Fat Cat

Chapter 5

5

It’s funny how you can be so stupid and not realize it until you’ve already gone too far.

Actually, not funny at all.

I’ve now spent the last several hours researching this, and there’s just no way around it: I have made a monumental mistake.

Because what did Homo erectus eat? Was it tasty fruits and vegetables and nuts and berries?

Um, no.

They ate carrion. Also known as dead and putrefying flesh.

That picture? It doesn’t show the hominins defending their food from the hyenas, it shows them trying to steal it. Because apparently Homo erectus didn’t quite have the whole hunting thing worked out. They mostly lived off of roots and tubers and other plants, and whatever leftover meat they could steal after the predators were done with it. Which usually meant by the time they got to it the meat was nice and ripe and maggoty.

Oh, they ate fresh stuff, too—insects, baby birds they stole out of nests, the occasional rabbit they managed to trap and beat to death with a stick—but mostly they were just skulking around, trying to steal food from other, more successful creatures.

And—AND!—they didn’t have fire yet. No fire! Raw meat! Sweet! I’m going to die!

“Well, you just have to quit,” Amanda said when I called her.

“I can’t quit!”

“So what are you going to do—start Dumpster diving for leftover scraps? Come on, Cat—sometimes you just have to walk away.”

It wasn’t the thought of rancid meat that was making me feel so sick to my stomach. I’ve never ever dropped a class, and I’m certainly not backing away from this one.

“There has to be a way,” I said.

“Yeah, if you’re willing to end up in the emergency room,” Amanda said. “Face it—this isn’t going to happen.”

“I have to do more research,” I told her. “Bye.”

There has to be a way.

Matt does not get to win by default.