Old Bones

by Gwen Molnar

  He was out of the room before Casey could answer. Casey wondered if his dad would miss his company as well as his help in building the big house-addition that was in the works. Over the last year, they’d got to know each other. When Casey was growing up, his father had been gone from home most of the time, but they’d shared stuff in the last few months and a bond had begun to grow.

  Casey paused in his packing, thinking about how he and his father had become real friends; there was still some distance, but he felt they’d come a long way.

  Casey continued packing more stuff, mostly books, DVDs, his iPod, and a few computer games. He wondered how Mandy was doing. Hope Mandy’s going to be back soon — it’ll sure be boring if she’s not, he thought. He’d learned that her throat had been so badly damaged that extra time was needed to build the muscle back up.

  Casey sniffed. The wonderful smell of fresh-baked bread filled the air. Casey’s stomach rumbled in reply.

  “Gotta check this out,” he muttered as he headed down the stairs. When he reached the bottom step he could hear his parents’ voices in the kitchen.

  “Any word on the attempted break-in at the Willson Place?” Casey’s mother was asking.

  “No,” said his father, “but the Mounties did find a clear trail across the field from town to Willson’s and from Willson’s to town. And they do have a good set of fingerprints from the front door knob.”

  “Oh, no!” Casey whispered, trying frantically to remember if his fingerprints would be on file from the time Mr. Deverell was attacked. He didn’t think they were, but he couldn’t be completely sure. Would it be better if he confessed right now? Got it over with?

  Yes, he decided, wondering as he went into the kitchen what kind of punishment his dad would dream up this time. At least, since it was summer, it wouldn’t be snow shovelling, and he’d probably be at the Tyrrell for most of the grass-cutting season. Anyway, it wouldn’t be mowing; his dad liked his riding mower too much to let anyone else use it. Maybe his father would say, “No problem, Casey, we’ll just forget about it.” Right.

  “Dad,” Casey, said hesitantly. “I might as well tell you; those fingerprints on the Willson door — they’re mine.”

  As Casey went to sleep that night, he tried to remember just how many trees there were in their yard and in the neighbours’ yards. Raking up all those leaves in the fall would sure cut into his social life. Oh well; it was still better than shovelling.

  Chapter Ten

  The drive to Drumheller with his parents, and the supper at the Normans’ worked out just fine. Casey’s father said he couldn’t think of anything that would improve the set-up for Casey in the Tyrrell’s foyer.

  The guest room the Normans had fitted up for Casey suited him a lot better than Mandy’s fluffy bedroom. No, Mandy wasn’t home yet, but her parents thought she would be back soon.

  At first, Casey thought he’d landed a dream job. While the Tyrrell was open to the public from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day in the summer, the administration had printed flyers that were given to everyone as they entered the building.

  BECAUSE OF EXTENSIVE WORK BEING DONE ON SOME OF THE SPECIMEN ROOMS, THE FOLLOWING ROOMS WILL BE CLOSED AT 5 P.M. EVERY AFTERNOON. WE REGRET ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY CAUSE.

  A list of rooms to be closed at 5 p.m. followed. The thinking was that the thieves would be interested only in the rooms they could carry items from, so wouldn’t likely to be even entering the museum after five. Any researchers registered with the museum would have access to the otherwise-closed rooms.

  Even with the shorter workday, Casey had to be on duty hours on end. He even ate the lunch Mrs. Norman made for him every day right at his post. The only problem was that the line-up at the turnstile had to be halted whenever Casey needed to go to the bathroom. He’d dash there and back so people at the turnstile didn’t get too antsy. It seemed whenever he hurried to the men’s room, however, Trevor was at the Museum Gift Shop door.

  “What’s the rush, oh chosen one,” Trevor would hiss, “going to wet your pants?”

  Casey ignored him as best he could, but it didn’t make things any easier. As the eight-hour days stretched out, one after the other, he knew he sure was earning the double minimum wage he was being paid.

  Going a different way back to the Normans’, Casey spotted a poster in a store window advertising classes in kung fu.

  The sign on the window started turning to CLOSED as Casey pushed open the door.

  “Just a quick question,” he said to a fit young man still holding the sign.

  “Sure,” the man said. “What can I do you for?”

  Casey wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to ask.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “Yeah?” asked the clerk.

  “Well,” Casey said slowly, “can someone who’s fourteen sign up for kung fu?”

  “Yes — the Junior Class is for fourteen- to sixteen-year-olds. But two things: the course started two weeks ago, and you’ll need parental permission.”

  “Oh,” Casey wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed or not. “Well, is there some other exercise class I can take?” He was thinking of Mike getting stronger by the day.

  “Well, our personal trainers can work one-on-one with a client. But it’s pretty pricey.” He walked over to a desk, the sign still in his hand, and took a paper from a file. “Here, this is a list of all our programs.”

  “Thanks a lot,” said Casey, nodding as he opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He glanced back at the door: the sign was already turned to CLOSED.

  Casey phoned his dad that night and talked over the idea of having a personal trainer. “It is expensive, Dad,” he said. “I do go swimming some evenings and I use Mandy’s Wii, but I sit around a lot too.”

  “Think about it a while longer,” his father advised.

  Casey hung up. “I’m going to go nuts if something doesn’t happen soon,” Casey told himself. After two weeks on the museum job, he called Mike in desperation.

  “What’s going on in Richford?” he asked. “I’ll bet you guys are having a great time with hockey and baseball and just having fun.”

  “Yeah,” Mike replied, “things are moving along.”

  “And here I am sitting for hours and hours every day as the crowds go by, and sitting for hours and hours every night on my own. Mandy hasn’t come home yet and I am beyond bored.”

  “Well,” Mike told him, “so far there’s really not much going on up here besides sports. I have to tell you that the staff at the hockey school are terrific. Let’s see — Greta Maitland broke her wrist showing off at a volleyball tourney. She’d demanded to be on a boys’ team and fell backward when the ball she was reaching for whacked her hand.”

  “I’ll bet she’s blaming everyone in sight,” Casey laughed. “What about the Willson investigation?” He hadn’t told Mike about the fingerprint business.

  “My dad says people think it was just mischief-makers and that the siren scared them off. He’s heard the Mounties never even bothered to put a lock on the door. They figured that way out there people would get in if they wanted to — that a siren connected to the station would scare off any intruders.”

  “Sure worked for a couple of people we know, eh?” said Casey.

  “I swear, Casey,” Mike said, “I never moved so fast in my life. And that wood weighed a ton.”

  “So did the Coke and the other stuff,” Casey said, wondering what else could they talk about.

  “Boy,” Mike said after a long pause, “are your folks ever making changes to your house. So help me, it’s going to be as big as the Maitlands’ place when they’re done.”

  “You know, it’s for a separate suite for my Grandma, and she’s paying for it; she’s not supposed to be totally on her own anymore.”

  “So that’s what’s going on,” Mike said.

  “My folks keep sending me pictures,” Casey said. “You know, I’m going to get that lower level Dad and I built for Grandma
’s visits.…”

  “Whirlpool and all?” Mike asked.

  “Whirlpool and all. Mom and Dad are making my present room into a TV room. I wish I could be there to watch all the changes, but this is the museum’s busiest time and they’re open every single day of the week.”

  “And you just sit there?” Mike said.

  “Well, I do sit there nine to five, but when nobody’s coming into the museum I keep busy measuring pieces of bones and rocks — I’ve sorted thousands of rocks and bones. I keep thinking I’ll find more pieces of the tooth we found, but no luck.

  “I even eat lunch right at my desk,” Casey told him, “and when I have to go to the bathroom, I signal the guard and they find some reason to hold the line up for a few minutes.

  “And still no luck spotting those two guys from the States.” (He’d told Mike in strictest confidence what his job was and why he was the only one who could do it.) “I must have looked at a zillion faces and listened to a thousand voices and footsteps. Nothing.”

  They both were searching for something to say. Finally, Casey said, “There is one thing I have to tell you about. There’s this guy named Trevor who manages the Gift Shop. He hates me because he thinks I’ve got this job he should have had — actually he had it for the week I wasn’t here. I’ve seen him leaving my desk when I’m coming back from you-know-where, and I can tell he’s been fiddling with ‘my’ rocks and bones.”

  “Fiddling, not taking, I hope,” Mike asked.

  “Not so far,” Casey said, “but the rocks and stones I’m working on go for sale in the Museum Gift Shop, or wherever, and the bones and fragments are all ready to be labelled and checked, so anything he could get his hands on that’s not catalogued he could sell on his own and not have to account for it.”

  “You better watch out,” Mike warned him.

  “I am,” Casey assured him.

  “So, what do you do all evening?” Mike wanted to know.

  “I go for a swim for an hour at the ‘Y’ three nights a week, watch some TV — the Normans put one in my room, and I’m using Mandy’s Wii a lot. Then I go to bed and read. The other four days, I walk around town a lot. So, I walk and read and play video games and watch more TV.”

  “What about Mandy? When is she coming home?”

  “They say in a week. She’s starting to do really well. Yeah, things should pick up when Mandy gets here. And Mike — one good thing. The Normans won’t take any money for my room and board so I’m really socking it away.”

  “Lucky you,” said Mike. “I’m lucky if I get five bucks an hour helping Dad.”

  “I’ll be rich enough for both of us,” Casey said. “When this is all over, let’s talk our folks into a trip to Edmonton to ‘do’ West Edmonton Mall and see the Cracker Cats.” Casey knew the one thing Mike liked better than CDs was baseball, and while it wasn’t pro ball it was semi-pro and pretty darn good.

  “You’re on!” Mike hooted.

  Chapter Eleven

  Twice Casey thought he spotted the men, and buzzed museum security. The first time, a man with a cane came through the turnstile and a few minutes later a man with shaggy eyebrows that almost joined entered the museum foyer. When Casey pointed out the second man, the guard smiled. “That’s Dr. Foss, big-time palaeontologist from the University of Calgary.”

  “Oh, sorry,” said Casey.

  “Don’t be,” the guard told him. “Better to err on the side of caution.”

  The second time, Casey was sure. Two men came through the turnstile one right after the other. The second man, who again had eyebrows exactly like those of the man Casey had seen and heard in the Hoodoo Hotel, stepped forward and put his right hand under the elbow of the first man, who was limping. Casey pressed the security buzzer. He nodded toward the men as two security guards appeared.

  One guard approached the men: the other stood beside Casey’s table.

  “It’s a rather difficult walk up these ramps,” Casey heard the first guard say to the two men. “We have wheelchairs available. Can I get you folks one?”

  “That’s mighty kind of you,” the limping man said. “I broke my ankle a while ago and the darn thing still hurts a lot. You mind pushing me around, Bill?” he asked the other man.

  “Not a bit, Wilf,” replied his companion. “But you’ll owe me big. One two-pound steak when we pass through Calgary tomorrow.”

  “You got it.”

  The first man eased himself into the wheelchair the guard had rolled up.

  “Got a long drive ahead of you tomorrow, I take it,” Casey heard the guard ask.

  “Nah,” said the seated man, “just to Cochrane. We run the garage across from the big ice-cream stand — get a lot of business from all the Calgarians who drive over there on weekends for ice cream.”

  “That right?” said the guard. “I’ll have to drive down one of these days.”

  “If you do, come see us,” Bill said, as he pushed the wheelchair along. “Our garage is called ‘The Brothers’; we’ll top off your tank for free.”

  Casey reached down for his backpack; the oh-so-frustrating and humiliating day over at last. “Wouldn’t you know,” he said to himself, “The darn thing’s caught under my chair leg.” He got down on his hands and knees to unwind the strap. When it was freed Casey stood up. There was a long white envelope on his desk. They’ve fired me, he thought. I’ve wasted everyone’s time and the museum’s money, and they’ve fired me.

  Sighing, he opened the middle drawer of his small desk and took out a letter opener. He could hear his father’s voice saying, “Never rip open an envelope; you might tear what’s inside or you might make it harder to read a mailing date or a name.”

  Casey dutifully slid the edge of the letter opener under the flap, slit open the envelope, took out the paper inside, looked at it, and gasped.

  Not a dismissal notice. It was a cheque. A cheque for his first month’s duties. A big cheque. Casey sat at the desk and laid the cheque on it. He saw Trevor sliding towards him and just got the cheque turned over in time.

  “Stashing away your ill-gotten gains, I see,” Trevor made a lunge for the cheque but Casey caught his wrist and gave it a hard twist.

  “Mind your own business, Trevor,” Casey said as he pocketed his cheque.

  “If you’re getting more than me for just sitting around, I’m going to make an official complaint.”

  “And if you don’t stop bugging me, I’m going to make a complaint.”

  Trevor slunk off and Casey sat down.

  “My money,” he whispered, no longer tired or bored or frustrated or humiliated: just happy. “I earned this. It’s all mine.”

  He sat staring at the cheque. “Maybe I won’t cash it. Maybe I’ll frame it and look at it. Then again …” Into his mind flashed the imagine of a mountain bike he’d seen on the last walk he’d taken into downtown Drumheller. It was a flame red. It had all the bells and whistles. It had more gears than he’d ever seen. And, Casey thought to himself as he picked up the cheque and smiled a huge smile, I can afford it!

  Chapter Twelve

  “It’ll be light for hours,” Mandy said. She and Casey were sitting on the Normans’ veranda. Mandy was eating Jell-O and Casey was enjoying a chocolate sundae. He looked over at Mandy.

  “Is that all the dessert you’re going to have?”

  “Well, I have to eat things that won’t irritate my throat, and with this darn milk allergy of mine, I can’t have ice cream or puddings or anything like that.”

  “When are you going to be able to eat some more solid food?” Casey asked. “I make a heck of an omelette.”

  “Somehow I can’t see you cooking, Casey. But when I can eat an omelette, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good,” said Casey.

  Mandy was pretty well; she looked better every day, and the wonderful glow she’d had the day Casey’d seen her in the cafeteria was slowly coming back. But she still wasn’t supposed to speak loudly or do any jumping or heavy liftin
g — or swimming.

  When she’d first come home things had been awkward, Mandy not being used to anyone but her family living there. Mandy had not been her usual friendly self and couldn’t hide her resentment when Casey went off swimming. Casey finally realized it really got to Mandy that she couldn’t practise too, and cut his pool visits to one a week instead of three. Mandy was grateful and the good times started.

  “I am so glad you’re back in town, Mandy,” Casey told her, thinking how easy she was to be with and, having grown up in a family of four boys, how different it was spending so much time with a girl — especially this girl. “It’s great to have something to look forward to after work. My days are awfully boring.”

  Mandy put down her empty dish and smiled. “Your days are boring? Try mine.”

  The Normans had had a celebration dinner for Mandy when she got home a couple of weeks ago. She could have only soup and Jell-O, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “It is so great to be back,” she sighed contentedly. “All those weeks away with only reading and TV. You’ll be happy to know, dear parents,” she continued, “I’ve finished all the homework for the rest of the year in social studies, so, when I finally get back to school, I can start a senior biology course.”

  Mrs. Norman smiled. “Had a hunch you’d not be wasting your time.” Mandy attended St. Hilda’s, an exclusive, academically challenging girls-only school in Calgary.

  “You planned anything for us to do tonight?” Casey wondered.

  “Dad’s going to take us to Horsethief Canyon as soon as he can get away from the museum.”

  “That’s great. I’ve been looking forward to seeing it.”

  Whenever Casey was free, he and Mandy would set off on an adventure. They’d bicycle north on the west bank of the Red Deer River, cross at Bleriot Ferry, the little motor–and-winch contraption said to be the busiest ferry in Alberta, and ride home along the east bank. Mandy’s bike was good, but the red one Casey’d bought with his first cheque was much better. It could do about anything. He loved that bike. Some nights he even dreamed about it.