Giant glaciers, two of the tigers had
captured a . . . mammoth cub!
The poor little — well, big! — guy! He
must have gotten lost when the rest of the
mammoth herd fled. The tigers had found
him, captured him, and tied him up like
Jurassic string cheese.
“Squeak! I wouldn’t want to be in his
place,” Trap whispered. “Surely those terrible
tigers will take him to their encampment in
the Stinky Swamp!”
“Those nasty cats could use a good club to
the head,” Thea said, frowning.
“You want to FIGHT the tigers?” I
asked, whiskers wobbling. “B-b-but what if
they capture us?”
Squeak!
55
Thea grinned. “Don’t worry — I’ve
got a solution!”
Hercule and I looked at her hopefully.
“We need to find the mammoths!” Thea
said matter-of-factly.
“Crusty cheese chunks, thanks a lot!”
Hercule said. “Do you think we’re a bunch
of cheesebrains?”
“We already tried to look for the
mammoths, remember?” I added.
“Listen to me,” Thea said calmly. “If the
mammoths knew that one of their babies
had been captured by the tigers, they would
come back for him. I bet they’d also teach
those nasty cats a lesson!”
Rocky boulders, maybe my sister was
right!
“I agree,” said Hercule. “But there’s still
one enormouse problem — how will
56
we track down the mammoths in the first
place?”
“Maybe we could send one of our mail-
a-dactyls* out to deliver a message to
the mammoths,” I suggested.
But Hercule shook his snout. “The
mammoths don’t know how to read! We
can’t send them a written message.”
Trap looked thoughtful. “What if we tried
smoke signals?”
“Megalithic mozzarella!” Hercule cried,
exasperated. “Everyone knows that the
mammoths have TERRIBLE EYESIGHT.
Plus, do any of you know smoke signals?”
“Um, well, no . . . ” I said with a shrug.
“But then what can we do?”
My question hung in the air while we all
stared at Hercule.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and
* Mail-a-dactyls are flying dinosaurs that deliver
messages etched on giant stone slabs.
57
a clever smile stretched across his snout.
“You’re not going to believe your EARS,
cavemice!”
“Try us,” I said, eager to hear Hercule’s
plan.
He clapped his paws.
“I
have
the
most
mouserific
idea
in
all
of
prehistory!”
“So what are you waiting for?” Thea cried.
“ Tell us!”
MASSIVE
METEORITES,
WE
JUST
MIGHT
BE
CLOSE
TO
FINDING
AN
ANSWER
TO
OUR
ENORMOUSE
PROBLEM!
59
AN IDEA WITH
WINGS!
Hercule gave another dramatic pause, then
finally exclaimed, “The answer is simple.
We will FLY!”
Bones and stones — what? Trap, Thea,
and I looked at one another in confusion.
“But, Hercule, I think you’re forgetting
one small detail,” Thea said slowly. “We
don’t know how to fly!”
“Right, we don’t have wings,” I added.
Had Hercule lost his cheese?
“You really are a bunch of graniteheads!”
Hercule responded, rolling his eyes. “Did I
say that we would fly with wings? Huh?”
“Well, no . . .” Trap said.
60
“That’s right!” Hercule went on.
“My dear friends, we will fly — on a
balloonosaurus!”
Thea, Trap, and I all jumped to our
paws. Fossilized feta, that really was a
megalithic idea!
Balloonosauruses are flying dinosaurs
that we cavemice use for long air trips. They
have wings, and for gas they use a normal,
seasoned, or spicy
bean fuel! Their
runway is at the
Old Mouse City
flightport.
I paced on my
paws, thinking
hard. “But . . . to
get to the flightport,
we need to cross the
Burp!
city. How will we avoid the TIGERS
camped out around the city wall?”
“I have a plan!” Thea said. “Listen
up . . .”
1
First, we will enter Old Mouse
City at nighttime, sneaking through the
secret entrance in the dark so we won’t be
discovered.
2
Then, as quiet as mice, we will scurry
to the flightport to board a balloonosaurus.
3
Finally, we will survey the island from
above
in search of the mammoths.
It was a brilliant and dangerous plan.
Oh, who am I kidding? It was so dangerous
that we were risking extinction!
“Pointy triceratops horns, those tigers
will spot us!” I squeaked in a panic. “They’ll
capture us! They’ll pulverize us!”
“Do you have a better idea?” Thea asked.
62
“We have to do
something, and this
might work.”
As much as I hated
to admit it, Thea was
right. The future of
all cavemice was at
stake!
So, in the DeaD
of night, we crept
up to the city wall
and silently crawled
through the mud.
We were only two
millitails away from
T iger Khan and
his fanged henchmen!
1
2
3
TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF THE DARK . . .
FIND A
BALLOONOSAURUS
SURVEY THE ISLAND FROM
ABOVE, LOOKING FOR
MAMMOTHS!
Zzzzz!
Zzzzz!
Luckily, the fearsome felines were busy
dreaming up the different ways they could
cook us cavemice.
“Stewed, roasted, or baked?” one
asked, licking his lips.
“No, rodent kabobs!”
“As a side, would potatoes or Paleozoic
onions be better?”
“Onions! And it’s even better if they’re
MOLDY — extra flavor! Ha, ha, ha!”
Before I could stop myself, I let out a grunt
of disgust.
“Ugh!”
Tiger Khan perked up his ears and
SCANNED the dark with his ferocious
eyes. Squeeeeeak, what had I done?
Luckily, He
rcule and Trap had a plan to
save our tails. They began to make similar
noises.
65
“Uggggh! Hoo-hoo-hoooo!”
“Oh, it’s just a Jurassic owl,” Tiger Khan
growled, disappointed. He’d fallen for our
trick!
Boulders of Brie, we had almost been
goners!
Without a second to waste, we used the
secret entrance in the wall to Old Mouse
???
City. It was made for emergencies —
and this definitely qualified!
When we reached the flightport, we found
the balloonosauruses snoring happily. Holey
boulders, they were sleeping as heavily as
blocks of granite!
We managed to wake one up, but he
had two shriveled wings and a goofy
expression on his face. We couldn’t afford
to be picky, though — we had to get going!
We climbed aboard the balloonosaurus
and took off just as a lightning bolt
lit up the sky.
zap!
Jurassic Jack cheese! Just what we
needed — another storm!
67
Snort!
Help!
!!!
c
r
a
a
a
a
c
k
!
ZAP!
Gulp!
The balloonosaurus had just taken off, and I
was already as GREEN as a Jurassic zucchini
from fear, vertigo, and airsickness. I was a
mousetastic mess!
“Be brave, Geronimo!” Trap
hollered, giving me a thump on the
back.
“Ouch!” I yelped. What
Paleozoic pain!
Suddenly, a gust of
WIND
made the basket
of the balloonosaurus toss
from one side to the other.
I tumbled to the bottom of
70
the basket with my paws
in the air.
bonk!
But that was just
the beginning. The
wind began to
blow harder
and harder
Hellllllp!
until . . .
boom!
Thunder
ECHOED
all around us. This was going to be a
megalithic storm!
Our goofy balloonosaurus had trouble
keeping his balance when the sky was calm.
In the middle of a storm, forget it!
The poor guy wheezed and panted, flapping
his shriveled wings and weaving every
which way. Petrified provolone, this flight
was making me queasy!
Trap and Hercule tried to stuff the
balloonosaurus with spicy bean fuel while
Thea encouraged him. “Be brave, big
guy! Don’t give up! Flap those
strong wings!”
“Um, strong wings?” Trap
muttered under his breath. “This
beast has the shabbiest wings
in all of prehistory!”
Thea jabbed him with
her elbow. “Shhhh!
Can’t you see that he’s doing his best?”
zap!
Just then a super-powerful
lightning bolt ripped through the clouds
and struck the balloonosaurus’s tail. The
poor dinosaur swerved dangerously and
began to spiral down
out of the sky. Holey
boulders, we were
all doomed!
“Nooooo!” Thea yelled. “Don’t
give up now! You can do it! Take us higher!
Come on, come on, come on!”
But despite her encouragement, the
balloonosaurus fell like a sack of
potatoes — and WE FELL WITH HIM !
GREAT GOUDA
GLACIERS,
WE
WERE
JUST
A
PAWSTEP
AWAY
FROM
EXTINCTION!
I did the only thing I could do at that
moment: I hugged my friends and prepared
for the worst, squeaking at the top of my
lungs,
“good-bye,
cavemouse
worrrrrld!”
75
SAVED BY A
WHISKER!
We kept falling but never hit the ground!
Finally, I opened my eyes, and amazingly,
I wasn’t extinct. Instead, I found myself
sitting on something soft and comfortable. I
looked up and found myself snout-to-trunk
Snort!
Um
. . .
with — squeak! — a mammoth!
I had landed right on his trunk!
The beast looked annoyed. I had landed
right on top of him in the middle of the
night — with no warning!
“Um, well . . .” I said, giving him my most
fabumouse smile. Before he could get any
angrier, I jumped down to the muddy
ground next to Thea, Trap, and Hercule.
Our balloonosaurus, on the other paw,
had landed in a small lake nearby. The
poor guy was having a tough time getting
out of the water!
“Here, grab on to this!” called Thea,
throwing him a rope.
With the last of his strength, the
balloonosaurus snagged the rope, dragged
himself to shore, and collapsed on the
ground.
77
He looked just about as bad as I felt!
But I couldn’t think about that, because
the mammoth I had landed on was stomping
our way — and he looked mad.
Thea held up a paw. “STOP! We have
something to tell you!”
She began to tell him everything that had
happened, while Trap and Hercule tried to
act out her words so the mammoth would
understand.
“The saber-toothed tigers have ATTACKED
Old Mouse City!”
Trap did a pirouette.
“They captured a baby mammoth!”
Hercule jumped in the air four times,
while Trap grimaced.
The mammoth froze in shock. Then
78
he raised himself onto his back legs and let
out a loud trumpet:
“bhruuaah!”
The ground began to shake. Fossilized
feta, what was happening? A moment later,
we were surrounded by an entire herd of
mammoths!
“bhruuaah!
bhruuaah!
They sounded furious!
Bhruuaah!”
“They’re going to rescue the baby!”
Hercule squeaked.
“And I’ll bet they teach those terrible
tigers a lesson, too!” Trap exclaimed.
“What are we waiting for, guys?” Thea
cried, fiercer than ever.
79
“Charrrrrrge!”
The mammoths let us climb on their backs,
and the herd raced toward Old Mouse City.
HOORAY!
The
mammoths
and
cavemice
were
about
to
get
our
revenge!
80
Hooray!
Come
on!
Gulp!
Whoooop!
MAMMOTH ATTACK!
The mammoths RAN through the night,
despite the wind, the dark, and the deep,
sticky mud. They were fabumouse!
DRIP!
Drop!
Drip!
The rain was coming down heavier and
heavier now.
What a storm!
I held on to the back of the mammoths’
leader for dear life. Holey boulders, I was
getting tossed around so much that I felt
like a mammoth milkshake myself!
“Don’t let go, Geronimo! Hold on tight!”
Thea called over the storm.
At the first light of dawn, we finally arrived
at Old Mouse City.
The saber-toothed tigers had finished
building their ladders. They were about to
climb the wall and invade the city!
“We’re going to have the purrfect
cavemouse feast,” Tiger Khan snarled.
“Har, har, har!” his henchcats replied.
PETRIFIED
PROVOLONE,
WE
DIDN’T
HAVE
A
MINUTE
TO
LOSE!
When the mammoths spotted the tigers,
they began to trumpet at them.
bhruuaah!
bhruuaah!
bhruuaah!
What now?
“What’s going on?” Tiger Khan
screeched.
The fierce felines on the wooden ladders
stopped, confused. But the mammoths
didn’t even give the saber-toothed tigers
time to defend themselves.
Huh?
Oh no!
Chaaaaarge!
Help!
Aaahhh!
Save yourselves!
Let’s
get
revenge!
Great Gouda glaciers, it was an incredible
sight: The mammoths completely petrified
Tiger Khan and his henchcats. They wiped
out those felines like prehistoric
bowling pins!
Many of the tigers ended up in the mud
with their paws in the air. Others RAN
AWAY
like Jurassic jackrabbits. Others
yelped like scared little kittens.
“HELP!