The Colossal Fossil Fiasco

by Michelle Houts

  “Diamonds!” Collin guesses.

  “That’s silly,” Stewart tells Collin. “Diamonds don’t come from rocks!”

  Collin scowls. “Yes, they do. My mom says the diamond in her wedding ring came from a diamond mine!”

  Stewart opens his mouth to argue with Collin some more, but Miss Flippo jumps in just in time.

  “Diamonds are precious gems,” she says, “and they do come out of rocks, sometimes deep inside the earth.”

  Collin nods his head. Now it’s Stewart’s turn to scowl.

  “But I’m sure you won’t find any diamonds in the specimens I’ve brought today,” Miss Flippo says. “Diamonds are found mostly in Africa. When it’s your turn to come back to the Science Lab, you’ll use your eyes and these magnifying glasses to see if you can find any fossils hidden in these rocks.”

  “What are fossils?” Sarah asks.

  “Dinosaurs!” It’s Collin again. I have never seen him so excited about science.

  “That’s right. Creatures who walked the earth a very long time ago often left behind fossils.”

  Miss Flippo returns to the front of the room and turns on her computer. The whiteboard lights up so we can all see what Miss Flippo sees on her screen.

  “Fossils are clues,” she says. “They give us hints about what might have been living long ago. Let’s take a look at some famous fossils.”

  Miss Flippo shows us all kinds of rocks with prints in them. Some look like bugs. Others look like leaves. One looks like a turtle.

  “This one is very famous,” Miss Flippo says. “What do you think it is?”

  We all stare at the picture on the whiteboard.

  Gavin raises his hand. “It looks like a bird.”

  “Why do you say that, Gavin?” Miss Flippo asks.

  “Because it has wings,” he says.

  “And a beak,” Ajay adds.

  “Anyone else?” Miss Flippo asks. Annalisa raises her hand. “Annalisa?”

  “It could be a small dinosaur …” she says.

  “And why do you think that?”

  “It has long legs.” Annalisa’s head is turned sideways. “I think those are legs.”

  “Very good, my scientists,” Miss Flippo says. “This is actually Archaeopteryx. And you’re all correct. It is believed to be both a bird and dinosaur. It was discovered more than 150 years ago, but it lived about 150 million years ago.”

  All of Room 2-C goes Whoa! at the same time.

  “Scientists who studied this fossil believe that creatures like this dinosaur-bird were the ancestors of the birds we see flying around our backyards today.”

  I look at the whiteboard closely. I can see how that could happen.

  The next picture is definitely not a dinosaur. It looks like Mr. Bones, but with some bones missing.

  “That’s a person,” Jack says quietly.

  “Yes, they believe it was an early human,” Miss Flippo agrees. “Still very different from you and me, but when scientists look at fossils like this and then compare them to other fossils, they can learn how humans have changed over time.”

  I notice Miss Flippo is smiling at me. I don’t know why, so I just smile right back.

  “This famous fossil has a name,” Miss Flippo tells us. “They call her Lucy.”

  Everyone laughs and looks right at me, but I’m not embarrassed. I think it’s cool to share a name with a famous fossil.

  Later, while I’m waiting for my turn at the lab table, I hear Stewart Swinefest whispering to Collin and Brody, “Lucy’s not a goosey! She’s a fossil!”

  Who invited Stewart to second grade, anyway? I’d sure like to know.

  Chapter Five

  Family Meeting

  At home, we have a family meeting while we eat dinner. Dad made his most wonderful chili soup, and Thomas is piling his bowl high with a million tiny crackers.

  “I call the Watkins family meeting to order,” Mom says. “Roll call, please, Lucy.”

  “Dad?” I say.

  “Present.” Dad says.

  “Mom?” I say.

  “Here,” she answers.

  “Lucy?” I ask. “Here,” I answer.

  “Thomas?” I say.

  “Mmmwwhhhmm,” he answers. Too many crackers. Way too many crackers.

  “Very well, then,” Dad says. “What matter of business should the Watkins family discuss first?”

  “I have something!” I say, although I can’t quite decide if I want to talk about a new pet or a really old fossil named Lucy.

  “Go ahead, Lucy,” says Mom.

  I choose the new pet topic. “Since we’re getting another pet soon, I have been doing some research.”

  Mom looks at Dad.

  Dad looks at Mom.

  Thomas chews like crazy and then swallows hard. “We’re getting another dog? Really?”

  “Slow down, Thomas,” I say. “Nobody said anything about getting a second dog.”

  “Nobody said anything about a second pet, either,” Dad said. “At least not to you, Lucy.”

  Oops. I kind of forgot that I wasn’t exactly part of the conversation I heard my parents having in the kitchen.

  “Lucy,” Mom asks, “have you been eavesdropping?”

  “Well, not on purpose,” I say. “You were talking and I started listening before I was supposed to.”

  “Since Lucy brought up the subject, I say we talk about it,” Dad says.

  “I want another dog!” Thomas sounds like his mind is already made up.

  “We already know that a dog is a good pet,” Dad agrees.

  “But dogs are a lot of work,” Mom says. “A second dog would have to be fed, groomed, and walked just like Sloan. A cat might be less time-consuming.”

  “Dogs? Cats? Where’s your imagination, people?” I roll my eyes. Dogs and cats are so—ordinary.

  “What would you suggest, Lucy?” Mom asks.

  “I don’t know. I’m not finished with my research yet.”

  “Well, that’s probably a good thing,” Dad says, “because we’re not quite ready to commit to adding a second pet to this household. You do your research, Lucy, and we’ll talk about it again later.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Mom agrees.

  “I’m fine with that,” I say.

  “If we can’t get another dog, then I want a dinosaur.” Thomas says. He’s totally serious.

  Chapter Six

  Survey

  When I wake up the next morning, every bit of the snow is gone.

  “That’s an early season snowfall for you,” Dad says. “Easy come, easy go.”

  I like the snow, but I’m kind of happy it melted. Miss Flippo told us we could look for our own fossils and bring them in to share with the class. It would be pretty hard to hunt for fossils under the snow.

  Bus 21 pulls up in front of our school and I wave goodbye to Mr. McHenry. I can see Cora standing on the sidewalk waiting for me. She’s wearing striped leggings with a pink and purple dress under her winter coat.

  “Can you believe the snow is gone?” she asks. “My mom says we won’t even need our heavy coats later today!”

  “That’s good,” I say. “Let’s go fossil hunting after school.”

  Cora and I agree to meet in my lab later. The science lab in my backyard used to be a playhouse, but when school started this year, I decided that research and observation are way more important for a second grader than playing house.

  Last night after supper, I asked to use Mom’s computer. I wanted to make a bigger survey, since my survey at lunch didn’t go so well. I came up with even more questions, and we used her printer and made twenty copies for the twenty kids in Room 2-C.

  As soon as I walk through the door, I tell Miss Flippo about my survey.

  “Hold onto those until after the morning announcements, Lucy,” she tells me. I wonder what she has planned, but right after the announcements are over, she calls me to the front of the room.

  “Class, Lucy is gat
hering information. Another word for information is data. Lucy is going to pass out a survey. There are four questions to answer.”

  Miss Flippo keeps talking while I walk down each row, handing out my surveys.

  “I’d like you to think about each question, and then fill it out. When you’ve completed the survey, place it in the basket on my desk. Do not put your name on it.”

  “But we always put our name on our papers,” Georgia says.

  “That’s true, but this is a survey, so our data collector Lucy is more interested in what our class thinks as a group than as individuals.”

  Georgia nods.

  “When Lucy has her results, we’ll ask her to share them with us.”

  Wow. I had no idea my survey would be such a big deal!

  Chapter Seven

  Fossil Failure

  Bus 21 drops me off at my house after school. In my backpack, I have all the surveys that were in Miss Flippo’s tray at the end of the day. A wonderful smell is coming from the kitchen, so I go check it out.

  “Hi, Lucy,” Dad says. “How was school?”

  “Good,” I say. “What are you making?”

  “Cookies. There’s no snow to scrape today, and there won’t be any grass to mow for a long time so I decided to make a treat,” Dad says. “Want one?”

  Cinnamon snickerdoodles! My favorite! “Can I take two? One for me and one for Cora?”

  “Of course,” says Dad, “but you know you can’t eat them in the library.”

  “Oh, I know. We’re going to the park today.”

  There are three places in Granite City I’m allowed to go without my parents: Cora’s house, the library, and the park. Cora’s, because it’s only three blocks and I don’t have to cross a road to get there; the library, because Aunt Darian is the librarian and it’s right behind Cora’s house; and the park, because it’s pretty much in my backyard.

  I change into my brown snow boots while Dad wraps up two warm cookies. I don’t really need to wear snow boots now that the snow is gone, but the park might be muddy.

  “Thanks, Dad!” I yell on my way out to my lab. “Be back before supper!”

  Dad reminds me that it gets dark earlier than it used to, so I’ll need to be back sooner.

  In the backyard, I take a look at my old playhouse/new science lab. I haven’t been inside it for a few days, so I duck through the door to check things out. All my specimens from the fall are still sitting on the table. My lab notebook is kind of damp and the pages look crinkly. I guess I’ll have to take it inside before it snows again.

  Through the window, I can see Cora coming down the sidewalk.

  “Good afternoon, Princess Lucy,” she bows at the door.

  Ugh. I don’t really like Cora’s princess games. “I regret to inform you that Princess Lucy has been eaten by a dragon,” I say.

  Cora looks shocked. “How awful! So, who are you then?”

  “The dragon!” I yell, running toward Cora, pretending to breathe fire at her.

  Cora screams and laughs, and we both run through my backyard and into the Granite City Park. The park was the reason my parents bought our house. My mom always says that she liked the house just fine, but after she saw the park, she loved it. “It’s like having our very own nature preserve!” she tells people.

  We stop running near the jungle gym. “Where should we start looking for fossils?” Cora asks.

  “Well, I guess we go wherever there are rocks,” I say.

  Standing at the jungle gym, all I can see is grass. Lots and lots of grass.

  “There are rocks in the parking lot,” Cora suggests.

  I’m not sure that parking lot rocks are the kind of rocks that have fossils in them, but they are the only rocks I can see. We walk over to the gravel parking lot. The little bits of gray gravel all look the same, kind of dusty white with jagged edges.

  “Okay,” Cora says. “I hope we find dinosaur bones!”

  “That would be exciting.” I am just hoping we find the fossil of a small bug or something interesting like that.

  We walk bent over and stare at the ground. We don’t say a word for a long time.

  “Do you see anything interesting?” I ask. I pick up a small stone, but it is just like all the others.

  “Some of the rocks sparkle a little,” Cora says. “Any fossils over there?”

  “Nope,” I say. I stand up straight. Bending over for so long makes my back hurt.

  Cora stands up, too. “I think it’s getting dark,” she says, looking up at the sky.

  It was cloudy all afternoon, so we didn’t get to see the sun setting. Cora’s right about it getting dark, so we walk kind of fast across the grass and into my backyard.

  “Well, that wasn’t very exciting,” I say.

  Cora laughs. “But the two princesses did get back to the castle before dark!”

  “Correction,” I say. “One princess and one”—I run toward Cora, chasing her down the sidewalk toward her house. I can hear her giggling all the way—“dragon!”

  Chapter Eight

  Survey Says …

  After supper, I am excited to see what my classmates wrote on my surveys. Mom is, too. We lay the completed sheets out on the kitchen table.

  “Tally time!” Mom says. “Lucy, you take notes while I read the responses. Ready?”

  “Ready!” I say. “Question one: Do you have a pet at your house?”

  I write the words YES and NO at the top of my paper. I make a short little line every time Mom reads YES or NO.

  “Now, count them,” Mom says. I count 14 YESes and 3 NOs.

  “Okay, then,” says Mom, “let’s move on to question two.”

  “Wait,” I say. Something isn’t right. I scribble a little math problem on the paper. Fourteen plus three equals—seventeen. “Mom! There are only seventeen answers. And there are twenty kids in Room 2-C.”

  “Well, let’s see,” says Mom. “Did you fill out a survey?”

  “Oh! Nope, I didn’t.”

  “So, you should have 19 surveys. But it looks like only 17 people turned theirs in.” Mom has her thinking face on. “Eighty-nine percent of your class responded. That’s very good, actually.”

  Good? I don’t think that sounds very good. I’m kind of grouchy that two of my classmates didn’t give me their answers. I’ll bet it was Stewart and Brody. Or maybe Logan, since he said at lunch that he wasn’t much of a pet person.

  “Let’s keep going. Question two,” Mom says. “‘If you have a pet, what kind do you have?’ Okay, you’ll have to do more writing on this one.”

  Mom reads the words cat and dog a lot. She says goldfish and tropical fish and cockatiel, which I don’t know how to spell. Once she says ferret and hermit crab and tarantula. When she gets done, I count twenty-three pets.

  “Wow! I didn’t think there would be so many!” I say.

  “I agree,” says Mom. “A lot of families have more than one pet!”

  I count totals for each animal. Then we move on to question three.

  “If you could have any pet at all, what pet would you choose?” Mom reads. “Ready?”

  “Go,” I say.

  I write down rabbit and tiger cub and corn snake. I write down kitten and talking parrot and lots of other pets my classmates in Room 2-C wish they could have.

  “Someone wrote Madagascar hissing cockroach,” Mom says, making an awful face.

  “That has to be Carl,” I say. “Only Carl loves insects that much.”

  I count everything up and write all the totals on a clean piece of paper. Then I make a graph that shows all the animals and the number of people who like them. That’s what I’ll share with Room 2-C tomorrow. Now I know what pets my classmates have or want to have.

  Problem is, I still have no clue what pet I want.

  Chapter Nine

  The Data, Please

  At school, I can’t wait to share my survey results. Miss Flippo saves time right after recess.

  “Scienti
sts, let’s listen to Lucy,” she says. “Lucy, tell us what your data shows, please.”

  I take my paper to the front of the room, and Miss Flippo gives me her tall stool to sit on.

  “My data shows that the students in Room 2-C have a total of twenty-three pets. The most popular pet is dogs. There are twelve dogs. The second most popular pet is cats. There are six cats. The most unusual pet is a tarantula.”

  “Oh, that is a wonderful pet,” Miss Flippo exclaims. “Who has a tarantula?”

  I wait for someone to raise their hand. I’m sure it will be Eddie or Carl or maybe Jack. So I’m surprised when I see Bridget raises her hand instead.

  “We got him when we lived New York City,” she says. “Our apartment manager didn’t allow dogs.”

  “What else, Lucy?” Miss Flippo asks.

  “Well, a lot of kids want pets. Eight kids want dogs. Somebody wants a hissing cockroach.”

  Lots of kids in the room laugh or make grossed out noises. I look at Carl. He’s grinning.

  “Are you the cockroach fan, Carl?” Miss Flippo smiles at him.

  “Only if it’s a Madagascar hissing cockroach,” he says. “Those are the best.”

  “All right, then. We’ve got some insects, arachnids, and mammals on our list,” Miss Flippo says. “Any reptiles?”

  “Someone wants a leopard gecko,” I tell her.

  “Reptiles are the closest living relatives to the dinosaurs of long ago,” Miss Flippo tells us. “And speaking of dinosaurs, we’ll be continuing our discussion about fossils right after noon recess. But first, Lucy, was your survey helpful? Did you figure out what kind of pet you and your family might get?”

  “At first, I didn’t think so.” I can’t help but smile really big. “But just now, I think I figured it out!”

  Miss Flippo and Room 2-C have given me a great idea.

  Cora comes home with me every Tuesday and stays for dinner, because that’s the night the library is open late. Aunt Darian swings by when the library closes and gets Cora.