“I knew it! We didn’t kill off the Neanderthals.” Zelda slapped the Starbucks’s table in triumph. The ice cubes in her water jingled. Her latte sloshed within its lidded paper cup. She scrolled down the article she was reading on her cell phone.
“What are you talking about, Zee-Zee?” asked Minnie, setting a tall Americano on the table Zelda had just slapped.
“The New York Times says homo sapiens might not have killed off the Neanderthals, that it could it have been the weather.”
“What, like too much rain? Because we’re supposed to have a bad winter this year. La Nina and all that.” Minnie tried to sip her coffee but it was too hot.
“Not rain. Volcanoes,” said Zelda.
“Volcanoes aren’t weather.” Minnie scooped a couple of ice cubes out of Zelda’s ice water and slid them into her coffee.
“Still.” Zelda looked up from her phone.
“As long as Mt. Rainier doesn’t go, we’ll be fine,” Said Minnie. “Wait a minute, last I heard, we have Neanderthal DNA in us. That was a big story a couple of months back. So nothing killed the Neanderthals off. They’re still alive, technically.”
“Yeah, I guess they need to get their story straight. But the point is, I was right.”
Minnie sipped her Americano. “You always are.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/science/05obneanderthal.html?ref=science