Free Cave Dwellers by Jonathan Randall Page B

other resembled some type of cockroach.
       Zaac watched her with curiosity. “What are you going to do with those?”
       “We are going to eat them.”
       “You have got to be kidding me,” Zaac said shaking his head. “I know I’m hungry, but not that hungry. Have you ever eaten a bug?”
       “No, but I’ve eaten a worm.” Ramira smiled, remembering the occasion. “We were at camp and that was one of the dares the boys gave the girls. A couple of years ago I wrote a report on insect eating. You’d be surprised at how many places they eat bugs. There is a place in London where they serve it as fine cuisine. They serve locusts and crickets. They even have a bug salad. From what I read, half of the customers order something with bugs. It’s also a common form of street food in Thailand.”
       “Just because some people have lost their minds doesn’t mean that I have. That is just plain gross.” Zaac screwed up his face.
       Ramira wouldn’t be dissuaded. “If a person gets hungry enough, they will eat about anything. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty hungry. Our attitudes toward food are purely psychological. Once you overcome that barrier, you’ll be fine. Can I borrow your Leatherman?”
       Zaac retrieved the Leatherman. She opened it and with the pliers, she removed the heads of the insects, then the legs and the wings. She remembered these were the parts that often got hung up in the throat. She took a bottle of water to help wash down any remains.
       “Here goes nothing,” she said as she stuck the cricket in her mouth. Biting through the exoskeleton, she chewed quickly and swallowed, her face crinkling up. A nutty flavour filled her mouth. After a swallow of water, she stuck the bug that looked like a cockroach in her mouth. Since it was larger, the chewing took longer but she soon had it swallowed along with another mouthful of water.
       “That wasn’t so bad. The flavour reminded me a little of macadamia nuts.  I’ve tasted worse.”
       Zaac sat there astonished. “You ate those like it was nothing.”
       “It won’t replace pizza, but right now, we need nourishment and there isn’t anything else.”
       Ramira took the Leatherman over with her and as she gathered more bugs, she plucked the heads off. When she had about ten, she came back over to the fire and started repeating the process.
       After she had eaten her fourth bug and was getting ready to start on the fifth, Zaac spoke up, “I might as well give it a try. I am hungry enough to eat about anything. Can I have one of the crickets?”
       Taking a bottle of water out, he stuck the cricket in his mouth. When he took his first chew, he closed his eyes and made a very strange face. Chewing faster, he finally managed to swallow and quickly took a couple drinks of water.
       “Yuck. That was awful.”
       Ramira had to laugh at his difficulty. “Your face was priceless. Here, try one of the other ones,” she said passing him a second bug.
       He made just as many faces getting that one down. “I don’t know how you do it. But we don’t really have much choice in the matter, do we?”
       “If we want to keep up our strength we don’t.” She popped another bug into her mouth.
       Finishing off the ten bugs, they gathered twelve more and soon those were gone too. They topped them off with two swallows of Gatorade. Even though their taste buds rejected the bugs, their digestive system devoured them for the much needed nutrition.
       They started again up the passage with Ramira leading. The travel was slow but uneventful until the ceiling lowered, requiring them once again to use the bear crawl. This lasted only half an hour, with Zaac bumping his head once in the darkness. Then the height increased and they walked normally for an hour. Suddenly the cave ended. The only opening was a small one on the right about three feet high.
       Ramira quickly built a fire enabling