The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg (13 page)

Mum’s frown deepened. She whipped around and glared at my step-sibling. “And what about you, Madam? Half of these grey hairs are due to
you
turning into one of Cha’s gung-ho side-kicks.”

Under cover of itching my nose, I poked my tongue out at Sarah and crossed my eyes until everything went blurry and out of shape.

So there!

Still smiling, I bent down and tickled Leroy’s tummy. His lips dribbled into an ecstatic loose grin. Actually, everything about poor Leroy was loose after two weeks of his draconian diet. Maybe I should buy him a packet of black jellybeans next time I went to the shop. Just for special occasions.

“Let’s go.” Ken, dressed in his best navy suit and sky blue shirt, bustled into the room, picked up the car keys from the coffee-table and swung them around on one finger.

“Come on, Marg. Stop worrying about your hair. It’s perfect,” he said. “Professor Goodenough is officially returning the stolen dinosaur egg to the museum at two o’clock. We don’t want to be late.”

An hour later, standing in front of the
Addyman Plesiosaur,
I watched the professor shuffle up to the microphone. His beard and hair had been detangled, shampooed and trimmed and although he wore a coat that swirled around his ankles, on the scale of scruffy it only hit a five. While the professor adjusted the height of the microphone, I caught a glimpse of a little black nose and two bright button eyes as Pedro peeped out from one of the coat’s many pockets.

“Today, I am returning my father’s fossilized
Therizinosaur
to the museum,” the professor began, pushing Pedro’s head down out of sight. “But first, I would like to thank my grandson, P.C. Arthur Goodenough, for his courage, and Chiana Ryan and her friends for saving my egg. And now, Chiana, would you like to come up and give a little speech then perform the official duty of placing the
Therizinosaur
back in its rightful place?”

Me? Geez. I’d rather face Barnaby without a carrot than go up to the microphone and speak. If only the one hundred and twenty million year old dinosaur standing behind me wasn’t so bony, I’d sneak in behind him and hide.

Sarah dug me in the ribs and whispered. “I told you to wear your purple top and lime-green nail polish. But no—you never listen to me.”

I ignored Sarah. After all, I was wearing my new jeans. The jeans Mum insisted I wear—even though they made me feel like I had two planks of wood strapped to my legs. You know, the sort of jeans that needed a week or two buried in a muddy puddle of water to make them wearable.

I could see Jack, Noah and Tayla grinning wildly as they clapped and whistled, urging me on. Suddenly a lump jammed my throat and I had to swallow hard to work it free. I was so totally proud of my assistants. Even sucky Sarah. Without them, the dinosaur egg wouldn’t be with the professor today.

Jack and Noah gave me the thumbs-up sign as I walked up to the microphone, while Arty, dressed in his police uniform, winked at me. The cuts and bruises on his face had healed. His hair, now clean, shiny and thick made him look like a movie star.

I took the box containing the
Therizinosaur
from the professor’s hands and stood on tiptoe to speak.

“This little guy says thanks to Arty for rescuing him,” I said, holding up the box. “And the credit for keeping him safe from the bad guys goes to my best friends Jack and Tayla, my new friend, Noah, and my sister Sarah. Thank you.”

With that, I clumped toward the empty stand with
‘Fossilized Dinosaur Egg discovered by Professor Cyril Goodenough on 8th September 1934’
, engraved on the bottom. I carefully opened the box and then gaped in confusion. There was no fossilized egg inside. Instead there were egg shells and what looked like a newly hatched baby echidna. Had the professor become so absent-minded he didn’t know the difference between a real egg and a fossilized one?

I glanced up, my mind whirling. A smile lit the professor’s face as he caught my eye.

“She’s called Chiana—and she’s yours. It’s my way of saying thank you.”

“Mine?”

I looked across at Mum, my heart in my eyes. Mum’s face had that shocked bloodless look. You know, the sort of look traumatized cyclone victims have when their house blows away. I got the feeling Mum didn’t think a pet echidna was a good idea.

“Of course echidnas are a protected species,” went on the professor. “Which means little Chiana will have to stay at the sanctuary with me. But you’re welcome to visit your namesake in the Chiana Ryan Enclosure whenever you feel like it.”

“Wow! The Chiana Ryan Enclosure!”

Arty gave his grandfather a nudge.

“The echidna-enclosure also has newly hatched babies called Jack, Noah, Sarah and Tayla,” added the professor.

“What about Leroy?” I asked.

“Leroy?”

“My other assistant.”

The professor’s expression remained puzzled.

“Her dog,” supplied Mum, rolling her eyes heavenwards.

“Whatever.” The professor, smirking at his weird teenage-talk, dug a hand into one of his many pockets and pulled out the real grey fossilized egg. “Now, would you like to continue with the ceremony?”

Taking a step forward, I gently settled the mega-million-year-old dinosaur egg on top of the empty stand.

And then I let out a deep contented sigh.

The museum smelled of dust. Of old dead things. Of dry stuffed animals with blank staring eyes.

And the little
Therizinosaur
had returned home.