In the Ice Age : In the Ice Age (9780307532497) Read Free Page B

“We’d better leave a note.”
    She grabbed a reddish drawing stick. On the wall she wrote: “Gone to save the capybaras. Be back soon.”
    She reached under her fur cape and pushed the stick into her pocket. Then they crept onto the cool blue path through the glacier.
    When they arrived at the glacier’s entrance, Andrew poked his head out.
    The Tick-Tox Box was still there. It was dark now, and it had shrunk to the size of Andrew’s bedroom closet.
    From the glacier to the faraway trees, nothing was moving but Max. He plodded over to them with his ears spread wide.
    meep …
“Max say ‘Hello’ with ears,” said Thudd.
    Beeper stuck his thumbs in his ears and wiggled his fingers at Max.
    Max touched Beeper with the tip of his trunk. He seemed to be sniffing him.
    “Elephants have a gigunda sense of smell,” said Beeper. “Once a herd of elephants smelled my uncle from a mile away. They stampeded!”
    meep …
“Elephant may be best smeller on Earth,” said Thudd. “Mammoth is great smeller, too. That how Max find Drewd and Oody. Drewd and Oody related to Unkie Al. Smell kinda like him.”
    “Wowzers schnauzers!” said Andrew. “If Max tracked us, maybe he can track the capybaras!”
    “Wait a minute,” said Judy. “When you want a dog to track a person, you have to let the dog sniff something that has the person’s smell.”
    meep …
“Like stinky sock,” said Thudd.
    “Hoo boy!” said Beeper. “That’s why Max found you guys so fast. You haven’t had a bath since the beginning of the universe!”
    Judy rolled her eyes. “Well, you don’t exactly smell like a rose,” she said.
“You
haven’t had a bath in
three hundred million years!”
    Andrew was looking at a patch of trampled snow. “I think these are capybara footprints,” he said.
    “Yoop! Yoop! Yoop!” said Thudd.
    Andrew followed the footprints to a sheet of bare rock. He couldn’t find a trail.
    “If we could get Max to sniff these footprints,” said Andrew, “maybe he could follow the trail of the capybaras.”
    “Hooey!” said Beeper. He gathered ahandful of grass and held it near the mammoth’s trunk.
    Max reached out his trunk. With two little flaps at the end of it, he picked a single stem of grass. He curled his trunk toward his mouth and chewed.
    Beeper wagged the rest of the grass at Max, then spread the grass over the capybara footprints. After Max gathered up every stem, he sniffed the footprints. After a moment, he started following them!
    “Hey! Wait a minute!” yelled Andrew.
    He ran up to Max, stood between his enormous tusks, and held up his hand. Then Andrew raised his other hand from his waist to the top of his head.
    Max touched Andrew’s chest with his trunk, then slowly wrapped his trunk around Andrew’s waist.
    It’s like being hugged by a hairy snake,
thought Andrew.
    Max lifted Andrew to the top of his head. Andrew grabbed Max’s hair and pulled himself onto the mammoth’s back.
    Max’s hair was longer than Judy’s hair. It was longer than Andrew’s arm!
    “Come on up, guys!” said Andrew, scooting backward. “We can all fit up here.”
    “Yahoo!” said Beeper.
    Max scooped him up, too. Judy was next.
    “This is
not
comfortable,” said Judy, settling herself in front of Beeper.
    “Poor Judy Patootie!” said Beeper. “They don’t make saddles for
mammoths!”
    “Stuff a sock in it, Beeper Creeper!” said Judy.
    The mammoth wagged its trunk across the footprints and lurched ahead. Andrew, Judy, and Beeper swayed with every step. The mammoth crossed a rocky field and crunched through patches of ice.
    Sunlight glinted off the snowy ground.Under Andrew’s cloak, his arms tingled with goose bumps.

    “I liked Montana better sixty-five million years ago,” said Andrew
    “Yeah!” said Beeper. “When there were Tyrannosauruses.”
    “The Tyrannosauruses were good,” saidAndrew, “but I liked that it was warm, like a jungle. I wonder why it got so cold.”
    meep …
“Earth