The Fossil Hunter of Sydney Mines (4 page)

“Now Grace, remember what I told you. Stay as far
away from the cliff as it is high,” her dad said.

Grace looked up at the towering cliff above them. “Why?”

“So if there is an avalanche or any rocks fall, you won't
be under them.”

Grace grinned. “Good tip, Dad. But all the fossils are
over there!” She pointed to a pile of broken shale in a
carved-out piece of the cliff face.

“Yes, that tends to be a problem,” he said. “Let me worry about that, okay?” He smiled, ruffling her hair.

They were on a fossil tour in Parrsboro. Several tourists
were in the group. Grace watched a tall lady trying to walk
along the rocky shore in flip-flops. Two small kids were
poking sticks at a dead jellyfish. These tourists weren't
real fossil hunters, not like Grace and her dad.

“Excuse me,” an older lady with a British accent said
as she approached them.

“Good afternoon,” Grace's dad said.

“You're the spitting image of my granddaughter, Lily,” she said, beaming at Grace. “I just had to come over
and say hello. Are you having a nice time with your
grandfather?”

Grace's mouth fell open. Grandfather?

The lady turned to Grace's dad. “I would have loved to
have my grandchildren with me, as well, but they're back
in England.”

“He's not my grandfather. He's my dad!” Grace said,
giggling.

The lady's eyes widened. She stared at Grace's dad's
grey beard and hair. “Oh, pardon me!” she said, her
cheeks red.

“Understandable mistake,” Grace's dad said. “I think
of myself as an old fossil most of the time.”

The lady apologized again and hurried off, obviously
embarrassed.

“My word, that was funny!” Grace's dad exploded,
doubling over with laughter. “Your mom would get a kick
out of that, wouldn't she?”

Grace held her aching ribs and nodded.

Her dad started hobbling around, pretending he
couldn't walk properly. “Give an old fellow a hand would
you, young miss?” he asked in his best old-man voice.

“Give it up, Dad!”

“My word! I've got an ache in my back! I think my knee
is giving out!”

They laughed hysterically the rest of the day.

That night they stayed at the Fundy Geological Museum
as part of an overnight program. As they nestled
in their sleeping bags, surrounded by dinosaurs, her
dad whispered to her. “I'm so grateful we share this,
Grace—this love of fossils. You don't know how much it
means to me.”

Grace heard the emotion in his voice and felt a lump
in her throat. “Me too, Dad,” she whispered back. “I love
you.”

Grace opened her eyes. She could swear she'd heard a cry. It must have wakened her. She lay there, listening for sounds in the deep quiet of the night. But it was dead silent. It must have been her own cry, she realized. She could still hear it, echoing in her head from her dream.

“I really miss you, Dad,” she murmured into the dark.

Chapter
5

GRACE STARED DOWN AT HER BOWL OF SUGAR-OS, WAITING FOR
the verdict. Her mother had sighed five times, glared three times, and was sure to speak at any moment.

“Grace—”

Here it comes
, Grace thought. “Umm, Mom, what happened to the car?” she asked, trying to delay the inevitable. “It wasn't in the driveway last night.”

“The car? Oh, it broke down on me while I was coming home from work. I just had that thing in for servicing last week!” she said, looking puzzled. “Rick Stanley was kind enough to give me a lift home. Lucky for me he happened to be driving by. Anyway, he was asking how we're doing. I invited him over for dinner.”

“Why do you want him over here?”

“Rick's been a friend of your father's since they were children. He's been calling and wanting to come over and check on us for ages, but I just haven't been up to it. He has such wonderful stories about your father.” She sighed and stared off into space.

“Mom?”

“Hmm? Oh, right, we were talking about you.” Her mother poured a cup of coffee from the steaming carafe. “I thought about this all night, Grace. I'm going give you one more day of freedom, if you promise to behave. But starting tomorrow you're to come straight home after school. No detours and no going out.”

Grace sat still, stunned.
No going out? Did she say no
going out?

“This is for your own good,” her mother continued, wrapping her hands around the
Old Fossil
mug that Grace had made for her father. “I can't be worrying about you all the time, out doing goodness knows what, especially now that I have more night shifts at the ferry terminal…not to mention my manicure customers.”

“Mom, no way!” Grace's spoon splattered into her cereal bowl. “I've got important stuff to do! It's not fair!”

“Fair? You think this is a debate? And what important stuff are you talking about? You're only thirteen, for heaven's sake.” Her mother started to walk away, then turned back. Her face was grave. “I'm warning you, Grace,” she said, tapping a brochure on the fridge as she left.

Grace was furious as she biked to school. Her mother was one extreme or the other lately. Grace never knew what she'd face. Sometimes her mom would get really upset and overreact as if she were some kind of army sergeant, like now. Other times, she'd be the total opposite, all gushy and gooey. Grace usually hated the gushy-gooey mood more; it felt fake. But it would have been better this morning—gushy-gooey mom would do anything she wanted.

“What are you going to do, Grace?” Mai typed away on the keyboard as they huddled around the computer monitor in class. They were supposed to be researching the tar ponds cleanup for a school project.

“I don't know. I'm grounded starting tomorrow. I wish we could go to Point Aconi today after school. But it would take too long to get there and my mom's not working tonight.”

“But if you're not home tomorrow after school, you're gonna be toast,” Fred piped in. “We'd be gone until dark.”

“I've got to find out what's going on,” Grace whispered. “I mean, think about it. The fossil museum is where Dad worked, and its name just happens to be on the envelope that some mystery guy left by my locker. Rick Stanley still works there. I never liked him all that much—my dad was always loaning him money.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory. “My mom doesn't know about that, though. She thinks he's
nice.
”

“Shhhh,” Mai hushed. “Here comes Mr. Grange.”

“And have we learned anything about the tar ponds and the cleanup project?” Mr. Grange asked. “Or are you three too busy chatting?”

“No, Mr. Grange,” Mai said. “We were working on it.”

“What have you got so far?” Mr. Grange asked.

Grace gulped. She hadn't been paying any attention to the sites Mai had looked up.

“The steel plant in Sydney left behind over one million tons of contaminated soil,” Mai recited. “The pollutants have run off into Sydney Harbour and caused fish contamination and many other environmental problems.”

Mr. Grange nodded. “Go on,” he prodded.

“It's one of the biggest contaminated sites in North America,” Mai continued. “There have been a lot of attempts to do something about the mess in the past, but nothing has worked so far. The government is hoping a new cleanup program will work.”

Mr. Grange seemed satisfied. “Very good,” he said approvingly. “Carry on.”

“Nice going, Mai,” Grace said after Mr. Grange had circled the room and returned to the front of the class.

“Thanks,” Mai grinned. “Now what were you saying again?”

“Get this—” Grace lowered her voice and jumped back into their previous conversation. “My mom's car broke down the other night and Stanley just
happened
to be there. He drove her home. Now he's coming to dinner! I mean, what's he after?”

“Rick Stanley? So does this mean we're going to the fossil museum?” Fred asked. “Grace, are you nuts? Don't you remember when you broke in there and tried to steal back all the fossils your dad donated? You knocked over that big display case. Your picture is probably plastered on their wall with a sign above it that says
Most Wanted
!'”

“Fred's right,” Mai said. “For once. Besides, your mom will totally freak if she finds out what you're up to.”

“What do you mean, for once?” Fred huffed. “Seriously, Grace. You said your mom was acting really weird lately. She could totally blow it and send you to one of the prison camps for kids. I saw it on the Discovery Channel—
Problem Kids: Last Resort
. It's not pretty!”

Fred didn't know how close he was about the prison camp for kids. Grace's mom had actually threatened to send her to one when she'd broken into the museum. Her mom had even brought home the brochure. It was covered in pictures of kids smiling and wearing identical clothes, hiking up Cape Smokey.

It was the same brochure that Grace's mom had pointed to on the fridge that morning. Even though she'd never actually
said
she'd send Grace there, it was obvious that's what she meant—another of her mom's extremes.

“You'll come back programmed like some robot, dressed in a uniform and eating tuna sandwiches!” Fred stood up and jerked his arms up and down in a lame robot imitation. “And you'll talk weird, like ‘Hello, my name is Grace Elizabeth. Hello, my name is Grace Elizabeth!'”

Grace looked down at her tie-dyed T-shirt and ripped jeans.
Uniform? No way.

“Tuna? What's wrong with tuna?” Mai asked. “It's full of omega-3. You know—brain food.” She clutched her lunch bag. “You could use some brain food, Freddo, that's for sure!”

“Whatever,” Fred said, rolling his eyes. “Anyways, Grace, you can't go to the fossil museum. You'll be arrested.”

“Everyone's probably forgotten about that,” Grace said. “And it was all that security guard's fault anyway.
He
tried to tackle
me
. I ducked and he's the one who fell into the display case. Besides, we're not going there.”

“Where else is there?” Mai looked confused.

“Point Aconi. I'm sure Dad was fossil-hunting out there that day. I mean, no one even checked the area because someone at the fossil museum said he went back to the office that afternoon. But what if it was Stanley that said that, to cover his tracks? Maybe there's a clue out there somewhere…”

The bell rang. Grace was glad of the distraction. Chairs scraped and the sound level jumped to a roar as chattering students herded toward the door.