Stone Age Rampage

“I’m trying!” said Tom.

Suddenly he felt hands grasping his ankles. With a firm pull, Dad dragged Tom out from under the tent. Dr Sullivan’s face was as stern as one of Tlaloc’s thunderclouds.

“Oops,” said Tom lamely.

“Thomas Sullivan,” said Dad, shaking his head. “What on earth are you playing at? Now we’ll have to put that tent up all over again!”

Tom was about to explain that it wasn’t his fault, but then he stopped. How could he blame it on an invisible Aztec slave girl and her dog? His dad would think he’d gone crazy!

“Sorry, Dad,” he muttered.

Sheepishly, he helped his dad put the tent back up, and by then it was getting dark. As his dad prepared a camp fire, Tom went inside his tent to unroll his sleeping bag. Zuma carefully crawled in after him.

“Sorry about before,” she said. “Chilli’s such a clumsy thing at times. You’re not going to make us sleep outside with the jaguars, are you?”

Before Tom could answer, he felt a drop of water splash against his nose. It had started raining – inside the tent! Suddenly there was another figure crouching beside them. It was Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god.

His big blue body filled the cramped tent, his feathery headdress squashed against the ceiling.

“It’s time for your next quest!” he roared. “And this one will be the most difficult yet! You cannot hope to succeed – you can only hope to stay alive …”

“If this is your idea of a pep talk, it isn’t a very good one,” said Zuma.

With a snarl, Tlaloc raised his arms and the rain suddenly stopped. Then a magical glittering mist filled the tent, whisking them away through the tunnels of time into the unknown.

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The magical mist cleared and Tom found himself standing at the top of a mountain overlooking a valley. The air was pure and fresh, unlike anything Tom had ever breathed before. There wasn’t a person or a building or a road anywhere to be seen.

“Great view!” said Zuma. “But where are we?”

Tom looked at the bulky fur cloak draped over Zuma’s shoulders. Whenever Tlaloc sent them tumbling through time, their clothes changed to match the style of the period they were visiting. Tom was dressed in a similar cloak to Zuma. Both of them were wearing leggings made from animal hide, and furry boots stuffed with grass.

“We’re definitely a long way from home,” Tom said. “I think further than we’ve ever been before.” He pointed to the black pendant hanging around her neck. “Ask your necklace and see if it can help us.”

Zuma’s magical pendant gave them clues to where Tlaloc had hidden each golden coin. Taking hold of the necklace, Zuma chanted the familiar question:

“Mirror, mirror, on a chain,

Can you help us? Please explain!

We are lost and must be told

How to find the coins of gold.”

A riddle appeared on the surface of the black pendant:

Step back to the dawn of time;

To find the coin follow the rhyme.

Two men of stone – one large, one small,

You’ll find a clue upon the wall.

Go down a path of bubbling blue;

When in doubt, to the right stay true;

Keep on past where the deer roam;

The brightest fire will lead you home.

“What does ‘the dawn of time’ mean?” Zuma asked, as the silvery words vanished into the depths of the pendant.

“If our clothes are anything to go by, I’d say we’re in the prehistoric era,” said Tom.

“Prehis-whatty?” laughed Zuma. “That’s not a word! You’re making it up.”

“I’m not!” said Tom.

“What does it mean then?”

“It’s a very old period in time,” Tom explained, remembering what his dad had told him. “Way before the Ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians. Way before people could even read or write.”

“Hmm.” Zuma frowned. “So … no computer games?”

“Not really, no,” said Tom.

A sudden gust of wind whipped across the mountaintop. Tom shivered, and pulled his cloak tightly around him. “Let’s get down from here,” he suggested. “It’ll be warmer in the valley.”

“Lead the way,” said Zuma.

They began to pick their way down the jagged slope, careful not to slip on the loose rocks. Chilli darted ahead of them, sniffing and snuffling at the ground. The air was still cool and crisp but walking helped warm Tom up. As they carried on down the mountain, Zuma looked at her boots admiringly.

“These shoes don’t look like much,” she said. “But they’re pretty comfortable. These prehis-whatty people couldn’t have been that stupid.”

“I didn’t say they were stupid,” said Tom. “I just said they hadn’t learned to read or write yet.”

“How about talking? Could they talk like us?”

“No one really knows,” replied Tom. “Their words probably sounded a lot different to ours – like a lot of huffs and grunts.”

“Sounds like my old master,” Zuma told him. “He used to huff and grunt all the time, especially when I burned his breakfast.”

Thanks to Tlaloc’s magic, whenever Tom and Zuma travelled back in time they could understand whatever language the people there spoke. Even if people around here huffed and grunted, Tom would be able to understand them. He was still worried, though. This empty world felt strange and different. Whenever Tom saw prehistoric people on the TV, they were brutish cavemen who bashed people on the head with clubs and dragged them away by their hair. Had anyone even invented fire yet? Tlaloc hadn’t been joking when he’d said that this would be Tom and Zuma’s toughest challenge yet.

As they came down the mountain, the ground began to level out and a line of trees appeared along a ridge. Chilli barked with delight and scooted down towards the nearest tree. The dog’s nose twitched excitedly as he sniffed around the gnarled roots.