outstretched. His front paws landed on the haunches of a deer and it went down like a skittle at a bowling alley.

Flint’s ferocious fangs sank deep into the deer’s neck. I ducked as Scratch hurled himself after a second deer.

Seconds later Scratch and Flint were tucking into their meals. I sat down on a rock. I felt a bit weird about the deer dying, but I know that nature expects every living thing to fight for itself. Ned lumbered over to stand next to me.

“Something wrong?” Ned asked.

“Why am I here, Ned?” I said, picking a thick stalk of grass and tying it into knots. “I don’t get it. No one needs saving around here.”

“Wait,” said Ned. “Bert says ‘Patience better than full stomach’.”

“Yeah?” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t know!” Ned said with a loud explosion of laughter.

Even though I was worried, I had to join in the laughter. I was hanging out with a Stone-Age caveboy and two sabre-toothed tigers, and I was having a brilliant time. How cool was that!

“Wait there,” Ned told me when the tigers had finished eating.

He raced off with Flint and Scratch, and I took the time to do some thinking. So far on this Adventure I had:

• No letters.
• No evidence that Mum or Dad had ever been there.
• No idea what I was supposed to be doing there.

Morph must have made a mistake and taken me to the wrong place. And whoever was writing me the letters had got it wrong this time. Back in the present, Rex was waiting to see me and there was nothing for me here.

“Will!” shouted Ned’s voice. “Look!”

I turned and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Ned was standing on top of a wooden wagon, and Flint and Scratch were pulling it along!

Ned had made harnesses out of animal hide, and he was standing up in the wagon, holding the reins and waving at me. The tigers stopped abruptly, and Ned lost his balance and toppled over backwards with a shout of surprise.

“Ned, this is awesome!” I gasped. “Did you build this?”

Ned’s tangled head appeared again and he nodded several times.

“This is brilliant!” I exclaimed. “We have got to take this thing for a ride!”

If riding a sabre-toothed tiger bareback was exciting, being in a wagon pulled by two of them was out of this world! The tigers ran so fast that my cheeks were pushed backwards like an old woman’s facelift. We left the forest and headed out to open plains, which were just a sandy-coloured blur.

Obviously there were no tyres in the Stone Age, and every time the wooden wheels hit the ground, we were catapulted into the air like rodeo riders, clinging onto the reins to stop ourselves being thrown off. It was like every theme park ride I have ever been on and every computer racing game I have ever played rolled into one!