The Tooth

by Des Hunt

  The track into the canyon was wet, especially the part around the clay pit, which was a muddy red bog. Karen put the vehicle into four-wheel-drive and we slid our way around to the other side. I looked back and saw deep wheel tracks where we’d been. It worried me that we were leaving such obvious signs of our visit.

  To our relief there was no flooding in the canyon. The lake had not yet reached this far upstream, although from the amount of water flowing down the river it didn’t look like it would take too long.

  I was pleased to see that the horses had gone. I had half-expected that they might now be corpses, but there was nothing that was visible. In fact, the place looked unchanged from our last visit a week before.

  ‘This is an old river bed,’ said Karen, standing on the edge. ‘Once the river would have flowed right around the bottom of this cliff. That’s how the canyon was formed. Then the land must have tilted, becoming steeper and causing the river to take a more direct route. There are places like this alongside lots of the rivers around here.’

  ‘So there might be dinosaur fossils in other places?’ asked Mits.

  She laughed. ‘Maybe. But I wouldn’t count on ever finding anything. The formation of a fossil from a land animal is a very rare event. And finding them is even rarer. I would say that your find down there is more than a chance in a billion: it was lucky that a fossil formed in the first place; it was lucky that the river carved out that particular bit of rock; and it was pure luck that Tim found it.’

  ‘Tim’s always been a lucky boy,’ said Dad, ruffling my hair. ‘Haven’t you?’

  I said nothing. I didn’t consider myself lucky. I might have been lucky to survive the river and crawl out at this spot, but I’ve lived the rest of my life without a mother. I didn’t think that was too lucky. The others must have been thinking much the same, for an awkward silence developed.

  It was broken by Karen. ‘C’mon, Tim. Show me your dinosaur. I’m bursting to see it.’

  ‘Yes,’ added Dad, with forced cheerfulness. ‘Let’s go see the beast.’

  We hadn’t left any markers to indicate the approach through the ongaonga. Instead we used a line formed by a stump and a large slip on the distant hills. Unfortunately the hills were still covered in cloud, so we had to guess where it was.

  In the end we didn’t need to see the hills. The place was very easy to find—far, far too easy. Someone had hacked a track through the ongaonga with a scrubcutter. Mits and I stood and stared in dismay.

  ‘I gather you didn’t do this?’ said Karen.

  We shook our heads, too shocked to speak.

  ‘Then who did?’ added Dad.

  Mits answered for me. ‘Sam Mason and his cousins, I bet.’

  Karen asked. ‘Are they the people who are living in the house?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘There’s a boy called Sam Mason. He goes to our school. He was staying here over the holidays with some of his cousins. He knew we were looking for a dinosaur fossil.’

  ‘So,’ said Karen, ‘he must’ve spied on you to see where you went.’

  I nodded, angry with myself: we should’ve been more careful. We knew he was around the place, and yet we’d taken no precautions to stop him following us.

  ‘Well there’s nothing we can do about it now,’ said Karen, ‘so let’s see what damage they’ve done.’

  I led the way, which was so much easier without the stinging nettle. There was now water flowing down the waterfall, making the ground soggy and slippery. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did I was overcome by a huge feeling of relief. The rock face was just as we left it. The Tooth was untouched.

  ‘Yessss!’ hissed Mits coming up behind me. ‘He didn’t find it.’

  ‘It’s very well camouflaged’ said Karen. ‘I doubt whether I’d give it a second glance.’

  ‘Somebody’s been chipping at the rock here,’ said Dad, peering at the boulders in what was now a small stream.

  ‘That was us,’ I said.

  ‘Not that much,’ added Mits. He was right. Most of the boulders had large chips out of them. Mason or his cousins had bashed away here for some time.

  Then I laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ asked Dad.

  ‘I only chipped at the rock to see how hard it was. But Mason must have thought we’d removed The Tooth. He must have spent hours looking for one for himself. I bet he was angry by the time he was finished.’

  ‘They could still come back,’ said Karen.

  ‘Then we’d better not leave any clues about where the fossil really is,’ said Dad.

  ‘Definitely,’ added Karen. ‘Let’s just do what we have to do and get out of here.’

  For the next half hour Karen walked around the whole area, cleaning and studying bits of rock. Meanwhile, Dad surveyed the cliff face and the surroundings. He was searching for ways to get equipment down from the top.

  After we’d finished, we stood looking at it for a while making sure we hadn’t left any tell-tale signs of our work.

  Dad came in from the canyon floor. ‘So how are you going to get it out of the rock, Karen?’

  ‘The first thing is to waterblast the whole of that overhang. I would want to be sure there was nothing else there before we started using rock saws and the like. Then I would want to take out a much bigger chunk than just the bit The Tooth is in. It will make a much better display in a big block.’

  ‘Will that be easy?’ I asked.

  ‘Not too difficult. The rock is not the hardest I’ve worked with. With the right tools we’ll be able to drill and cut it.’

  Mits asked. ‘Won’t it be too heavy to carry?’

  Dad answered, ‘I think we can winch it up the waterfall. It all depends if we can get a truck in at the top. If we can, it shouldn’t be too difficult to lift things. The fall is almost vertical.’

  After a final check of the camouflaging, we returned to the top of the cliff. A walk to the source of the waterfall showed that it was possible to get a vehicle around, so long as the ground didn’t get any wetter in the meantime.

  ‘How about doing it next weekend?’ asked Karen. ‘I’d like to do it earlier, but I can’t get off during the week. We don’t have enough staff to cover this sort of thing.’

  ‘Next weekend will be good,’ agreed Dad. And so it was decided: we would retrieve The Tooth in a week’s time.

  Before we left, Dad examined the white container. ‘This is in good nick. It’s too good to be sitting out here.’ He turned to Karen. ‘Take a copy of the serial number. I’ll check it out on our database.’ The serial number was painted in large letters on all four sides. No attempt had been made to cover them.

  ‘Also, add bolt cutters to our tool list. I think we should take a look in here next time.’

  Karen said, ‘You know, they wouldn’t leave this here if they weren’t coming back.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ said Dad.

  I also agreed, and yet strangely it didn’t worry me so much now. They had been back, and they had even been where the fossil was. But they hadn’t found anything. I felt that even if they came looking again, it would end up the same: they wouldn’t find it because they didn’t have a clue about what they were looking for.

  Chapter 15

  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 m
any 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 to
ld 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.