Follow the Light

Chapter 2

Luna wakes up from her nap on the ledge as she hears a thump. Peering down, she sees the members of the Crood family in various positions in front of the cave. As she scans the view in front of her, she finally sees Grug holding up a speckled blue egg. "Who's hungry?"

Luna jumps down from atop the rock, worried about her foster family. "Are you guys ok? Anyone hurt?"

"Nah, but I am pretty tired." Eep says, panting in between her words.

Luna looks toward the direction of the egg.

Grug moves to pass the egg to Thunk. "Here you go, Thunk. up." As Grug tosses the egg to Thunk, he fumbles with it and drops the egg with a crack. He picks up the egg as he says sorry to his dad. Ugga moves quickly and grabs the egg from Thunk. "Looks like fast food tonight!"

The family passes the leaking egg among themselves at a fast pace, not wanting to waste the food. Ugga is the last to get a mouthful, and as she hands it over to Grug-- the egg is shown to be empty, only yielding a measly drop. The rest of the Croods family and Luna look in regret and dejection as they watch at the unfairness of this situation. Luna in particular feels regretful whenever something like this happens.

"That's alright. I ate last week." Grug says, tossing the egg away.

He looked up at the sky as he noticed it was getting darker. To gauge how much sunlight they had left, he lifted his hand up. Gran looks from behind him and shouts "Two knuckle warning!", startling Grug and he looks at her, annoyed.

The Croods and Luna run to the cave quickly as Ugga calls them back into the safety of their cave. "Come on Croods. Go, go, go!" Grug ushers them in as they approach the cave. "Come on, come on. Darkness brings death! We know this."

As they all arrive in the cave, Sandy retrieves the heavy stick used on bath nights, and hands it to Ugga. "The moon is full, bath night." She calls out to the Croods. "Run for your life!" Gran tries to run from the inevitable, but her efforts are proven useless as Ugga catches her stick. "You too, mom." As she drags her mom back, Gran still tries to give her a reason as to why she didn't want the bath. "I don't want to lose my protective layer!" "Mom, you've got ants." Ugga lets go as Sandy jumps up to hang from the ledge. She whacks Sandy like she's cleaning a rug, dust and bugs flying off from her body. "See? Sandy doesn't fuss." Sandy lets go when she finishes and bounds off. Gran still grumbles as she lets Ugga hook her stick onto the ledge, displeased she has to go through the ritual of being hit with a stick in order to stay clean.

"Luna, did you already go in the shallows of the river to wash off?" Ugga asks as she whacks the dust and bugs off of Gran.

"Yeah, I went after you left." Luna answered. Luna was raised to have better hygiene habits than most cavemen families. When she still lived with her parents, they were picky about cleanliness and it just stuck with her. Whenever the family is let out, she goes to the shallow part of the river to clean up, where she would clean her body and her dress as well.

"I don't know how you do that every time we go out, little kitten." Gran grumbles to Luna, disgruntled about getting the bath. Luna just chuckles in amusement.

As Grug enters the cave, he notices Eep is still not in. "Is she still out there?" asks Grug, getting impatient. "You know she the cave, Grug." Ugga says.

"Should I go get Eep?" Luna asks, not wanting her dad to find her when they're both not in the best of moods.

"It's fine, I'll go get her after the bath." He answers, not wanting to put the girl through such a daunting, physical task on her weaker institution. Who knows how high Eep has climbed this time? As Grug receives his bath he questions why the cave was hated. "How can she not like the cave? It's so cozy." Ugga continues whacking him with the stick, hesitating a little with her opinion. "It is a little, dark, Grug." Luna nods along quite rapidly, showing her agreement with intensity. Grug just sighs.