儿童英语读物 The Dinosaur Mystery CHAPTER 8 Dig Those Bones

The children pressed the elevator button over and over, but nothing happened.



“Of all times for this elevator to act up,” Mrs. Diggs said. “What on earth was Titus doing with that big crate 1 anyway?”



After about five minutes, everyone gave up on the elevator.



Mrs. Diggs turned to the Aldens. “Perhaps I will have you carry these bags up after all.”



The Aldens walked Mrs. Diggs down the passageway and up the back stairs.



“Thanks so much,” Mrs. Diggs said as she put her groceries down on the counter. “Here, bring this lunch bag to Titus.”



The children raced down the stairs and out to the street.



“I want to see what Dr. Pettibone is up to, don’t you?” Henry said as he and his sisters rushed along.



“I couldn’t tell if the elevator doors closed by accident or if he wanted them to close on purpose when he saw us,” Jessie said.



By the time the children made their way up to Dr. Pettibone’s office, they were completely out of breath. Again, they saw a light under the door of the fossil lab.



“Dr. Pettibone? Dr. Pettibone?” Violet called out. “We came back to help you.”



Dr. Pettibone stepped out of the lab. He greeted the children as if he had not seen them by the elevator just minutes before. “Did you have a good lunch?”



“Yes, we did,” Violet answered. She handed him a lunch bag. “Mr. and Mrs. Diggs sent you a lunch, too.”



Dr. Pettibone took the bag and smiled at the children nervously 2. “Well, thank you … uh … thank you very much for bringing this. Now step inside the lab here, and I’ll show you how to label some of my fossils for display.”



The children looked at each other, surprised to be invited right into the lab. Several workbenches were lined up in the middle of the room. On one of them were trays of small tools — picks, drills, small hammers, chisels 3, and magnifying glasses.



“Our dentist has some tools just like those,” Violet observed.



Dr. Pettibone picked up a small drill. “That’s exactly right, Violet. Watch how we use one of these.”



Dr. Pettibone walked over to one of the other workbenches where several chunks 5 of rocks were arranged. He picked up one of them and began to drill.



“Ouch!” Henry said. “I hate that noise. It reminds me of getting a cavity filled.”



Dr. Pettibone laughed. “Well, this is a similar process. I’m drilling the rock away to expose something inside.”



“What’s in there anyway?” Violet asked.



“A dinosaur 6 joint 7,” Dr. Pettibone answered over the sound of the small drill. “One of my field assistants spotted 8 part of a fossil sticking out of the ground at one of our sites out in Wisconsin a few months ago. She dug it but left plenty of rock — which we call the matrix — around it. Then she wrapped the whole thing in a plaster cast much the way you’d put a broken bone in a cast to protect it. These pieces already have the plaster removed and most of the matrix. You’ll see the rest of the fossil in just a bit.”



Henry and Violet were so fascinated by what Dr. Pettibone was doing, they didn’t mention anything at all about seeing him in the elevator. Only Jessie couldn’t stop wondering about where the big crate was. Had Dr. Pettibone brought it back to the office? While she followed what he was doing, she also glanced around the room. There was no crate to be seen.



The drilling stopped, and Dr. Pettibone held up a thick object and put it under a bright light. “There’s still some rock matrix next to the bone that will have to be chipped off very carefully. The drill might damage it at this point. Only someone with steady and delicate hands can do the next step.”



Henry looked at Violet, then he looked at Dr. Pettibone. “Did our grandfather or Mr. and Mrs. Diggs ever tell you that Violet plays the violin and is an artist? She has very good hands for delicate things.”



“So I’m told,” Dr. Pettibone said. “That’s why I picked this out for her.” He turned to Violet. “Would you like to begin work on this joint by chipping away some of the rock? Not all the way, mind you, but some of the outer layer.”



Violet gave Dr. Pettibone her sweetest smile. “Yes, I would like to give it a try. Thank you for asking me. I’ll be very, very careful.”



“What can we do, Dr. Pettibone?” Henry asked. “Do you have anything heavy I can move for you? Boxes or crates 9 or anything?”



Dr. Pettibone stared hard at Henry but didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “Come over here, and I’ll show you what needs doing.” Dr. Pettibone waved Jessie and Henry over to the workbench where several white blocks were lined up. “There are some other dinosaur fossils inside these blocks. Perhaps you could drill off the plaster casts and get it down to the rock matrix.”



The children began their work and didn’t even look up when the phone rang sometime later.



“Fine, Archie,” the Aldens overheard Dr. Pettibone say. “Yes, you can bring the other children down to the lab as long as you or Emma stays here with them. They can label some of the fossils with Violet’s labels. I have an appointment, so just let yourself in. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”



As soon as he hung up the phone, Dr. Pettibone seemed rushed again, the way he’d been in the elevator. He grabbed his coat and hat and paced up and down. As soon as he heard Mr. Diggs at the office door in back, he yelled out: “Come in, Archie. I’ll talk to you later.” With that, he pulled up his coat collar, pulled down his hat, and rushed past Mr. Diggs, Benny, and Soo Lee.



“Titus! Titus!” Mr. Diggs called out, but Dr. Pettibone had disappeared out the door.



“Hey, neat pieces of rock.” Benny picked up some chips Violet had chiseled 10 away. “What’s inside that hunk anyway?”



“A dinosaur joint,” Violet answered without looking up.



“Can we watch?” Soo Lee asked, her eyes alive with curiosity. “I want to see the rock turn into a dinosaur bone.”



Mr. Diggs came over to watch Violet, too. “I knew this would be a good job for you. While you won’t be able to finish such a detailed 11 job during your short visit at the Pickering, whatever you get done will be a good start.”



With Mr. Diggs supervising, the older children worked all afternoon, carefully chipping the outer layers of plaster and rock on the fossils.



“Here, Benny and Soo Lee. Help me brush some of this protective coating on some of these fossils,” Mr. Diggs told the younger children. “Mind you, you’ll have to wear these rubber gloves. We can’t touch the fossils directly, or they’ll get damaged.”



Benny and Soo Lee stood on step stools so they could reach the workbench.



“This is just like painting,” Benny said as he carefully brushed each fossil with a thin coating. “Hey, I just thought of something. Even if the missing dino bones show up, won’t they be wrecked 12 if someone touched them?”



Mr. Diggs looked up from what he was doing. He took off his special binocular glasses and sighed. “That’s what we’re all afraid of, Benny. The Tyrannosaurus skeleton bones are already protected with this coating, but they are still very delicate. If the person who took or disturbed the bones doesn’t know how to handle them, he or she could cause a lot of damage.”



Henry put down the rock chunk 4 he had been drilling. “Do the police have any idea yet who might have taken the bones?”



Mr. Diggs sighed again. “They’ve talked to the whole staff, and no one saw anything that night except the shadow you mentioned. Jessie and I heard that alarm. And Jessie saw that light. But Pete says something’s wrong with the system that makes it go off. So that was a dead end, too. We wonder if someone on the construction crew might have bumped into the skeleton by mistake, broken off some of it, then tried to make the accident look like a theft. There are all kinds of theories about what happened, but nothing definite.”



Violet took a soft, dry brush to whisk away the rock chips. “Would any of these bones fit on the Tyrannosaurus?”



“I’m afraid not, Violet,” Mr. Diggs said. “The Tyrannosaurus skeleton was found complete, with every bone in place. It was a unique find. It was going to be the main attraction of Dino World. If the actual bones don’t turn up, Titus and Mrs. Diggs and I are going to have to make some plastic bone models.”



Jessie put down her work glasses. “But it won’t be the same, will it, Mr. Diggs?”



“No, it won’t. Those bones are irreplaceable,” Mr. Diggs said. “I can’t imagine why anyone would take them, though in a strange way, that’s my only hope. A thief who knew the value of those bones would probably be careful with them, whereas somebody who just damaged them by accident and covered them up wouldn’t know how to handle them. If that’s what happened, our T. rex will never be the same again.”



“Would it be okay if we help search for the bones, Mr. Diggs?” Henry asked. “We’re not busy tonight. Maybe we could look around.”



Mr. Diggs nodded. “It might not be a bad idea.”



The phone rang just as Mr. Diggs was about to show Benny and Soo Lee how to label the fossils. He peeled off his rubber gloves and picked up the receiver. “Oh, hello, Eve. Yes, I was just working in the fossil lab with the Aldens.” There was a pause at Mr. Diggs’s end. The children could actually hear Dr. Skyler’s loud voice coming through the phone. “There, there. Now calm down,” Mr. Diggs said. “I know the work crew was supposed to finish painting the ceiling. All right, I’ll send them down right away. No, don’t worry, they’ll be there.”



Mr. Diggs hung up the phone and turned to the children. “Sorry to interrupt you children, but Eve needs a hand. It seems when the painters carried their scaffolding through the planetarium 13, they scraped the walls and ceiling and left nicks and scratches,” Mr. Diggs explained. “The marks interfere 14 with the sky show, and Eve is quite upset about it.”



Benny said, “She was yelling at the big men just like they were babies when we came here. Dr. Skyler sure gets angry a lot.”



Mr. Diggs had to laugh. “Well, Benny, she just gave me a good scolding, too. Not that I blame her. The work people are sometimes careless with their equipment. We certainly can’t have scrapes and marks on the ceiling, or we’ll be projecting things in the sky that aren’t really there! That’s what’s got Eve madder than a hornet right now! I guess the best thing is to get over there right away.”



“Don’t worry Mr. Diggs, I can touch up the marks,” Henry said. “We’ve painted lots of things before and made them good as new.”



“Good,” Mr. Diggs said. “Let’s clean off these instruments and put them away.”



The children took off their work glasses, peeled away their rubber gloves, and went over to the sink to wash up.



“Eeew, what’s this messy bucket of white stuff?” Jessie asked when she went to turn on the hot water. “It’s so heavy.”



Mr. Diggs came over to see what Jessie was talking about. He stuck his finger into the bucket and swirled 15 up something wet and sniffed 16 it. “Goodness, it’s plaster of Paris,” he said.



“Plaster from Paris?” Benny asked. “It came all the way from France?”



Smiling, Mr. Diggs shook his head. Then he took a scraper and tried to scrape the white stuff away from the sides of the bucket. It was much too thick and hard to handle. He moved the bucket under the faucet 17 and ran hot water into it. “There, that will make some of it dissolve so we can get rid of it. Was Titus showing you how to make plaster of Paris?” Mr. Diggs asked, looking very puzzled.



Violet shook her head. “He only told us it’s used to protect fossils after they dig them up.”



Jessie pointed 18 to the block of plaster and rock she had been working on. “He did show us how to drill away the plaster to get to the rock but not how to make it.”



Mr. Diggs scratched his head. “Plaster of Paris is something we use at the sites where we find the fossils. It beats me why Titus would have to mix up any here at the lab. And I certainly can’t understand why he would leave it all sloppy 19 like this. It’s the devil to clean up once it starts to harden. I’ll just let the bucket soak and talk to Titus about it later.”



“I’m sorry we have to leave so soon,” Violet said. “Dr. Pettibone said I could help him make fossil sketches 20.”



The phone rang again. Dr. Skyler wanted the Aldens down at the planetarium. On the double.