Mark Dubowski - Discovery in the Cave

The author and editor would like to thank Gregory Curtis, author of The Cave Painters, for his assistance in the preparation of this book.

Text copyright 2010 by Mark Dubowski
Illustrations copyright 2010 by Bryn Barnard
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dubowski, Mark.
Discovery in the cave / by Mark Dubowski ; illustrated by Bryn Barnard.
p. cm. (Step into reading ; Step 4)

eISBN: 978-0-307-77158-2

1. Magdalenian cultureFranceMontignac (Dordogne)Juvenile literature. 2. Cave paintingsFranceMontignac (Dordogne)Juvenile literature. 3. Art, PrehistoricFranceMontignac (Dordogne)Juvenile literature. 4. Montignac (Dordogne, France)AntiquitiesJuvenile literature.
[1. Lascaux Cave (France)Juvenile literature.] I. Barnard, Bryn. II. Title.
GN772.3.M3D83 2010
944.72dc22 2009007099

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v3.1

For MeganM.D.

For Rebecca, Wynn, and ParksB.B.

A bison climbs down a mound of rock. It is night, when bison should be sleeping. But tonight, something is wrong. There are sounds like thunder coming from inside the mountain.

At the top of the mountain, a rock comes loose and tumbles down. It smashes into other rocks, breaking them apart. Then another one falls. And another. Suddenly it looks as if the whole mountain is going to shake itself apart.

It is an earthquake. The bison springs down the mountain, chased by boulders and stones and gravel that falls like hard rain. The frightened animal barely gets away before one whole side of the mountain breaks apart and slides downhill!

Seconds later, it is over. The mountain is quiet, but it has changed. Rocks that were at the top are now piled up at the bottom. Trees are bent and broken.

In one place, the entrance to a cave has been buried under rubble.

Was anyone inside?

No one will know the answer for thousands of years.

Robot! someone shouts.

A dog barks. His name is Robot. The person who called him is Marcel Ravidat. He is seventeen years old. Marcel and Robot are in a forest near Marcels home in France. The boy and the dog have been here before, hunting rabbits. Today, they are hunting for something else.

It is September 12, 1940. Marcel and Robot have come to the forest with three of Marcels friends. Marcel wants to show them something Robot found when they were hunting.

The boys catch up with Robot. They are at the trunk of a large tree that has fallen to the ground. The roots of the tree are torn from the soil. Where the tree stood, there is now a deep hole. But the hole is deeper than the roots of the tree.

The boys dig to make the hole bigger. Marcel thinks it might hold buried treasure! Thats enough digging, says Marcel. He holds somethinga tool from his uncles garage. A grease gun. Marcel strikes a match and holds the flame to the tip of the gun. The grease catches fire and burns like a candle.

Then Marcel disappears down the hole!

Robot whines. Where is Marcel? The other boys look into the hole.

Come on! Marcel is standing in the light of the torch, ten feet down. Marcels friends tumble in after him!

The hole is dark and cool. At the bottom is a tunnel, with walls made of clay. The tunnel does not go straight down, but it is steep. Marcel leads the way. The four boys are walking underground, deep beneath the forest.

After a while, the walls of the tunnel change. Instead of clay, they are now made of limestone, a kind of rock. The path becomes less steep. Then they are out of the tunneland inside a cave!

The floor is slippery and wet. The boys watch their step. Marcel notices something strange. Above their heads, the walls of the cave are covered with calcite, a bright white mineral. Marcel lifts his torch, looks up, and gets a big surprise.

Someone was here before them!

Above their heads, the white walls of the cave are decorated with large paintings of animals. Horses. Stags with horns as big as tree branches. Huge animals that look like oxen.