“What are they doing now?” Og asked, irritated. His two brothers, Oln and Ok were watching the neighboring tribe.

Oln peered through the fig leaves and said, “They’re clicking two rocks together and- Oh! Oh! They have fire!”

Their neighbors stood around a small, newly created flame. A woman of about 35 came out of the cave. She stirred the fire and the flames grew larger.

“Oh!” Og cried. “That is the old mother of them all. Watch out for her. She’ll give you a bad name.”

“What do you mean?” Oln asked.

“Do you see that girl there?

‘One-who-walks-upright’?”

“Ooooo!” Ok hooted. “I like that one! She is walking very upright! There’s something about a woman standing up on two feet!”

“I think they call her ‘Linda’.” Oln said.

“I don’t care what they call her,” Og said. “I tried to grab her yesterday. The old mother started yelling at me. She said, ‘You’re a bad man! Go away! She doesn’t want you!’”

“If she didn’t want a man to grab her, she shouldn’t go around walking upright like that!” Ok said.

“They all started yelling, ‘Bad man! Bad man!!’ I ran away. I’d rather somebody hit me with a rock than call me a bad name!” said Og with his lower lip poking out.

“What do you want to do about it?” Oln asked.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Og drew something on the ground with a stick.

“Whoah!! What’s that?” Oln asked.

“It’s a sharpened stick. I stole it from a chimpanzee,” Og said.

“Chimpanzees have such neat stuff!” Oln said.

Og drew three stick figures.

“These are us,” he said. “And here are the neighbors.”

“What’s that thing on his head?”

“That’s a hat,” Og said. “The old man wears it all the time. Sometimes he puts a feather in it. It makes him taller.”

Suddenly all three men realized they wanted to wear hats too.

“The men will leave soon to hunt,” Og said. “When the women are alone, we will attack together and steal ‘One-that-walks-upright’.”

“And the hat.” Oln said.

“No,” Og said patiently, “if the old man leaves, the hat will also be gone because it is on his head.”

“Look! Look! The men are leaving!” Ok whispered. They waited until the men walked out of sight. Then they attacked the camp.

One-that-walks-upright/Linda screamed.

The old woman ran into the cave. She returned holding a stick that had a tuft of grass tied to one end. It was what she used to clear the camp of stones and sticks.

She swatted Og with this and cried, “Bad man! Bad man! Go away!”

“Run!!” Og squealed. “Before she names you!”

Someone blew a conch shell horn. Shouts came from the forest. The hunting party was returning to defend their camp.

The three brothers screamed and ran off. The hunters ran after them and threw some rocks. It wasn’t much of a fight. Og and his brothers were afraid of the hunters. They hid in the trees until the hunters left.

“You know, Badman,” Oln said, “if we defended our women we would still have some and we wouldn’t have to steal them from other people.”

“We aren’t going to change our customs just because everyone else does,” Badman said. “That’s just not who we are.”

Adam wanted to hunt further for the three men but he knew it was best to stay with the women.

“I was hoping the wolves had eaten them,” he said. “Where’s the wrath of God when you need it?”

“They are just like animals,” Eve said.

“I call them Austrolopethicines,” he said.

“No, that’s too hard to say,” Eve said. “Think of another name.”

“Aren’t there any people like us in this world? Who will our children take to marry?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said. “Maybe we should move further down the river. We might find some Neanderthal there. Or maybe some Cro Magnon.”

“So we’re moving again?” Adam whined. “Why oh why did we ever eat that apple?”

So they moved onward. Further and further from Eden.