Digging For Trouble

by Linda Fairstein

  My hands and feet were sopping wet, and rain was dripping off my head, soaking my clothes.

  “Don’t look back,” I repeated to myself. “Don’t ever look down. One foot at a time.”

  The tip of my nose was bleeding now. I had turned my head so many times—maybe fifteen already—that I couldn’t help but rub the skin off it against the brick of the museum wall.

  I tried to think of Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweep and all the other characters in literature I loved who had made it safely across rooftops, smiling as they scaled the heights and balanced on drainpipes.

  It was just another few steps. I had never been the best dancer in my ballet class, but I could hold my own on a balance beam if I needed to. And this was the moment to land a perfect score.

  One more look to my right. There it was—a most majestic sight. It was a statue of an eagle—a great soaring bald eagle—that guarded the turret of the museum and was the most welcoming creature in sight.

  I took two more steps toward the giant bird, reaching out for him with my right hand, stepping one foot on top of his spread claw and swinging myself onto his body, burying my wet face against his firm back.

  I was high over the streets of Manhattan, safely nestled between the carved wings of the magnificent eagle.

  40

  Two minutes later, the window I had escaped from opened. I lifted my head, my heart pounding in my chest, expecting Steve or Chip to appear and continue to try to catch me.

  But the voice I heard was neither of theirs.

  “Dev! Devlin Quick!” my mother shouted. Time for the full first name approach, not that I could blame her. “Are you—?”

  “I’m okay, Mom,” I said, fighting back tears. “I’m really okay.”

  “I love you, Dev. Everything’s going to be fine, baby.”

  I usually hated it when she called me ‘baby,’ but boy was I happy to hear it now.

  “Hang on, Dev. Can you do that for me?”

  I was too choked up to talk. I wanted to ask if she’d caught Steve and if Ling was okay and most of all, how she intended to get me down off this giant bird and into her arms.

  I shook my head up and down.

  “I called you, Mom,” I said. “I really did.”

  “I know that, Dev,” my mother said. “And Booker told us the rest.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I’m the police commissioner. What good would I be if I couldn’t find you?”

  “But here?”

  “Booker told us where they had left you, on the fifth floor,” my mom said. “And when we got up there, we caught Steve and Chip running away—out of this room.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to stay strong.

  “I’m sorry it took us so long,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  I was trembling again, frightened and dripping wet. “Not your fault, Mom.”

  “Can you hold on to the bird, Dev? Can you hold on for just a little longer?”

  I was clinging to the great winged creature with everything I had in me

  “No problem,” I said.

  “Can you hear that siren, down on the street?” she called out. She was sitting in the window now, one leg out on the sill.

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “That’s a fire truck,” she said. “Sam’s going down to the street right below you, to wait for the fire truck.”

  It was making me panicky to look down. I felt safe against the strong body of the eagle, but I also wanted to see my mother’s face, to know she was all right. I know how she worries about me under the best of circumstances.

  “No, no—don’t turn your head. Stay straight. The firemen will help get you right to Sam.”

  “Will you be there, Mom? I need you to be there.”

  “Sam’s stronger than I am, Dev. I’m just keeping my eye on you till they bring you down. I need to be where I can see you till they get you on the ground.”

  “But Steve and Chip, Mom,” I said. “They were going to try to catch me right behind here, in the turret.”

  “Steve and Chip are in custody, I promise you,” my mother said. “We’ve got them right where we want them.”

  I rested my head on the eagle’s back again.

  I still didn’t dare to look down, but I could hear the siren and I knew that the truck must have come to a stop right below me.

  One of the fireman had a loudspeaker. He pointed it skyward to talk to me.

  “Devlin Quick! Hook and Ladder Company Number Four. We’re coming to get you to safety.”

  “She’s good,” my mother said, giving the battalion chief a thumbs-up.

  I watched as the ladder slowly extended from the street right up to the side of the eagle, with a sturdy fireman standing inside a bucket that was large enough to hold me, too.

  “Hey there, Dev,” he said as he pulled into view. “I’m Pudge. I understand you just added another bad guy to your list of arrests.”

  I gave him a weak smile in return.

  “What you’re going to do when I get real close is put that right arm around my neck,” he said. “Just lock it there, and I’m going to do all the rest.”

  “I can barely think, sir,” I said.

  “You don’t have to think right now. Just give me the tightest squeeze you’ve got in you, and then I’m going to wrap this belt around you, too.”

  I followed directions and grabbed on to him, probably harder than he expected. It’s a good thing he didn’t have a skinny neck like me.

  “Close your eyes, Dev, if you’re afraid of heights.”

  “I used to be, but I don’t think I am anymore,” I said. I almost managed a laugh.

  Pudge had one of his powerful arms around me, along with a safety harness. He lifted me off my winged chariot and into his bucket. I was holding on to him so fiercely that I thought my fingers were going to break in half.

  Once in the bucket, I didn’t close my eyes for a moment. First I looked back at my mother and blew her a kiss. Then I looked down at the fire truck and its flashing lights, which had attracted quite a crowd.

  I couldn’t make out any faces, but what had looked like ants and caterpillars from my perch began to take on human forms as we got lower and lower. Pudge had his arms around me for the entire trip as the bucket rattled and shuddered on its way to the ground.

  Someone steering our bucket from the truck was slow and steady, and I began to breathe more easily as we came closer to the street.

  The first person I recognized was Sam, who was craning his neck to look up at me, and had taken hold of the megaphone.

  “Cruising down to me, Devlin Quick,” Sam said. “Slow and steady wins the race.”

  The bucket came to a stop. I was never so happy to see a New York City sidewalk.

  “I’m passing the hero over to you, Sam,” Pudge said, helping me out of the large steel box that had shuttled me to safety. “Better take good care of this girl or I’ll be back to get you.”

  “I’ve got no choice in that matter,” Sam said, grabbing on to me to pull me close to his side, and then stepping back to wrap me in a warm blanket. “She’s my number one partner, Pudge. Devlin Quick’s the best sleuth in town.”

  41

  President Sutton had an office that was almost as cool as my mother’s suite in the Puzzle Palace. It was perfectly round, and decorated with wonderful treasures from every branch of her great museum.

  She had given me a sweatshirt and pants from the museum shop, covered with glittery creatures that glowed in the dark. Unfortunately for me, they were all dinosaurs—the last beasts I wanted to see at the moment. It wasn’t exactly a fashion statement, but it was a lot better than my wet clothes.

  “I didn’t mean to leave you alone up there,” Booker said.

  “I know that,” I said, rest
ing my head in my mother’s lap, stretched out on the sofa in President Sutton’s suite.

  “I just went to call Aunt Blaine, and when I got her, she was only a couple of blocks from the museum.”

  “I asked Booker to wait for us,” my mother said. “Otherwise, he would have been back up to you much sooner.”

  “Don’t you both be so apologetic,” I said. “I knew you’d get to me as soon as you could.”

  “I just have to tell you—” my mother started to say, before I interrupted.

  “Can we save the lecture for tomorrow, Mom?” I asked.

  “There isn’t going to be any lecture,” she said.

  I knew it would make her feel good to stroke my hair and kiss the tip of my wounded nose, so I let her do it. I kind of liked being coddled myself, right at that moment.

  “Really?” I asked, looking up at her as she rubbed my cheek.

  “Your Atwell ears are a genetic treasure, Dev,” my mother said. “But we’ve all been overlooking your keen sense of smell.”

  I squinted and sniffed a few times. “What do you mean?”

  “The way you seem to smell injustice, Dev. It’s sort of uncanny,” my mother said, “and this isn’t the first time you’ve done it.”

  “Katie did, too.”

  “Of course she did. And each of you stuck with it, sensing that something was very wrong, even though you couldn’t pinpoint what it was.”

  “We told all the adults, Mom,” I said. “You and Mrs. Cion and everyone we could that what went on in Montana just didn’t seem right to us.”

  “No question about that,” Sam said. “A good sniffer, the right instincts, and a healthy dab of courage make a great detective, Devlin.”

  “I’m working on the courage part,” I said.

  “You’ve got a boatload of it. Just don’t use it all in one place, okay?”

  “Promise,” I said. “Where’s Ling?”

  “She’s with President Sutton,” my mother said. “Preparing for a press conference. A brand-new one. And she’s already been promised readmission to her program at Yale.”

  “That’s amazing,” I said. “Booker—we can visit her there.”

  “Cool,” Booker said. “Is President Sutton going to tell the public the truth about the fossils, Aunt Blaine?”

  “Of course she is,” my mother said. “With Ling at her side.”

  I held on to my mother’s hand to get my nerve up to ask the next question. “Steve and Chip will be in jail, right?”

  “We’re making dino digs safer for everyone, Devlin,” Sam said.

  “They’re charged with Forgery in the First Degree and Criminal Possession of Stolen Property,” my mother said, “for the other fossils they were running off with. Yes, once they’re convicted, they’ll go to jail.”

  I sat up and pumped my fist in the air. “Then the clutch of eggs is still the Ditch, and the super-duck is going to be named Willie, for Miss Ditchley,” I said. “And Katie Cion is still king of the hillside.”

  “When all is said and done,” my mother said, “there may well be a species called the Cionosaurus katus after all.”

  “So Katie will still have the best birthday present ever,” I said.

  “You two didn’t just solve a crime,” my mother said to Booker and me. “You also got to the bottom of all this by using your brains—”

  “And my mom’s CT scan machine,” Booker said, flashing his Dibble-dazzle smile.

  “That, too,” my mother said, smiling back. “You uncovered a hoax that would have been played out all around the world—in great museums and against scientists doing their best to make important finds available to the public, to expand their knowledge of paleontology. You did a very important thing.”

  “Hocus-pocus,” Sam said, pulling me up on my feet. “With a little bit of magic, I bet we can turn you into a thoroughly dry twelve-year-old who belongs at home with a takeout pizza followed by an early bedtime. No scary stories tonight.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Why did you say ‘hocus-pocus’ just now?”

  “’Cause I plan to work some magic on you. Clean you up and get you out of this crime scene. That’s where the word ‘hoax’ comes from, Devlin,” Sam said. “The old chant magicians used centuries ago, to blind the eye of the beholder and pass off a stunt that they hoped wouldn’t get noticed as a fake. That’s the reason they’re called hoaxes.”

  “Like Steve’s faked fossils,” I said. “Hocus-pocus. I guess he figured Katie and I wouldn’t ever know we’d been tricked.”

  “Steve tried to fool many more people than just you kids,” my mother said. “He tried to deceive all the bone diggers in the world.”

  “Move over, T. rex,” Sam Cody said, putting his Windbreaker around my shoulders to lead us out to his car to take us home. “It took Tyrannosaurus dev to break the case. You’re a fearsome leader, young lady, and a strong one.”

  My mother and Booker locked arms and walked with us. “Now it’s time to put this caper behind you,” she said to me. “Understand that?”

  “I’ll have to testify for the district attorney, Mom, won’t I?”

  “I bet they can build a really strong case without you, Devlin Quick,” my mother said. “You and Booker saved the day when you found that bag of bones.”

  “Katie’s bones,” I said, yawning, safe in the company of my extended family. “All I want to do now is crawl into my bed.”

  “Hocus-pocus,” Sam said, grabbing my hand in his. “I’ll have you home faster than you can say Teddy Roosevelt.”

  “Not him!” I said.

  “Forget I mentioned his name,” Sam said, walking hand in hand with me. “You’ve got me, and you’ve got the commissioner of the NYPD. What more do you need?”

  “Not a thing,” I said. “It’s just where Booker and Katie and I want to be, on the front lines, fighting crime.”

  “I’m counting on seeing you there, Devlin Quick,” Sam said. “And we’ll always have your back.”

  -ACKNOWLEDGMENTS-

  It seems to me that everyone loves dinosaurs, so digging for fossils was an adventure I wanted to enjoy along with Devlin Quick.

  To get up to speed, I went to one of my favorite places in the world—the American Museum of Natural History. It was there I met my first dinos when I was a kid, and I return often to learn about new discoveries. I am very grateful for the access made possible by the brilliant and dynamic Ellen Futter, president of the museum, who has created such a first-rate institution. It’s always a joy to visit—whether in person or online.

  Michael Novacek is the Chief Curator of Paleontology at AMNH, and gave me a crash course in fossil digs. His book—Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs—was my guide through rough, new terrain. His Research Assistant Suzann Goldberg provided me with wonderful details and a true sense of desert searches.

  The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, is another great place to get to know dinosaurs. Recently retired Curator of Paleontology, Jack Horner, knows that turf well, and his book—Dinosaurs Under the Big Sky—showed me the western way to dig.

  I admire the librarians, teachers, and booksellers who introduce readers to Devlin and Booker, and I’m still hoping to turn up a dinosaur bone of my own when I’m kicking around the ranch in Big Timber.

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