The Stolen Bones by Carolyn Keene Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t mean anything.”
    “True. But what about tire tracks?” I took a deep breath. “All right, here’s our first question. Did the thief take the fossil away on foot or in a vehicle?”
    Bess frowned. “I thought it had to be by foot, but now that I’ve seen that ATV out here …”
    “Tom said jacketed fossils weigh fifty pounds and up. That sounds like a lot to me, but he said they carry the lighter ones out in backpacks. The piece of the fossil that broke off probably wasn’t that heavy, but they may have hoped to get the whole thing. Either way, it would be easier to use a vehicle. We know now that an ATV can drive up from just about anywhere. Let’s look for tire tracks all around the rim.”
    “People will wonder what we’re doing.”
    I shrugged. “Judging by the snake, I’d say someone already knows we’re investigating.”
    We scrambled up the path Bess had used before, and we looked at the tracks left by the two young men. “Kyle was right; those ATVs do tear up the landscape,” I said. “And this dry ground would show the tracks for days.”
    “There’s more than one turn, but they may have circled around a couple of times for fun,” Bess said. “Heading out from here, it looks like just one set out and one back, but if they drove over the same path, you might not see the older tracks.”
    “So nothing definite, unfortunately.”
    We scrambled down into the streambed to complete the circle. “No more tracks,” I said. “Unless they parked farther away and walked the last part.”
    “Look, here comes Abby.” Bess pointed. Abby was hurrying down the streambed from the direction of camp. We climbed down the cliff edge to meet her.
    “What are you doing?” she snapped.
    I stared at her, wondering why she suddenly seemed so rude. “Um … just looking around.”
    “Kyle has been waiting for you,” Bess said.
    “I had to go to the bathroom,” Abby mumbled. She pushed past us.
    Bess and I raised our eyebrows at each other. “What got into her?” Bess whispered.
    I glanced at my watch. “Abby was gone more than twenty minutes. Maybe she isn’t feeling well.”
    “She wouldn’t have had time to go back to camp, so she couldn’t have been there.”
    I shrugged and we went back to the group.
    Kyle looked up as Abby approached. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Good. Let’s get this jacket turned over.”
    He grabbed a long pry bar and slid it into the gap beneath the jacket. He glanced at Grayson and Abby. “I hope you don’t mind if I take over now?”
    “Please,” Grayson said. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible.”
    Abby just nodded. She seemed distracted, or maybe she really was sick.
    Kyle worked carefully, wriggling the pry bar and moving it to different spots. There definitely seemed to be an art to the whole thing. The plastered fossil broke free with a crack, and the audience cheered. Steffi jumped forward with a small cargo net and laid it next to the jacket. “All right, let’s get the muscle in here.”
    Kyle and Tom crouched next to her. Kyle counted off “One … two …THREE!” and with a collective grunt the three of them turned over the jacket so it lay on the cargo net.
    We all stepped closer to see. The underside mostly looked like rough rock. Kyle grinned. “Great job with the excavation. There’s hardly anything exposed on this side. This will make a real treasure for the museum.” Kyle’s expression darkened suddenly. “If we can get it there,” he muttered. He stood up. “All right. Let’s finish the jacket. We need to take away a little more rock, to make it lighter, but not much—this fossil is delicate. Then we can get this side plastered.” He addressed Abby and Grayson. “Do you two feel like working on it more?”
    They agreed, and Steffi got them started.
    “Now what should we do with the rest of you?” Kyle asked.
    “I’m ready to try some excavating,” Bess said.
    “And I wouldn’t mind jacketing,” George