Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot
By Erik John Bertel
Copyright 2005, 2009








Publisher
Millennium Writing
PO Box 7
Centereach, NY 11720

Published 2008
ISBN: 0-9822576-0-0, 78-0-9822576-0-9

No part of this novel shall be copied, broadcast, or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author Erik John Bertel or Millennium Publishing

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is purely a work for entertainment, and any similarity to any real or fictional person or event is purely coincidental.








The Cost of Weakness

With Sarah's full recovery, the team quickly gets back to its routine of research and living on a desolate tropical island. Sarah gets up early with Rudy to set up the video equipment before the Ebu can get back to their usual encampment. Sarah spends the day watching every detail of the Ebu day. What they eat, who are enemies, who are allies, and how they sleep together.
Besides observing the normal social intercourse of the Ebu, Sarah spends her time documenting their tool use and is careful to document the tools they use that wouldn't normally be part of the fossil record. Tools constructed of wood and animal hide do not survive the ravages of time yet Sarah finds that these tools are a big part of their daily kit. For Sarah, it's a classic example of the old axiom about 'the absence of evidence not being evidence for absence'. Their fire making gear is always nearby and jealously guarded by the males.
She also found that her concerns regarding cultural contamination were not unfounded, but completely beyond her control. As Richard had said, she began noticing that the Ebu regularly collected debris from the beach for either practical use or for personal ornamentation. Plastic bags were very popular with the Ebu for containing food and other key materials. Shiny metal objects and even plastic tampon dispensers would find a second life as personal ordainments for the Ebu. The cultural contamination was difficult to watch but it proved to Sarah, once again, the resourcefulness of these tiny, isolated people.
One form of normal primate social behavior is eluding Sarah however. That is, observing the Ebu mating rituals proves to be a strangely elusive task for Sarah. As far as she can tell, they have sexual intercourse from behind, but overall, there isn't much sexual activity at the Ebu camp. In fact, Sarah doesn't see any permanent pair bonds among the male and female Ebus. What Sarah does observe is a strict male-female division of labor: the mature males hunt, and the females gather food while rearing the infants alone. They have babies, but she is not sure of the rituals or of the mechanics on how they are getting pregnant.
Back at the camp Sarah hesitates, but she decides to share her embarrassing plight with Richard. Sarah is embarrassed, not because of the sexual nature of her work, but because as an experienced field naturalist, this should be a routine matter of observation. Besides, she was hanging around Richard too much to be embarrassed about anything around him. Anything was fair game for his juvenile humor, and Sarah finally accepted, with a certain resigned grace, her lot in life as Richard's straight man.
Alright then, here it goes. "Richard, I'm not having much luck with observing the Ebu mating rituals," Sarah said.
"What? You haven't seen them bumpin' uglies at all?"
Sarah gave him a dirty look and Richard realized his mistake.
"You know, not even a come hither look?" Richard asked.
"Come hither?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah, you know that special love-sick look you are always giving me," Richard said.
"Sorry Richard, you are confusing my come hither look with my drop dead look," Sarah said.
"Oh, okay, my mistake then. You know now that you mention it, I haven't seen them doing the big nasty either but then again I'm quite the voyeur you are."
"Yeah, right," Sarah replied as she wondered to herself as to how many euphuisms Richard had for doing it.
"So what's the big deal? You know they are doing it, I mean there are lots of little Ebus running around, right? Maybe they're shy like you, you know they like the night life," Richard said.
"Look, I'm just trying to figure out if the Ebu females have a period of heat like chimps and other animals or are they more like human females, you know, receptive to sex at anytime," Sarah said.