The Tooth

by Des Hunt

  ‘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.

  Chapter 16

  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.’

  Chapter 17

  It was raining again by the time we went to school. I got some evil satisfaction out of that: I didn’t
mind if it rained on Mason’s big event, and by then I no longer cared too much if the canyon got flooded. What did it matter if the whole thing got sunk?

  First thing at school, Klink announced a special assembly before lunch. The main event was to be the presentation of Sam’s fossil to the museum in front of lots of reporters. I glanced over at Mason. He didn’t look happy about it. I wondered whether he was upset about handing it over, or about all the publicity it was getting. He looked like someone who had started a chain of events and had lost control of them. It made me wonder…

  ‘Sir,’ I called out, putting up my hand. ‘Other classes have had a close look at the fossil, but we haven’t. I think Sam should pass it around for us all to have a look.’

  ‘Good idea, Tim. Sam, can we have it for a while?’ Sam looked daggers at me before reluctantly standing and carrying the fossil to the front. After it had started its journey around the class, Klink got on with the lesson.

  I paid no attention. I was closely watching the track of the fossil from one student to the next. Every now and then I got a glimpse of it. Increasingly I was having doubts about the thing. It looked too white. Of course, Mason could have bleached it, but…there was something else too. As it got closer to me, I saw that the shape was wrong. Then it came to me. The shape was the same as I had drawn from my childhood memory in The Quest. The one that Mason had photocopied. It was not the shape of The Tooth I’d seen during the holidays.

  Finally it was on my desk. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mason watching me closely. Several other students were also taking an interest, as if this was some sort of showdown.

  I left it sitting on the desk for a moment, comparing it with the images I had in my mind. It fitted the childhood one, but not with the latest. Plus the sandstone didn’t look right—it was different from the rock we had seen.

  Next I picked it up and instantly saw that something was really wrong. ‘Hey, sir,’ I said, politely. ‘I don’t think this is a dinosaur tooth.’

  ‘What would you know about it?’ asked Klink, plainly annoyed with me.

  ‘It’s got scratch marks from a file.’

  ‘That happened as I was taking it out of the rock,’ blurted Mason.

  ‘There you are, Tim,’ said Klink. ‘That’s your explanation. Now pass the thing along.’

  ‘But, sir,’ I cried, ‘it looks like it’s a horse’s tooth.’

  Mason stood up. ‘You heard him,’ he shouted. ‘Pass it on!’

  ‘No!’ I shouted back. ‘It’s the horse’s tooth you got from that skull in the canyon.’

  Instantly Mason was at my desk. He tried to grab the fossil, but I wasn’t letting go. With a snap, the wooden base pulled away leaving me holding the rock.

  ‘Sit down, Sam,’ ordered Klinkenstein. Mason moved slowly back to his desk.

  I turned over the rock to find that the bottom was smooth and shiny. Then I burst out laughing. ‘It’s concrete,’ I said. ‘He made it out of a horse’s tooth and concrete.’

  By then Klinkenstein was alongside my desk. ‘You’re making some pretty serious allegations here, Tim. I hope you can substantiate them.’

  ‘Look for yourself, sir.’ I held it up for him to see. ‘He made it in a margarine container. See, there’s a recycling symbol.’ And there it was, plain for anyone to see: the imprint of three arrows forming a triangle with the number five sitting in the middle.

  Without a word Klinkenstein took the ‘rock’, moved to Mason’s desk and picked up the wooden base. He pointed to the whiteboard, ‘Class, get on with that work.’ Then he pointed to Mason. ‘You! Come with me. You’ve got a whole lot of explaining to do.’

  As Sam moved past my desk I said, ‘Who’s in charge now, Mason?’ He kept walking, his eyes fixed on the door through which Klinkenstein had already disappeared.

  I got the rest of the story from Karen as we drove to Pounamu. Dad and Mits were leading in the truck, followed by Karen and me in the van. It was a slow journey in the pouring rain.

  Karen began her story as we pulled clear of the city. ‘I got a phone call at morning-tea break from the principal. She was very embarrassed. She said it was a hoax and that the event was cancelled. You can imagine how relieved I was.’

  She concentrated on a tricky set of bends for a while. ‘I thought about it and decided to go along anyway, thinking that a man-made “fossil” might make a good little side display to our main one. So, I turned up at school and all the others were there, too. TV, newspaper, all the radio stations. I talked to one of the journalists and he reckoned a hoax story was better than a real fossil find.

  ‘Well, eventually the principal comes out to see us and she’s got this boy with her. He’s looking pretty sick. She starts by apologizing over and over. Then she makes the boy apologize which he sort of does. Finally, she asks are there any questions. Well, of course there are, but none of them are aimed at her. Everyone wants to ask the boy questions. Why did he do it? How did he do it? How was he being punished? Did he have any regrets? Was he planning to make any more? It went on for some time. And, you know, he answered everyone of them.’ She looked over at me. ‘I think he made it up as he went along. But by the time it finished, he was behaving as if he was some sort of hero. He reminded me of convicted criminals you see on TV, swaggering out of court as if they’ve won.’

  I gave a little laugh. ‘Yeah, I bet that’ll be Sam Mason in a few years time.’

  ‘I agree. The principal was plainly annoyed by it. She’d put him in front of the reporters as a punishment and there he was turning it into a triumph. She ended up half-dragging him out of the room.’

  After that we travelled in silence, each of us content with our own thoughts. I didn’t think of Sam Mason; instead, I thought of what it might be like when we finally announced our find. I wanted it to be a celebration, not a scramble by reporters to get the biggest story. I was hoping that we could keep it quiet until The Tooth was mounted as a display. Then we could tell the world about it in a special event, which I hoped would also be a celebration of Mum’s life.

  I studied the darkening countryside outside the window, feeling very relaxed about things. For the first time since the beginning, I now felt that it was really going to happen. All the bad things were over, and from now on everything would go according to plan.

  That pleasant dream was shattered soon after we arrived at Pounamu. I could tell that something was wrong as soon as we walked inside: Grandad looked upset, and when Nanna hugged me, she squeezed tighter than normal. But it wasn’t until we’d started to eat the meal that Grandad broke the news.

  ‘We’ve had a bit of trouble since you were last here,’ he said grimly.

  I looked up sharply. ‘What?’

  ‘We only found out this afternoon. Jim sent a couple of the lads to go shift some hoggets in case the creeks flooded with all this rain.’ He paused, as if the next bit would be painful. ‘That’s when one of them found that his horse was missing.’

  My heart started racing. ‘Were there any others?’

  Grandad nodded.

  ‘Phoebe?’

  He didn’t have to say anything—his face said it all.

  ‘When?’ I asked.

  ‘We don’t know. After we found one was missing, we did a check and found Phoebe’d gone too. I’m sorry, Timothy. There wasn’t anything we could do about it by then.’

  I was too upset to speak.

  ‘They could’ve been gone for days,’ added Grandad. ‘It’s not as if we go out and count them all the time.’

  Dad asked, ‘Was anything else stolen?’

  ‘Yeah, they cleaned out the tack shed as well. Six saddles have gone.’

  Mits said, ‘It’ll be the Basinhead Gang.’

  ‘Are they the people living in Sarah and Fred’s old house?’ asked Nanna.

  ‘Yeah. They’ve had horses down in the canyon.’

  ‘That’s where Phoebe will be,’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Grandad, ‘
that’s very likely.’

  I stood up. ‘Then we’ve got to go and get her.’

  Nanna leaned over and touched my arm. ‘You can’t do anything now, Timothy. It’s too wet and it’s too dark. It’ll have to wait until morning.’

  I stared at her, wanting to argue, yet also knowing that she was right. Instead, I turned and ran from the room, out into the rain and across to the bunkhouse. I threw myself onto a bed and buried my head in a pillow. Then I cried. Slowly at first, but, as the size of the loss sank in, my weeping changed to uncontrollable, body-shaking sobs.

  That night seemed never-ending.

  Eventually Mits and Dad came to the bunkhouse and convinced me to get into bed properly. It didn’t help me sleep. Every drop of rain hammering on the tin roof made me think of Phoebe. She was a wimp when it came to rain and was certain to try to find shelter. Yet the only shelter in the canyon was ongaonga. My head filled with images I couldn’t expel. There was Phoebe, head bowed, trying to find refuge from the driving rain. There was Phoebe belly-deep in water, panicking as it got ever deeper. Then I saw her in the ongaonga screaming in pain. But the worst was as a swollen corpse, floating in the lake that had filled the canyon.

  In the time since, I’ve thought a lot about that night. I now know that I was grieving for far more than the loss of a pet. To me, Phoebe was not a pet; she was a friend. I think anybody who has had a horse will know that they can be much more than a cat or a dog or a canary. You have to give more of yourself to a horse, and in return they give you more—friendship, company, and also their kind of love. Maybe not everybody feels that way, but that’s how it was between Phoebe and me.

  Plus, Phoebe had once been my mother’s horse. I still don’t know how much I was crying for the loss of Phoebe or the loss of my mother all those years before. However, what I do know is that I changed during that night: I came out of it feeling a much stronger person than before.

  At some unkown time in the early hours of the morning, I realized that I could now cope with whatever had happened to Phoebe. I had done the worrying; now it was time for action. As soon as it was light I would go to the canyon and find her, one way or the other. Then I would know for sure what had happened.