Fossil Frenzy Read online

  Chet reached into his Fossils-to-Go bag. He held up a small, pointy fossil. “I think it might be a T. rex claw!” he said excitedly.

  “Yeah, in your dreams. It’s probably an old toothpick,” Adam said, smirking.

  “Adam, if you’re going to be part of this group, you need to get along,” Mr. Wachowski warned him.

  “Fine,” Adam said, rolling his eyes.

  After Chet’s turn Frank shared his fossil, which was a thick white bone fragment. Some of the other kids guessed that it might be a piece of a dinosaur skull. Then Joe shared his fossil, which looked like a smooth, round rock. Mr. Wachowski suggested that it might be something called a “gizzard stone.” He said that some herbivores swallowed these to help them digest their food.

  Tico waved his hand in the air. “Can I go next? Please? I really want to share my super-awesome dinosaur tooth!”

  “Go ahead, Tico,” Mr. Wachowski said.

  Across from Frank, Aisha rolled her eyes. She’s probably still mad at Tico, Frank thought.

  Tico dug into his backpack and pulled out his Fossils-to-Go bag. He shook it onto the table.

  A fossil tumbled out. Frank frowned. It wasn’t the curved brown tooth Tico had found the day before. It was wider, flatter, and lighter in color. It had a jagged edge, like it was a fragment of something.

  Alarmed, Tico stuck his hand back into the bag and said, “Hey! That’s not what I was going to show. My super-awesome dinosaur tooth is gone!”

  5

  On the Case

  Tico turned his bag inside out. There was nothing else in the bag. He searched the rest of his backpack, too. But the tooth wasn’t there, either.

  “Who stole my tooth fossil and left me with this dumb bone?” he called out angrily.

  Isobel leaned over and peered closely at Tico’s fossil. Her brown eyes widened in surprise. “It’s not a dumb bone. It’s a piece of a stegosaurus plate,” she said slowly.

  “A plate? You mean like the kind you eat on?” Phil asked, puzzled.

  Isobel shook her head. “No. Stegosauruses have those big flat triangle things that stick up on their spines. They’re called plates. The plates helped the stegosauruses cool off their bodies. They may have helped them scare away their enemies, too.”

  “Wow! How do you know so much about dinosaurs, Isobel?” Joe asked curiously.

  Isobel didn’t answer. She picked up Tico’s fossil and turned it over in her hand. She seemed confused about something.

  “I don’t care if it’s a stegosaurus teacup. It’s not mine,” Tico complained. “Who took my dinosaur tooth? Come on. Fess up! Now!”

  “Nobody has your stupid tooth,” Aisha snapped.

  Tico grabbed Aisha’s bag from her. “You took it, didn’t you?”

  Aisha grabbed the bag back from him. “No! The only thing that’s in here is my dinosaur skin fossil. Which I found. It’s mine. See?” She dumped the contents of her bag onto the table. A strawberry-size fossil fell out. Joe stared at it. Its surface had an interesting pattern, like alligator scales.

  “I’m sure your tooth will turn up,” Mr. Wachowski reassured Tico.

  Tico slumped down on his stool. He didn’t look sure at all.

  • • • •

  After the science club meeting was over, Tico came up to Frank and Joe in the hallway. “You guys are detectives, right? Can you find my dinosaur tooth for me? Please?” he begged.

  Frank and Joe exchanged a glance. “Yeah, we can help you,” Joe replied.

  “When was the last time you saw your fossil?” Frank asked Tico.

  Tico considered this. “Um . . . yesterday at the museum? I put my bag in my backpack. My Fossils-to-Go bag, I mean. When I got home, we had a party for my dad’s birthday, and today was school, so I didn’t take the bag out till just now.”

  “Okay. We’ll get right on your case and give you an update tomorrow,” Joe promised.

  “Thanks, guys!” Tico said gratefully. “If you find my tooth, I’ll give you one of my super-rare editions of Dirk Danger, Dinosaur Detective.” Among other things, Tico was a huge fan of comic books.

  The Hardys said good-bye to Tico and headed home. The school was only a few blocks from their house, so they were allowed to walk on their own. Along the way they jumped over mud puddles and hummed the Dirk Danger, Dinosaur Detective theme—one of their favorite TV shows.

  Once home, Joe and Frank said a quick hi to their mom, who was making tacos for dinner. Then they went straight to their secret tree house.

  The tree house was nestled deep in the woods at the back of the Hardys’ property. Their dad had built it for them. Besides their parents and Aunt Gertrude, only their closest friends even knew it existed. In fact, it was pretty much invisible unless someone was looking for it.

  Joe reached up and tugged on a rope that was attached to a pulley. A second later a ladder tumbled down. He and Frank climbed up the ladder and into the tree house. They tried to be careful not to track mud on the wooden floor.

  Joe set his backpack down. Frank did the same and went over to the whiteboard hanging on the wall. He picked up a pen and began to write:

  WHO

  WHAT

  WHEN

  WHERE

  WHY

  HOW

  The boys used this note-taking method with every case. They called it the six Ws, even though “How” wasn’t a W word. Joe wasn’t a huge fan of taking notes, but he had to admit that it helped them organize their thoughts.

  “Well? Which W do you want to tackle first?” Frank asked Joe.

  “We already know the What. Tico’s dinosaur tooth is missing,” Joe replied.

  Frank jotted that down. “And the When is sometime yesterday or today,” Frank added. He wrote: Monday or Tuesday.

  “Now we just need the Who, Where, Why, and How,” Joe said.

  “The Where could be the museum or Tico’s house or school—or anywhere in between,” Frank guessed.

  Joe nodded, thinking. A bus had taken the science club members back to school around three o’clock yesterday. Joe didn’t remember Tico or any of the other kids entering the school building before going home.

  According to Tico, he’d put his Fossils-to-Go bag in his backpack at the museum and hadn’t looked inside it until the science club meeting today. So Frank was right. The fossil could have disappeared at the museum, at Tico’s house, at school, or anywhere in between.

  Frank tapped his pen against the whiteboard. “Okay. Now let’s think about the Why. Why would someone steal Tico’s fossil?” he mused.

  “Because someone really, really wanted it?” Joe replied.

  The two brothers stared at each other and grinned. “Aisha!” they said at the same time.

  6

  The Suspect

  The next day at recess Frank and Joe found Aisha on the playground, swinging on the yellow climbing hoops. Nearby, a bunch of kids were playing tag. Another group was digging for worms under the old maple tree.

  “Hey, Aisha, can we talk to you?” Frank called out.

  “What do you want? I’m kind of busy,” Aisha replied, continuing to swing.

  “We wanted to talk to you about Tico’s dinosaur tooth,” Joe said.

  Aisha stopped swinging and jumped nimbly to the ground. She brushed her hands against her jeans. “What about it?” she asked suspiciously.

  “He asked us to try to find it for him,” Frank began.

  “Why would I know anything about it? Tico lost it. It’s his own fault,” Aisha huffed.

  “Are you sure? Because yesterday at the museum you and Tico had a big, huge fight about it,” Joe reminded her. “You told everybody that it was yours. You even called him a thief.”

  Aisha’s hazel eyes grew huge. “Wait, are you calling me a thief ? You think I stole it from him ?” she demanded.

  “Well, did you?” Frank asked.

  Aisha sighed. “Um, no? Even though that fossil was mine. I saw it first. But Tico pushed me aside and
grabbed it!”

  “Tico pushed you?” Joe said, surprised.

  “Well, not pushed me, exactly. But you know what I mean,” Aisha replied.

  Frank considered this. “Why don’t you and Tico like each other?” he asked after a moment.

  Aisha’s cheeks turned bright red. “Last week I heard him say to a bunch of kids that he was the best at science in the whole fourth grade,” she explained. “I went up and told him I was. He thinks he’s so smart. Well, I’m smarter! I won the science fair last year at my old school, and I was only in third grade!”

  Wow, Aisha’s pretty competitive, Frank thought.

  Actually, Aisha and Tico were both pretty competitive, at least when it came to science—and dinosaurs.

  “Huh. So is that why you stole his fossil from him?” Joe piped up smoothly. “And why did you put that other fossil in his bag? Were you trying to confuse him?” Frank could tell that his brother was trying to trick Aisha into a confession.

  But Aisha wasn’t falling for Joe’s act. “I already told you. I didn’t steal it!” she said angrily. “I’m not talking to you guys anymore! Or ever again!”

  With that, Aisha turned on her heel and ran off to join her friends.

  • • • •

  After school Frank found Joe at his cubby, searching for something. Other kids were at their cubbies too, getting ready to go home.

  “What’s up?” Frank asked his brother.

  “What? Oh, I can’t find my Bandits cap,” Joe replied distractedly. He rifled through gym socks, mismatched ski gloves, and a couple of old comic books.

  “Okay, well, we should go. Aunt Gertrude wants us to help clean the garage, remember? Then we need to work on the case,” Frank reminded him.

  Joe stood up. “But we already solved the case. Aisha was lying. She stole Tico’s fossil. Now we just have to make her confess and give it back to him.”

  Just then Tico came running down the hall. “Frank! Joe! I found my fossil!” he exclaimed.

  7

  A Three-Thousand-Dollar Mystery

  You found your fossil?” Joe asked Tico excitedly. “Did Aisha give it back to you?”

  Tico stopped in front of Joe’s cubby. He frowned, confused. “What? No, not Aisha—Adam. I heard him talking about my fossil with Melissa and Todd,” he explained.

  Adam! Joe thought. I should have known!

  “So you think Adam has it?” Frank prompted Tico.

  “I know Adam has it. He told Melissa and Todd he owned a rare dinosaur tooth fossil. He offered to sell it to them for ten dollars,” Tico replied.

  “Seriously? Where is he now?” Joe asked.

  “Outside,” Tico replied.

  “Come on. We have to stop him!” Joe said. He grabbed his backpack and started running down the hall. Frank and Tico followed.

  When the three boys got outside, they found Adam standing near the idling school buses with Melissa Jones and her brother, Todd. Joe noticed that Adam was wearing a Bandits baseball cap that was several sizes too small for him. It also had a small stain on the rim.

  Just like my Bandits cap, Joe thought, clenching his fists.

  “Hey, Adam? Where’d you get that hat?” Joe demanded.

  “I found it in some loser’s cubby,” Adam said, and then smirked.

  “That’s my hat. Give it back!” Joe fumed.

  “Relax. Deep breaths,” Frank whispered to Joe.

  Joe was beyond trying to relax. Why did Adam have to be such a jerk all the time?

  “Hey, Hardys? You’re interrupting our important meeting,” Melissa snapped. She pulled a small pink mirror out of her backpack and smiled at her reflection. She and Todd had been in a TV commercial once, and they thought they were celebrities—especially Melissa.

  “Yeah. Melissa and Todd were about to pay me a lot of money for a very important artifat,” Adam explained.

  “You mean artifact. And it’s my artifact,” Tico snapped.

  “You mean this?” Adam held out his fist and uncurled his fingers.

  Tico’s dinosaur tooth!

  Or was it? Joe leaned in to study it closely. On first inspection it looked like Tico’s dinosaur tooth. It was brown and curved, and it was the right size.

  But on closer inspection Joe saw that the color wasn’t quite right.

  He reached over and grabbed it quickly before Adam could stop him.

  “Hey! That’s mine! Give it back!” Adam shouted.

  Joe picked up the tooth and dangled it in the air.

  It was made of hard brown-colored clay.

  “Looks like I just saved you guys ten dollars,” Joe told Melissa and Todd.

  Just then Joe noticed Isobel standing a few feet away. She was watching them intently. Joe waved to her. She blushed and quickly walked away.

  Adam turned to see whom Joe had waved to. Joe took the opportunity to grab the Bandits cap off Adam’s head.

  “Hey!” Adam yelled.

  Two for two, Joe thought triumphantly.

  • • • •

  The next morning at breakfast Fenton Hardy set his newspaper aside and turned to his sons. “So I hear you’re working on a new case,” he said.

  Frank nodded. “We’re looking for a missing fossil.”

  “A fossil? Really?” Mr. Hardy said with interest.

  “It’s not a real fossil, exactly. It’s made of liquid rubber and fiber-something,” Joe replied.

  “Fiberglass,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, that. We dug for fossils during our field trip to the Bayport Natural History Museum. Tico found a dinosaur tooth. But then someone stole it from him. Our main suspect is this girl named Aisha Mehta.” Joe picked up his cereal bowl and slurped down the milk.

  “Joe Hardy! Manners!” Aunt Gertrude called out from the kitchen. “And no hats at the table!”

  “Sorry,” Joe mumbled. He took off his Bandits cap. Ha-ha, Adam, he thought smugly, remembering how he had swiped the cap off Adam’s head the day before.

  “Wait. Did you say a dinosaur tooth? That’s very odd,” Mr. Hardy said.

  “Why, Dad?” Frank asked curiously.

  Mr. Hardy picked up the newspaper and scanned the front page. “I just saw an article about a missing dinosaur tooth. Here it is.”

  Mr. Hardy pointed to a big headline. It read:

  FOSSIL MISSING FROM NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

  Underneath that headline, a smaller headline read:

  Dinosaur Tooth Reported to Be Worth $3,000

  “Three . . . thousand . . . dollars?” Joe gasped.

  8

  A Tale of Two Teeth

  Wow, I wish my teeth were worth that much. I’d be rich!” Frank remarked.

  Mr. Hardy laughed. “Very rich,” he agreed.

  Frank and Joe leaned in to read more. According to the article, museum officials had reported the day before that one of their dinosaur tooth fossils was missing from their collection. It was a T. rex tooth that paleontologists had discovered in northeastern Montana along with a lot of other T. rex remains. The scientists believed the tooth to be approximately sixty-five million years old.

  There was a photo of the lost tooth. It looked just like the tooth Tico had found on Monday.

  “Wow! Tico’s tooth is a T. rex tooth!” Joe exclaimed.

  Frank frowned in confusion. Something didn’t add up. “That doesn’t make sense. Maya told us that the fossils we found at our dinosaur dig weren’t real.”

  “So we’re talking about two missing teeth? Tico’s and the real one?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know. We should talk to Tico about this,” Frank suggested.

  “We should probably visit the museum again too. Maybe Maya can tell us about the other missing tooth. The real one, I mean,” Joe said.

  “Good idea, Joe.” Frank turned to Mr. Hardy. “Hey, Dad, can you take us to the museum after school?”

  “I wish I could, but I have to meet a client. I bet Aunt Gertrude could probably drive you over, though. If yo
u ask her nicely,” Mr. Hardy said.

  Aunt Gertrude popped her head out of the kitchen. “Did I hear my name? Do you boys need me to help you with your detective work?”

  “Um, yes, Aunt Gertrude.” Joe raised his eyebrows at Frank.

  “Please,” Frank added quickly.

  • • • •

  Later that afternoon Aunt Gertrude pulled into the museum parking lot. “Here we are,” she announced to Frank, Joe, and Tico, who were sitting in the backseat. “Let’s go hunting for clues, or whatever it is you detectives do. I brought my flashlight and magnifying glass, just in case.”

  Frank had never seen their aunt so excited about anything other than housecleaning. She had been talking about fingerprints and lie detector tests during the entire ride over from school.

  “I still don’t get it. Why are we here?” Tico asked the brothers. “My tooth is a pretend T. rex tooth. The museum people are missing a real T. rex tooth.”

  “I know. But isn’t it weird that your tooth and their tooth look the same? And that they both disappeared at the same time?” Frank pointed out.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Tico said uncertainly.

  The three boys got out of the car and headed into the museum. Aunt Gertrude followed.

  Frank spotted Maya near the bronze pteranodon statue in the lobby. She was talking to a man in a gray suit. A girl stood a few feet away from them, her head bent over a dog-eared book.

  The girl looked familiar. Frank did a double take. It was Isobel from school!

  Isobel glanced up from her book. Frank waved to her. Her eyes flashed in alarm, and she looked down as though she hadn’t seen the Hardys or Tico.

  Frank strolled over to her. “Hey, Isobel. What are you doing here?” he asked casually.

  “I—um—I’m here with my dad,” Isobel stammered.

  “Your dad?”

  Isobel nodded toward the man in the gray suit. He was still talking to Maya.

  “That’s him. He’s, um, a scientist,” Isobel explained.

  “Really? What kind of scientist?” Frank asked.