ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

CHAPTER 4 ~ Hunting the Wooly Mammoth


ZIIIIRRR --- POP!!

Even though they were wearing their sunglasses, the flash of blue light created by the anywhen unit on Jon-Max's wrist left both the fifth graders blinking and rubbing their eyes for a moment when they suddenly appeared at the newest destination in their time-traveling journey. It took both of them a moment to realize that they were standing knee deep in snow! The air around them was thick with blowing snowflakes, and the sky above was gray with low, ominous clouds.

The freezing air quickly cut through Laura clothing and left her shivering with cold.

"Hey, I'm freezing to death!" she shouted to Jon-Max above the blowing wind. Her teeth began to chatter so hard that she could barely speak when she said, "Get us out of here!"

"Don't worry, you'll be warm in a few seconds," Jon-Max said, his own teeth chattering as well. Then, shouted above the fridged wind. "Gidget, Gazmo, create thermal force fields, now!"

Instantly Laura felt much warmer, and the wind didn't seem to be blowing against her skin any more! It was if she were suddenly wrapped in a big, warm coat.

"Hey, how did they do that?" Laura said in amazement.

"Gidget and Gazmo are creating force fields around our bodies that keep warm air in and block cold air out," Jon-Max said, smiling happily as he rubbed his chilled hands together to warm his numbed fingers. "I think Gidget was trying to warn me about the cold when I pushed the button on the anywhen device. I was so excited about getting to our next destination that I didn't listen."

Laura looked around at the bleak, frozen landscape, with the thick gray clouds moving across the sky overhead and the blowing drifts of snow covering everything in sight. The only break in the gloomy gray-white landscape was a few pine trees poking up through the snow a few hundred yards away, and a few patches of low bushes,near Laura. She decided it was the most depressing scene she had ever looked at!

"Excuse me for saying so, but what's so great about this place?" Laura said with noticeable irritation.

Jon-Max wore a knowing smile as he pointed at something behind Larura and said, "Well, for one thing . . . I thought you might like to see one of those."

Laura turned around — and gasped in surprise! Less than fifty feet away was a huge hairy elephant with long curving tusk. The tusk were so long and curved that their ends almost touched together in the middle, more than fifteen feet in front of the hairy beast's head! The hair was brown and shaggy, covering the elephant completely from tail to trunk.





The elephant was using its trunk to pull leaves from one of the low bushes that poked up through the thick snow. It stuffed a wad of leaves into its mouth beneath its trunk and then sent its trunk back down to start gathering another leafy batch.

Laura couldn't take her eyes off the amazing animal for several seconds, but when she finally did, she noticed that there were six more of the gigantic, hairy creatures a few hundred feet away!

"What are those things?" Laura said in a whispered voice, afraid of attracting the attention of the massive monsters.

"There called wooly mammoths," Jon-Max said quietly, gazing at the animals with the same look of amazement that Laura wore. "They’re an extinct type of elephant. My teacher in 2058 showed us videos he had made of them when he came back to this time in history. I thought they looked pretty cool when I saw the videos. But a video is nothing like seeing the real thing. Wow . . . "

Jon-Max's voice trailed off as he and Laura watched the mammoths grazing on the sparse bushes that grew up through the thick snow. After a few seconds she realized that she had no idea where in the world she was. In fact, she didn't even know when she was!

"Jon-Max, what's the date? I mean, how far back in time are we?"

"Ten-thousand years," Jon-Max said. "This is what scientist call the Ice Age."

"The Ice Age?" Laura said.

"Right. The Earth got really cold for a few thousand years. Nobody is really sure why, but for a long time there were things called glaciers over most of the Earth."

"What's a glacier?" Laura asked.

"A big sheet of ice that travels very slowly across the land, moving downhill like a frozen river. The glaciers covered most of Canada and the United States for thousands of years. Then the Earth started warming up slowly again, and the glaciers melted away."

Laura was watching the mammoths again, feeling less afraid of them now that she knew the mammoths ate plants instead of people.

"Gee, I'm sure glad their not dangerous. I was scared at first. I mean, until you told me they were just hairy elephants," Laura said as she watched the mammoth nearest them move closer, heading for a group of shrubs growing just a few feet away. "I was afraid they might be dangerous."

"Uh . . . well, uh, actually," Jon-Max said hesitantly, suddenly looking nervous, "they aren't usually dangerous."

"What?" said Laura.

Jon-Max was watching the approaching mammoth closely — very closely. In fact, Jon-Max looked undeniable worried!

"Hey, uh . . . are we in trouble?" said Laura inching slowly away from the approaching giant as it came within twenty feet of the two young people.

"Well, to be absolutely honest," said Jon-Max, stepping away from the mammoth himself, "Yes, we are."

"Jon-Max, is there something you haven't told me?" Laura said with touch of anger in her voice.

Jon-Max looked a little nervous as he said, "Well, yes, I guess so. You see, sometimes the mammoths act just like the elephants we have in the 21st century. They get really mad when people get too close to them. They go a little crazy and . . . attack people."

"Oh, great," said Laura. "Now you tell me.

"Sorry," said Jon-Max, speaking so soft that Laura could barely hear him in the blowing wind.

"What do we do now," said Laura.

"Let's wait and see what happens," Jon-Max said, trying to sound confident and reassuring.

Suddenly the approaching mammoth seemed to notice the two humans. It stopped in the snow and raised its hairy trunk high before giving out a loud trumpeting sound that split the cold air.

For an instant Jon-Max and Laura were too scared to move. But when the mammoth charged toward them, both of the young people turned and fled for their lives. The colossal creature's massive feet sent snow flying in all directions as it plowed along after the two fleeing fifth graders — and it was gaining on them rapidly!

Jon-Max was slightly ahead of Laura when he suddenly reached the edge of thirty-foot drop, a miniature cliff that neither of the fifth graders had seen. They were trapped!

"Don't just stand there!" shouted Laura. "Jump!"

"If we jump, we'll break our legs!" Jon-Max pleaded
.
"If we don't jump," Laura said desperately, "That monster will break everything else!"

Jon-Max considered the suggestion for less than a second, then he said, "Good point. Here goes nothing." He grabbed Laura’s hand and leapt off the edge of the rock towards the snow-covered ground below.

When they landed, they discovered that the snow was more than six feet deep, and their feet plunged into the soft pillow of snow. It cushioned their fall, and they sank into the snow until it was over their heads. They didn't even see the mammoth rush up to the edge of the miniature cliff. The mammoth looked down at the two holes in the snow the fifth graders had made, staring at them with wide, brown, enraged eyes.

When Laura struggled up out of the snow far enough to look up at the mammoth, she saw an amazing sight. The mammoth was at the edge of the rocks atop the miniature cliff, and as the gigantic animal stood there looking down, a long wooden shaft came sailing through the air and buried its sharp point into the side of the mammoth. The animal screamed with pain, but before it could move, another long spear zipped through the air and stuck into the mammoth's side.

Jon-Max's head popped up from the hole next to Laura and he saw Laura looking up. When Jon-Max looked up he saw more of the wooden spears being plunged into the side of the mammoth. They were coming from both sides of the doomed animal, and within seconds the mammoth had so many spears sticking into it that the dying animal swayed back and forth on weak legs, barely able to stand.

"Yike!" squealed Jon-Max. "We’ve got to move! That thing is about to fall on us!"

Seconds after he said it, the dying giant reared up on its hind legs and gave one last bellow of pain, then it began to topple forward -- right toward the two fifth graders below it! They scrambled up from the deep snow and frantically crawled along through the powdery white material as if they were swimming.

The mammoth tilted forward and fell thirty feet from the edge of the rocky cliff to the fluffy snow below. Jon-Max and Laura barely got out of the way before the body of the mammoth crashed into the snow and sent a fountain of frozen white powder exploding in all directions. As the explosion of snow drifted back down, the two fifth graders were covered by the by it. They collapsed for a moment and lay motionless, gasping for breath.

After several seconds Jon-Max rose up and looked over at Laura, who was still lying motionless, half buried in the snow, covered with a thin white coating.

"Hey, are you okay?" said Jon-Max in a worried voice.

Slowly Laura raised her head and looked at her friend. In a weary voice she said, "There must be an easier way to write a Social Studies report."

Jon-Max smiled and replied, "Sure there is. But then you'd miss all the fun."

The two time travelers looked over at the shaggy carcass of the mammoth. It was bristling with wooden spears, and their were crimson patches all over the thick coat of brown fur. Laura glanced up at the edge of the cliff the mammoth had fallen from . . . and she saw something that put a look of shock and fear on her young face.

"Uh . . . Jon-Max?" Laura said in a shaky voice. "I think we're in trouble. Look."

Jon-Max followed his friend's gaze, and his face was filled with the same look of fear that Laura wore. On the edge of the cliff above them stood more than twenty men, all dressed in thick furs from head to foot, not an inch of skin showing. Even their heads were covered in thick hoods of dark fur. Many of them held the same kind of spears that were sticking out of the dead mammoth.

Obviously these were the hunters who had brought down the mighty beast that lay dead in the snow a few feet away. And they didn't look very friendly.

"What should we do?" Laura said in a voice just loud enough for Jon-Max to hear above the whistling wind.

"Don't move," said Jon-Max. "They can't see what we look like yet, because of the snow that's covering us. I need to tell Gidget and Gazmo what to do."

"You mean, to make us invisible again?" said Laura.

"No, that wouldn't work," Jon-Max said quietly, still watching the men above them. "Even if we were invisible, they would see our footprints in the snow. We need to use the disguise mode."
"The what?"

"Trust me," said Jon-Max. "I'll explain in a minute." Jon-Max spoke quickly to the futuristic devices on their belts.

"Gidget, Gazmo, activate disguise modes. Quick!"

"Disguise mode on," said the male and female voices in unison.

Jon-Max stood up and brushed the snow off his body. His friend was amazed to see that Jon-Max now seemed to be dressed in the same thick furs that the men on the cliff were wearing! Jon-Max looked up, and the men and waved at them.

"You can stand up now," said Jon-Max. "To those guys, you'll look like your wearing the same kind of fur clothing they wear."

Laura was very confused as she stood up slowly. "I . . . I don't think I understand."

"Gidget and Gazmo are creating holographic images around us that makes it look like we're dressed just those guys. Hopefully they'll think we're one of them."

"Yeah. Hopefully," Laura said nervously. When she looked up at the cliff again, the men were moving along the edge of the rocks towards a place to the left where they could climb down.

In a low voice, Jon-Max spoke again to the two devices on their belts. "Activate translation mode for two-way conversation."

The two devices answered together. "Done. Two-way translation mode on."

Laura was confused again. "Two-way translation?"

"Right," said Jon-Max. "Even though those guys will speak to us in their own language, we will hear what they say in English – just like when we were spying on Columbus. But when we speak English to these Ice Age Indians, they'll hear it translated into their language."

"That's amazing," said Laura.

"Yeah, pretty cool, huh? I'll bet you never thought you'd get to talk to Ice Age Indians, did you?"

"You're right about that," said Laura in a very serious voice. "And the first thing I'll to say to them will be . . . Please don't kill us!"

Jon-Max chuckled. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. Things are about to get very exciting."

"What!?" Laura said in an amazed voice. "You mean they haven't been exciting already?"

NEXT: CHAPTER 5 ~ THE EARLY AMERICANS
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Captain Starlight]

I'm sure your students were thrilled by the remarkable story you created. The fact that you made each of them the "star of the show" is wonderful!

I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thanks, Captain! I hope you're not the only one whose reading this story.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Nope, he's not the only one!

Enjoying it quite a bit!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.