by Raylan Kane
"Professor Spivel!"
"Yes, what is it this time? It better not be another false alarm."
"No sir. This is it! We really have something!"
Spivel could see in the boys face this was the kind of discovery he'd traveled all the way to Africa for. He burst upright from behind his typewriter and followed the boy along the boardwalk to the dig site.
The site was rectangular, marked off in a grid with wooden pegs all joined by twine and labeled with painted numbers. The chubby young man stood at the edge of the dig and smiled at his professor. Spivel's other student stood waving an object in his hand from the far end of the rectangle.
"Well," Spivel pointed into the crater, "don't just stand there and gawk at me. Run and fetch the artifact."
"Yes sir!"
The boy dutifully climbed down the wooden ladder and made his way over to the far end of the dig. He took hold of the small object his research-mate had unearthed and came back to where Spivel stood. The professor smirked under his rain hat and poncho. The boy kicked mud from his boot as he came up the ladder. He handed the smooth black stick-like object to Spivel.
"What do you think it is, Professor?"
The man held the thing close to his glasses. The floodlight shone down on them through the downpour. Spivel ran his fingers over the smooth edges, it was unlike any object he'd seen before.
"It just might be a recording device of some kind," the professor said.
"Recording? But that thing is probably ancient," his student said.
"Beyond ancient. Still, I have a theory. It appears my hypothesis may prove correct after all."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Well my heavy-set friend. If this indeed is what I think it is," Spivel said with an ominous tone, "it will change everything."
