by Stuart Gibbs
“Thanks so much,” Mom said.
“My pleasure. You folks are super cool,” Harper said. “Hey! I just got some new plans for a potential space hotel. But you need to use my virtual reality system to see them. Want to check it out? It feels like you’re there.”
“I’d love to!” Mom exclaimed, then grew slightly embarrassed. “Though maybe Teddy should go first.”
“I can wait,” I said.
“All right,” Mom said, then looked to Harper expectantly. “How do we do this?”
“The rig’s back in my bedroom,” Harper said. “Which is also sort of my office. And my virtual reality lab. There’s not too much space on this RV. Come on back and I’ll hook you up.”
Mom practically sprang from her seat to follow Harper.
Once they were out of earshot, Dad leaned over to me and whispered, “What do you think of Harper?”
“She’s nice,” I said. “But…”
“But what?”
I looked around the RV. Both the butlers had left to clean our dishes, but I wondered if there might be any listening devices around. If anyone had their RV wired like that, it was Harper Weems. So I lowered my voice and whispered, “She acted kind of weird when you asked about her arrangements with J.J. I don’t think she’s telling us everything.”
“No,” Dad agreed, casting a skeptical glance after Harper and Mom. “I don’t think she is either.”
21 THE LONG NIGHT
Mom and Dad suggested that we could all call Dr. Singh in the morning. Both felt that handing the number over to Sheriff Esquivel or Officer Brewster would be the same thing as throwing it away. Given the events of the day before, the local police seemed to have their minds made up that J.J. McCracken was behind the theft.
J.J. hadn’t been arrested; his lawyers had prevented that from happening. Dad suggested that Sheriff Esquivel had probably never expected to make the arrest anyhow; he was just making his accusation against J.J. as public as possible. Whatever the case, it certainly hadn’t worked out the way Esquivel had hoped. The fracas in front of the FunJungle administration building made the news all over the country, turning both our local police and the FunJungle security team into a laughingstock. One clip had gone viral: Marge O’Malley had attempted to deck Officer Brewster, but missed and taken out Zelda Zebra instead.
More importantly, the secret of Minerva’s existence was now out. The news of the stolen skull was the lead story on every news network. The Bonottos, Julie, Caitlyn, Madison, the Carvilles, and the Brocks all appeared on various TV reports, sadly discussing the dig and the fate of Minerva. Questions were raised about J.J. McCracken and Harper Weems, both of whom issued official press releases proclaiming their innocence and expressing their condolences.
I couldn’t sleep that night. My mind was racing, thinking about all the possible suspects in the case.
The Weems family still seemed like the most obvious choice. Even though Harper Weems had gone out of her way to explain her innocence to us, Dad and I still had a nagging feeling that she wasn’t being completely honest. (Mom didn’t suspect her at all, however; she was crazy about Harper and she’d had so much fun touring the future space hotel on Harper’s VR system that we’d had to forcibly drag her home.)
But even if Harper was innocent, that didn’t mean Jeb was too. According to his own cousin, he had been arrested for theft before. And he was lying low in Mexico. So maybe he had tipped off some criminal fossil dealers in return for a cut of the profits.
Then again, any of the other people on the dig could have tipped off criminals too. Caitlyn had tried to make off with a rare tyrannosaur tooth. Mr. Brock had mysteriously hurt himself on the same night that a suspicious visitor to the dig site had run into a tree—and he had a son in the moving business. And then there were the Bonottos…
They were in financial trouble and, by Sage’s own admission, hoping to sell the skull for a profit. They had been secretly taking offers from both J.J. McCracken and Harper Weems, looking to drive the price up. So maybe they had found a third party willing to buy the skull and then had merely claimed that it had been stolen.
Dr. Chen was another question mark. Where was she? Why hadn’t anyone seen or heard from her? She certainly seemed to be distraught over the theft, but maybe that was an act—although I couldn’t imagine why a renowned scientist would arrange for her own amazing find to be stolen. Unless maybe she was in some sort of financial trouble too.
I also couldn’t completely rule out J.J. McCracken. Even though Summer was my girlfriend, I knew her father had been involved in some questionable business dealings. Maybe he simply wanted a T. rex skeleton for his living room, rather than one to display at FunJungle.
And then, there was the very good possibility that someone else entirely had been involved. Maybe Dmitri Kleskovich or another group of fossil thieves had found out about the skull. Jeb Weems had been posting about the dig on his website without permission. He hadn’t given away the exact location, but a savvy thief who knew their way around the paleontology world could have probably figured things out.
Or perhaps word had leaked out another way. Maybe someone else from the dig had also violated the secrecy agreement and written an e-mail or text to the wrong friend. Or maybe J.J. or Harper had let word of Minerva slip to another billionaire who had the means to steal the skull.
None of which explained how the crime had even been committed in the first place. I found myself wondering about the two suspicious items my friends had found near the dig: the wooden plank with the hole in it and the neatly cut log. Had those been involved in the theft somehow, or were they merely random items? And if they were involved, how had they been used?
Was the pen from Weems Aerospace evidence against the Weems family? Or was someone trying to frame them with it? Or had Jeb simply dropped it by mistake?
And if all that wasn’t enough to lose sleep over, I also had snakes on the brain.
After dinner I had received a message from Lynda in J.J. McCracken’s office. The snake control team had visited the Barksdale home and successfully located the escaped cobra, which they had found coiled in a pile of dirty laundry. Although FunJungle had a general policy of not taking people’s pets, they had made an exception in this case, as the cobra in question had turned out to be a young Mandalay spitting cobra, which was rare and endangered. Given the scarring on it, the snake team determined that it had certainly been caught in the wild and smuggled into the United States.
Sadly, the team had not been able to take the baby alligator, as there was no room for another alligator at FunJungle, but they had given the boys a stern warning that maybe they should think twice about owning an animal that could grow to fifteen feet in length and would require a considerable amount of meat every month.
I wondered how many other people Rick had illegally sold reptiles to. There had been a decent number of animals in the back room at Snakes Alive, and yet he had claimed he was low on stock, indicating that he generally had a lot more to sell. Had most of those animals been captured from the wild and smuggled into the country? When was the next shipment coming in? And how long would it be before someone like the Barksdales got killed by something they had bought?
I finally gave up on sleep, got on my computer, and did some research into reptile trafficking. The numbers were much bigger than I had imagined. The popularity of reptiles had surged in the US in recent years; nearly five million homes were estimated to have one. And a significant portion of those were estimated to have been illegally captured in the wild. Even worse, for every reptile that made it into the country alive, an equal number were killed in the process, usually due to the horrible conditions they were often subjected to. To get them past customs, the poor animals were crammed into small containers with poor ventilation. They ended up crushed, frozen, overheated, suffocated, dehydrated, or starved to death.
As for the animals that did survive, some were certainly well-cared for and even loved by the people who
bought them, but others were mistreated or dumped into the wild by people who discovered that owning them was far more difficult than they had expected. Often, the animals died in their new habitat, but sometimes, they thrived at the expense of local animals. For example, in Florida, Everglades National Park was under siege by Burmese pythons that had been illegally released there. The pythons could grow almost as large as anacondas, and without natural predators, their population had exploded. They were gobbling up everything, even the alligators, and some parts of the national park had been rendered almost completely devoid of life.
The whole thing was shocking and unsettling to me. Thanks to the illegal pet trade, ecosystems all over the planet were being destroyed, some by having species stolen from them, others by having invasive species introduced into them. And all so that someone could have a fancy pet, when it turned out that there were plenty of healthy, captive-bred animals available—not to mention all the animals they could adopt. A quick online search proved that in central Texas alone, there were hundreds of dogs, cats, and even more exotic animals like reptiles and amphibians in need of new homes.
While I was at it, I checked up on the members of the dinosaur dig. Jeb Weems had been uncharacteristically silent on his blog; he hadn’t posted in days. I tracked down several social media accounts for Caitlyn, Madison, and Julie; now that the secret about Minerva was out, they had felt free to start posting their photos from the dig, which had all garnered hundreds of likes and comments by friends impressed that they had been involved in the discovery of a T. rex skeleton.
The Brocks and the Carvilles either hadn’t posted anything, or I hadn’t been able to find it. But I did find Robert Brock, whose website proclaimed that he owned an entire fleet of moving vehicles for every need, and over 1,200 secure storage units. Each unit was big enough to house the stolen skull.
Eventually, I returned to my bed, but still tossed and turned. When I finally did fall asleep, I was plagued by dreams of cobras, anacondas, and tyrannosaurs.
I awoke around seven, but felt as though I hadn’t slept at all. I headed into our tiny kitchen to find both my parents awake. Dad was scrambling eggs while Mom read the paper online. (My parents would have preferred a real newspaper every morning, but getting delivery to FunJungle employee housing had proven to be impossible.)
They both greeted me cheerfully, although I got the idea neither one of them had slept that well either.
“Any chance we can call Dr. Singh?” I asked. “It’s well into the day in South Africa.”
“Sure thing,” Mom said. Then she brought up the number Harper Weems had given her and dialed it.
Dr. Singh answered on the third ring.
“Dr. Singh,” Mom said, “my name is Charlene Fitzroy. I was given your number by—”
“Harper Weems?” Dr. Singh finished. “She told me to expect your call. I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Any friend of Harper’s is a friend of mine.”
Mom cupped her hand over the phone, beaming. “Harper thinks we’re friends!” she said excitedly.
“Fangirl later,” Dad told her. “Talk now.”
“Right.” Mom got back on the phone. “Did Harper explain what we would be calling about?”
“Yes. She said you would be interested in any illegal fossil dealers that might be operating in Texas. This is all about that stolen tyrannosaur that’s on the news?”
“You’ve heard about it there?” I asked.
“That’s my son, Teddy,” Mom told Dr. Singh. “And my husband, Jack, is also listening.”
“Ah yes,” Dr. Singh said. “Harper thought I might be hearing from all of you. She had a very good time meeting you last night, by the way.”
“Really?” Mom asked, getting excited again.
“I heard you got to see the virtual plans for her space hotel,” Dr. Singh said. “That must have been amazing.”
“It was incredible!” Mom exclaimed. She might have launched into a recount of the whole evening, but Dad put a calming hand on her shoulder and said, “Charlene, focus.”
“So, yes, word of the stolen tyrannosaur has made it through to here,” Dr. Singh said. “Although I’m not sure how much the press got right. They’re saying the entire skull disappeared from an active dig site, even though it was over three miles from the closest road.”
“That part is true,” Dad said.
“Really? My goodness. That is quite unprecedented.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
Dr. Singh said, “Usually, thieves hit sites that aren’t being actively excavated. They either try to beat the paleontologists to the sites in the first place, or they rob the sites during the off-season. Due to weather and financial issues, most digs only operate for a few months a year. We generally can’t remove all the fossils during that time, so many have to be left behind for subsequent excavations. That’s why we go to such lengths to keep our sites secret. But perhaps, for a tyrannosaur skull, someone was willing to take a great risk. If this truly was a tyrannosaur in Texas, that would be a tremendous loss for science.”
“That’s exactly what Dr. Chen said,” I told him.
“Ellen Chen from the University of Texas?” Dr. Singh asked.
“Yes,” Mom said. “Do you know her?”
“Oh yes! We are very good friends. I was with her at a paleontology conference just last week.”
“You were in Texas last week?” I asked.
“Texas? Goodness, no. This was in Berlin.”
I shared a look of concern with my parents.
“Ellen Chen was in Berlin last week?” Dad asked.
“Yes, although she almost didn’t make it. It’s extremely hard to get to Germany from Mongolia.”
“Mongolia?” Mom repeated.
“Where she’s digging,” Dr. Singh said. “Just like she has for the past ten years. Surely you must have known that if you’ve talked to her?”
My mind was suddenly racing, trying to make sense of how Dr. Chen could have been in Mongolia at the same time she had been in Texas, overseeing the dig at the Bonotto ranch. There was only one thing I could think of that made sense, and once that piece of the puzzle was solved, the other pieces quickly fell into place.
“We saw Dr. Chen here,” Dad was telling Dr. Singh. “Only two days ago. She’s the one who’s in charge of the tyrannosaur dig.”
“No, no, no,” Dr. Singh replied. “That can’t be. Ellen is in Mongolia excavating a new species of theropod. She was raving about it last week.”
The picture of what had happened was becoming clearer and clearer to me. Everything that had been stumping me for the past few days now began to make sense.
My parents were putting things together as well. “I’m sorry, Dr. Singh,” Mom said. “But we need to go.”
“Don’t you want my list of fossil thieves?” Dr. Singh asked.
“Not right now,” Mom said. “I think we’re okay. Thanks for your time.” Then she hung up and looked to Dad and me. “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.
“Our Dr. Chen is an impostor,” Dad said.
“And she stole the skull,” Mom added.
“Not quite,” I told them. “I think I know where it is.”
22 THE EVIL SCHEME
“The best way to commit a crime,” I told the Bonottos, “is to commit one you have a perfect alibi for.”
Back at my house, it had only taken a few minutes to confirm my theory about what had happened. Dad had already downloaded the hundreds of photos he had taken at the dig site to his computer. We had searched through all the photos to find the ones that mattered, and then sent the evidence to our phones.
Then we had called the Bonottos and told them we were on our way over. As ranchers, they were up early. In fact, Sage’s father was already out, working the cattle on horseback.
We got to the ranch as fast as we could. Luckily, all the traffic at that time of day was heading toward FunJungle rather than away from it, so we made good time,
although Dad still had to exercise caution going up the Bonottos’ driveway. Much of it had dried out in the summer heat since the storm, but many big patches of mud remained.
When we arrived at their house, Sage and his mother already had the ATVs prepped for us; Sage’s father was going to meet us at the site. So now, I was explaining my theory of what had happened as we raced across the ranch, using the radios mounted in the helmets to talk to everyone, although I still had to yell to be heard over the ATV engines.
Since this was my third time heading to the dig site in as many days, I was starting to know the route. As we sped through the woods in the early morning, we startled grazing herds of deer and spooked flocks of birds into the air.
“How can you commit a crime when you have a perfect alibi?” Sage’s mother asked me.
“You make everyone think the crime has been committed, when it hasn’t,” I said.
“Teddy, you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Mom told me. “Start at the beginning.”
“Okay.” I hit a muddy patch of ground on the ATV and slewed a bit, kicking up a spray of muck. “Mrs. Bonotto, how did you end up in touch with Dr. Chen in the first place?”
“We called the paleontology department at the University of Texas,” Sage’s mother said. “We told them what we had found, and then Dr. Chen called us. She came out to visit the site that day and got very excited and asked if we could start excavating right away. We agreed, and she had the dig going within two days.”
“Did you ever ask her for any identification?”
There was a pause while Mrs. Bonotto thought about that. “Well… no. But we had looked her up online before we called the university. Her credentials were incredible—”
Sage interrupted. “Are you saying that the woman here wasn’t really Dr. Chen?”
“Yes,” I answered. “It was only a thief who looked like Dr. Chen. Although, to be honest, it’s not like they’re twins or anything. The photo of Dr. Chen on the university website isn’t great. It’s kind of grainy. And she’s wearing a hat and sunglasses in it. But the woman who came here looked enough like her to pass. Because who would ever suspect an impostor to show up?”
