When Clara and Zeke discover a series of strange fossils from an unknown cat-shaped dinosaur, they expect to make a groundbreaking contribution to the science of Paleontology. Soon they find themselves in the sights of Myles Vulture, a trillionaire...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
WHAT IF YOU COULD HATCH a dinosaur from a fossilized egg? Clara dreamed about the possibility as she stared at the clutch of brown eggs inside the museum cabinet. Each one was the size of her head and as hard as stone. If she were the first person to hatch a baby dinosaur, she would be famous. Yet, Clara had no interest in becoming a celebrity. She was driven only by her passion to learn more about dinosaurs. She imagined the joy of watching its shell crack open and witnessing a baby Hadrosaurus peek out with its cute little duck bill to see the world for the first time. She chuckled at her next thought. Would it think I'm its mother?
"Over here children!" Mrs. Tetchy's raspy voice rang out.
Clara sighed. She had slipped away from the organized field trip because she was tired of Mrs. Tetchy's commentary on the exhibits. Mrs. Tetchy was her fourth grade teacher, and although she knew a lot about grammar, history and math, Clara was amazed that she could be so consistently wrong when it came to dinosaurs. At first, Clara had tried to help by correcting her teacher's mistakes, but that had only made Mrs. Tetchy increasingly angry, so Clara had snuck away from the group. But now she found herself cornered as her classmates gathered around.
"Take a look," Mrs. Tetchy said as she brushed a few strands of curly red hair away from her face and began the lecture. "In this display case we can see a fossilized egg of a Stegosaurus."
Clara frowned. "Umm, Mrs. Tetchy... I'm sorry to inform you that this isn't a Stegosaurus egg. It's a Hadrosaurus egg."
Mrs. Tetchy retorted, "Now Clara, I'm tired of you trying to be a know-it-all. Sometimes you should let your teacher do the talking. Stegosaurus or Hadrosaurus... How would you know the difference?"
From the aggravated tone of her teacher's voice, Clara knew she would have to be diplomatic to avoid any further trouble. "Mrs. Tetchy, Stegosaurus had plates running along his back and lived during the late Jurassic period, approximately seventy million years prior to the appearance of this type of Hadrosaurus, which was a duck-billed dinosaur from the Cretaceous. I've seen many photos of their eggs, and the Stegosaurus eggs are ovoid whereas this one is spherical, and thus a Hadrosaurus egg."
"If that's true, then why is this exhibit labeled as a 'Stegosaurus Egg'?"
The students erupted with laughter. Red-faced, Clara stared over at the plaque labeled exactly as Mrs. Tetchy had indicated. Clara never bothered to check museum labels due to the fact that she spent hours on end studying books about fossils.
"I... I... I'm sure it's a mistake," Clara stammered.
"A mistake?" Mrs. Tetchy laughed. "Well, why don't we ask our resident dinosaur expert? Roy!"
Clara groaned when her teacher called out for her older brother, Roy. For some reason, Mrs. Tetchy adored Roy ever since he had been her student two years ago. Now that he was in sixth grade, Roy was no longer in her class. However, students from every class and grade had been allowed to sign up for the joint field trip to visit the sneak preview of the museum's new wing of dinosaur fossils. The official opening for the general public was only a few weeks away.
