The Tooth (9 page)

It was back to school Monday, which I didn’t mind too much. At least it would help pass the time before the coming weekend.

As usual for a Monday morning, I did my duty in the sports cupboard. I expected Sam Mason to come along and begin the term by abusing me in some way. Perhaps he would even accuse me of stealing his fossils. Yet he never turned up, and nor was he in our room when class began. Normally I would rejoice at his absence, but this time I was worried. At least when he was at school I knew where he was. I couldn’t help but think that his absence might have something to do with the canyon.

The boring what-I-did-during-the-holidays speeches took the first hour. These would go on for half the week. It was sad that so many kids had such boring holidays that they had to exaggerate or make things up. I didn’t exaggerate, quite the opposite. I made sure my speech was the most boring of them all. Someday, I hoped to be able to tell them the truth.

Mason was away again on the Tuesday. That morning it was Mits’s turn to give his speech, and he did use exaggeration, heaps and heaps of it. He told the story of the gallant knight, Sir Michael of Scinde Island, who went searching for the mythical Hidden Canyon where a fearsome dragon lived. For many years the dragon had terrorized the people, grabbing
them as they tended their animals, before flying back to its lair in the Hidden Canyon.

Mits said that the search for the canyon took many days. Sir Michael had to climb precipitous cliffs, hide from evil trolls, and walk through pits of dehydrated blood. Yet, he survived all of these and eventually found the canyon, where he soon discovered that he was not the first. Other knights had been before, and the ground was littered with the bones of their horses. Yet, there was no sign of the knights themselves. Had they, too, been eaten by the dragon?

The ancient myth said that the dragon lived under a cliff, protected by plants that, if touched, caused instant death. After many more days of searching, Sir Michael found the dragon’s lair. Then he put on his suit of black armour and fought a way through the poisonous bushes until he reached the dark, evil place behind. That’s when he first saw the dragon, its eyes glowing white in the darkness, its teeth smeared with the filth of earlier meals. Without fear, he pulled out his sword, stepped forward and plunged his weapon between the dragon’s eyes. Instantly the beast was turned to stone. No longer would it terrorise the land, and the people could live in peace thanks to the heroic deeds of Sir Michael of Scinde.

The class loved it. When Mits sat down, I turned to him and shook my head in amazement. He had told the story of our holidays, yet in a way that no-one would ever believe. Later, while we were doing maths, I wondered if the story reflected the way he had viewed our search at the time it was happening. Was the red clay really dehydrated blood to him? And were the Basinhead Gang evil trolls? If so, then he lived in a much more exciting world than I did.

Tuesday night we met at the Smithsons’ house to plan for the coming weekend. First up was Mr Smithson with a report on the legal situation.

‘If you have permission to access the site, then you are not trespassing. I gather you have written permission?’

Karen said we did and waved the piece of paper. I kept quiet. This was no time to start mentioning the electricity company.

‘Good!’ said Mr Smithson, ‘Then I don’t see any problems, so long as you take care to avoid damaging anything.’

The discussion next moved to extracting The Tooth. Karen had a diagram of the overhang drawn from our photos, with a red line circling the important part.

‘The block I want to remove will weigh about two tonnes,’ explained Karen. ‘If that’s too heavy, then we may have to reduce the size, although I hope not.’

Dad said, ‘The truck I’m getting from work can lift up to five tonnes, so it should be all right.’

‘How do you cut it out?’ asked Mrs Smithson.

‘Pneumatic drills and diamond-tipped saws,’ replied Karen. ‘The problem is that the saws can’t cut very deeply. They just identify the line where we want the rock to split. What we really need are some rock splitters.’

‘I can probably get those,’ put in Mr Smithson. ‘I have a client who demolishes buildings. He has that sort of gear.’

With the equipment all organized, Dad reported on his database search for the refrigeration container. ‘It’s really strange,’ he began. ‘That container was shipped out of Suva in Fiji but never off-loaded in New Zealand. It should have
come to Napier, yet there is no record of it here. It’s listed as having gone overboard.’

‘You mean fallen off the ship?’ asked Mrs Smithson.

‘Yes. Oh, it does happen. And the ship did pass through a storm.’

‘Don’t those containers float?’ asked Mr Smithson. ‘I’ve heard they can be a real hazard out at sea.’

‘Yes,’ replied Dad. ‘And refrigeration containers float better than any others because of all the polystyrene in them. But I don’t think it went overboard. It shows no sign of having been in the water. The thing’s been stolen from our wharf and somebody has doctored the database.’

‘Can you prove it?’ asked Mr Smithson.

Dad shook his head. ‘Not a hope. But if it was stolen, I think it likely that it’s being used for something criminal. I intend to take a look inside it when we go back.’

Next on the agenda was Karen and how we would finance the recovery. I soon lost interest and started thinking of other things. I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew Dad was shaking me. ‘C’mon, Tim. We’d better get you home.’

‘Oh don’t disturb him too much,’ said Mrs Smithson. ‘He can sleep here tonight. The bed’s already made up.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Dad. Then I saw him glance over at Karen. While it was only for a moment, the signals that passed between them could have filled a book. As I left for bed, I could tell that Mrs Smithson had also seen that glance: she said goodnight with a smug, knowing smile. I got the feeling that she’d planned for me to spend the night, whether I’d fallen asleep or not.

Sam Mason returned to school on Thursday, and it was soon obvious that the extra three days off hadn’t made him any nicer.

‘Well, well, here we have Tiny Tim, the little dinosaur hunter’ was his opening line as soon as he saw me. ‘Catch any dinosaurs during the holidays, Tiny?’

I ignored him.

‘No? I didn’t think so. Because you’re useless, Tiny Tim. You can’t even find something as big as a dinosaur.’

Still I kept quiet, even though I was dying to wipe the sneer from his face.

‘But I did,’ he went on. ‘I found me a dinosaur.’

I turned and stared at him. ‘What?’

‘Having trouble hearing, are we Tiny Tim?’ This time he yelled, ‘I said that I found a dinosaur.’

He now had my total attention. ‘Where?’

‘Oh, wouldn’t you like to know? You’re just going to have to wait.’ He now had a gloating smile. ‘God bless you, Tiny Tim,’ he added as he walked away. ‘You’re going to need it.’

I stood there, totally dejected, hoping that it wasn’t true. Yet I knew that he wouldn’t gloat like that unless he could prove it. If he’d found a dinosaur, then it had to be ours. He must have been up there since we’d left. If he’d seen our latest track marks, then it would make sense to have another look at where we’d been.

Soon afterwards, Mits ran up to me. ‘Mason says he’s found a dinosaur,’ he blurted.

‘Yeah. So he says.’

‘Well, he’s not getting away with stealing ours.’ Mits was really angry.

‘Then what are we going to do?’ I asked.

‘Get him at interval and make him tell us what he’s got.’

‘How?’

‘Anyway we have to,’ he yelled angrily.

‘OK. So he tells us—then what?’

‘I don’t know,’ he shouted. ‘Have you got a better idea? Eh?’ He stared at me, his whole body shaking. ‘Do you think we should do nothing? Is that what you want? Nothing?’ I had never seen him so angry.

I turned and walked away. I didn’t know what we should do. I felt so miserable, I couldn’t think about anything.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait until interval. Sam wanted to tell the whole world about his great find. No sooner had class settled than Klink stood and said, ‘Morning class. Now, Sam Mason has been away for three days, but he says he has something special he wants to show us. So, over to you, Sam.’

Mason popped to his feet and pushed his way to the front of the room with his bag. He stood for a while sneering at us before saying, ‘Last term when Klinkenst—ah, I mean Mr Klinkstein—’ There was a break here for laughter. ‘When Mr Klinkstein told us about the dinosaur fossils in the hills, I told you that I would go and find one. Well, some of you laughed.’ He glared at Mits and me. ‘Well, you won’t be laughing now. Because I
did
find one.’

He paused for this to sink in, while his henchmen made ‘wow’ and ‘ooh’ noises of admiration. He fished around in his bag, emerging with a rock mounted on a square wooden base. ‘And here it is,’ he announced. He turned it around so we could see the top, and there, sitting in its bed of sandstone, was The Tooth.

My heart sank. It was true. He had found our fossil. As
tears came to my eyes, I lowered my head until it was resting in my hands. I wanted to shut it out: Mason, the class, school, the lot. I felt that the world had collapsed around me. That tooth meant so much to me—it was not only my past, it was also the key to my future. To me it was something magical. And now the magic was gone. Sam Mason had destroyed everything.

I’m only vaguely aware of what happened during the rest of the day. I know there were some questions and answers before Mason was led off to the principal so she could see the wonderful find. At interval, Mits and I took ourselves off to a place behind some trees to sit and mope. Mits had recovered from his anger and was now feeling as low as I was.

We didn’t see Mason again until after school. We’d heard that he’d been paraded from room to room as a hero. The Tooth was shown to all the other classes, and he told some story about how he had discovered it. We never did hear that story, we didn’t have to—we already knew the truth.

As we were walking slowly home, Mason and his gang swaggered up to us. ‘What does it feel like to be losers?’ he asked. We tried to keep walking, but they moved in front of us, blocking the way.

‘I’m talking to you, losers. I asked: how do you feel?’

I hung my head. I’m sure he could see how I felt. However, Mits stood tall and said, ‘OK, Mason, so you won. Now, just go away.’

‘No, not until you tell me who’s in charge around here.’

I looked up at him, thinking he was joking—he wasn’t.

‘What?’ spluttered Mits.

‘You heard me, Zits. Now tell me I’m in charge.’

Mits and I looked at each other. It was almost funny. ‘You’re in charge,’ we droned in unison.

‘Now say it like you mean it.’

Mits said, ‘Sam Mason, you are definitely in charge.’

‘Yes, Sam,’ I added, ‘you’re in charge, and I have to say you’re also the boss, and The Man, and whatever else you want to be.’

‘Good! And don’t you ever forget it.’ He snarled at us for a while longer before turning and swaggering off in the opposite direction, his gang of admirers in tow.

Mits and I smiled weakly at each other. The episode was laughable, except we didn’t feel like laughing. The problem was it was true: Sam Mason
was
in charge. The discovery would always be known as his. It would be known as the Mason tooth. And I had planned it so differently. There was only one name I wanted to be remembered for the discovery, and that was the name of my mother—Rebecca Jane Thomas.

Our final meeting to prepare for the trip was set down at our house for that night. I did think of ringing Karen to cancel it, but couldn’t find the courage. As soon as Karen walked in, I could see that she already knew that The Tooth had been found. ‘What’s this I hear about some kid at your school finding a dinosaur tooth?’ she demanded. ‘Did one of you tell him about it?’

I shook my head. ‘That’s Sam Mason. His cousins are the ones with the container up at the canyon.’ I went on to tell them the events of the day.

When I’d finished, Mits turned to Karen and asked, ‘How did you find out about it?’

‘I got a phone call late this afternoon inviting me to go and check it out tomorrow morning. I gather the school’s planning a special ceremony at lunchtime. The press, TV and radio will be there for this Mason boy to give the tooth to the museum.’

‘He won’t like that,’ said Mits. ‘He’ll want to keep it.’

‘Well, he can’t, and the principal knows that. But what I’m worried about is how much damage he’s done. He probably used a hammer on the thing. Did either of you see this tooth?’

‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘We both saw it, but not close up. It’s The Tooth all right, sitting in its block of sandstone.’

‘It could have been worse,’ said Dad. ‘What if he hadn’t
brought it to school? The thing could have been lost for ever.’

A nasty look came over Karen’s face. ‘I would have tracked the little brat down and extracted some of his own teeth.’ She said it with such force that nobody dared to smile.

A long silence followed. Eventually Dad put into words what we were all thinking: ‘I guess we might as well cancel the trip this weekend.’

Mits and I nodded slowly. Karen kept staring down at the table. After a while she lifted her head and said, ‘I know it will probably be a waste of time, but I think we should at least go out and waterblast that rock overhang.’

‘Do you think there might be something else there?’ asked Dad.

She shrugged. ‘No, not really. I think The Tooth is just like all the other dinosaur finds—a fragment that got washed into the sea. But I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t take another look. We’ll never be able to go back after the dam has filled.’

For the next hour we discussed the arrangements. Dad said he had the loan of a truck from work. It had a loading crane and winch that would be able to haul equipment up and down the cliff. He’d also got a set of four communication headsets so we could talk to each other anywhere in the canyon.

Karen’s contribution was the museum’s large van to carry all the tools, and Mits’s dad had come through with a set of eight rock splitters and other demolition tools.

It was a lot of equipment to be dragging into the hills just in case we found something. Yet we all felt better after making our plans, even if in the end it would probably come to nothing.

Mits stayed over at our house that night. There’s hardly enough space in my bedroom for one bed, so it’s impossible for two to sleep in there. However, the old shed was set up for occasions like this, and Mits and I moved out there. I’m sure Karen and Dad were happy enough for us to move out of the house.

Sleeping in the shed is a bit of an adventure, partly because it still has a crazy lean that it got in the 1931 earthquake. Plus it’s very untidy, so it feels like we’re sleeping in the aftermath of the earthquake. We usually end up having a lot of fun. However, that night neither of us was in much of a fun mood.

‘Can you believe that Mason?’ began Mits after we crawled into bed. ‘Forcing us to say he was in charge. How insecure is that?’

‘Yeah. But he is, isn’t he? In charge I mean.’

‘Only if we let him be.’

‘Everyone will believe that he’s the one who found the fossil.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ agreed Mits, miserably.

‘Hey,’ I said trying to sound cheerful. ‘Did you hear him call you Zits?’

Mits’s face got brighter. ‘Yeah! Maybe he thinks my name is Zane or something.’

‘Or Zephan.’

‘How about Zorro. Zorro Ian Todd Smithson. I like that.’

We were quiet for a while before I said, ‘Just as well you weren’t called Neville or I’d have to call you Nits.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ he said threateningly.

‘Or Peter?’ I suggested.

He pulled a face at me.

Then I chuckled. ‘Hey! What if our names were swapped over? I’d have to be Mini Mike and you’d be—’

‘Don’t you say it!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t even think of calling me that.’ Then we both burst out laughing. The crazy old shed had made us feel good yet again.

After that, we turned off the light and drifted into sleep.

There’s one drawback about sleeping in the shed: if you want a pee in the middle of the night, then you have to go outside. That night it was as black as a coal mine—it was impossible to see anything but shapes.

I was midstream when a voice burst out behind me. ‘Who said you could pee?’ I jumped so much that I splashed all over the place.

‘You get that on me, you’ll be in real trouble.’ It was Sam Mason.

‘What are you doing here, Mason?’

‘I’m in charge, remember? I can do whatever I want.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, I say when to pee. I say when to do everything. So, if I say stop peeing, what do you do?’

I didn’t reply. I was busy thinking. There was something not right about this. The voice was Sam Mason’s, but the words weren’t. Plus Mason might be stupid, but he wouldn’t hang around all night just to tell me he was in charge.

I searched around, but there was no telling where he was amongst all the other shapes. There was only one way to sort this out. I rushed back into the shed, quickly locking
the door behind me. Then I turned on the light, and sure enough Mits’s bed was empty. I turned the light off and climbed back into bed.

Only a few seconds passed before there was a bashing on the door. ‘Tiny, open up please.’ It was Mits, back to using his own voice. I ignored him.

‘Tiny, c’mon, let me in.’ I let him plead for another minute or so before opening the door.

‘I got you,’ he crowed. ‘You should have heard yourself. “What are you doing here, Mason?” You were real scared.’ His imitation of my voice was perfect.

‘No, I wasn’t. I knew it was you all the time.’

‘No, you didn’t. You were so scared you were spraying around like a garden sprinkler.’

‘All right, Mits,’ I admitted. ‘You got me. I did think it was Mason at first.’

‘So was I good?’

‘I wouldn’t say good, but you were OK. Now, can we go back to sleep? Remember, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’