Fossil Frenzy Read online

  “A paleontologist,” Isobel muttered under her breath.

  A paleontologist?

  “So that’s why you know so much about dinosaur stuff,” Frank said.

  Isobel blushed. “Yeah. I didn’t want anyone at school to know, though.”

  Joe had joined them. “Why not?” he asked.

  “He’s kind of famous. For a paleontologist, that is,” Isobel said. “At my old school they used to make fun of me and call me Baby Kaltasaurus. You know, because my last name is Kaltman. They called me other mean names too, like Dino-nerd and Geek-adon.”

  “That is pretty mean,” Frank agreed. That explains why she wouldn’t raise her hand or answer Maya’s questions during the field trip, he thought.

  “So why is your dad here?” Joe asked Isobel.

  “He’s a consultant for the museum. That means he helps them look at fossils and stuff and figure out what they are,” Isobel replied. “He’s here to talk to Maya’s boss, Dr. Lebret. Dad’s introducing himself to Maya now, because she’s new.” Then she asked, “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We read about the missing T. rex tooth in the newspaper. We wanted to talk to Maya about it,” Joe said.

  “But we’re trying to help Tico find his missing tooth,” Frank added.

  Isobel dropped her book, looking flustered. She reached down to pick it up. “I’m such a klutz!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I’d better go. I think my dad’s calling me. Bye. See you tomorrow at school!” She hurried away.

  Frank and Joe exchanged a puzzled glance. What was that about? Frank wondered.

  A moment later Isobel and her dad left the lobby to find Maya’s boss. Maya spotted the Hardys and Tico. “Oh, hi!” she called out. “I remember you guys from Monday. Joe, Frank, and Tico, right? Are you here for another visit?”

  “Actually, we’re here to solve a crime. We’re private investigators,” Aunt Gertrude spoke up.

  Maya frowned. “A . . . crime? You’re . . . private investigators?”

  “No! What my aunt Gertrude means is, we wanted to ask you about the missing T. rex tooth,” Frank said quickly.

  “Tico found a tooth just like it during the dinosaur dig on Monday. His tooth is missing too,” Joe added.

  Maya turned to Tico. “You found a T. rex tooth at the dinosaur dig?” she asked him sharply.

  Tico nodded. “Well, yeah. But mine is fake.”

  Maya shook her head. She seemed really upset suddenly. “You don’t understand! Your tooth isn’t fake. It’s the real one!”

  9

  An Emergency Tree House Meeting

  Tico’s dinosaur tooth is the real one?” Joe gasped.

  “The one that’s worth three thousand dollars?” Frank added.

  Maya nodded miserably. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “But I found it in the sandpit! You said all the fossils in the sandpit were fake!” Tico pointed out.

  “I know. I think I may have made a mistake,” Maya admitted.

  “What kind of mistake?” Joe asked.

  Maya glanced around the lobby. A few people had just walked in and were buying tickets at the front desk. Maya gestured for Joe and the others to go over to a quiet corner of the lobby, behind a triceratops skull in a glass case.

  Aunt Gertrude frowned at a fine layer of dust on the case. She pulled a lacy handkerchief out of her purse and wiped the dust away.

  “I think I told you that I’m one of the exhibit assistants here,” Maya began. “That means I help prepare fossils and other exhibits for display. But on Monday I was also helping to get the dinosaur dig ready for your group and for members of the general public. To do that I put a bunch of new fossils—fake fossils, that is—into the sandpit.”

  “I think I get it. You put a real fossil into the sandpit by accident,” Joe said slowly.

  Maya nodded. “Exactly. And when my boss finds out, she’s going to kill me!”

  Aunt Gertrude tapped Frank on the shoulder. “Is this where I get out my magnifying glass?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Not yet, Aunt Gertrude,” Frank told her. “So now all we have to do is find Tico’s fossil. Then we’ll solve two mysteries,” he said to everyone else.

  “Which means our case just got easier and harder at the same time,” Joe remarked.

  • • • •

  As soon as Joe and Frank got home, they headed back to the tree house. It was time for an emergency meeting.

  Joe plopped down on a beanbag chair. Frank went up to the whiteboard. They had last updated the board the day before, after talking to Aisha at recess and to Adam after school.

  It read:

  WHO—Aisha or Adam

  WHAT—Tico’s dinosaur tooth is missing. Did one of the suspects steal it? Plus, whoever stole it put a different fossil in Tico’s bag.

  WHEN—Monday or Tuesday

  WHERE—The museum or Tico’s house or school or anywhere in between

  WHY—Aisha says she saw the tooth first and it belongs to her. Adam is a jerk and a bully.

  HOW—

  “Now we have to add all the stuff about Tico’s tooth being a real T. rex tooth,” Frank said. He picked up the pen and wrote under the word “What”:

  Plus, it turns out Tico’s tooth isn’t fake. It’s a real T. rex tooth, and it’s worth $3,000.

  Joe leaned back in the beanbag chair and studied the whiteboard. He took off his Bandits cap, turned it around, and put it back on again. He listened to the birds chirping outside. He tried to come up with a brilliant breakthrough that would solve the case once and for all.

  “We don’t have anything under How yet,” Joe said after a moment. “Do you think that’s important?”

  “Everything’s important when we’re solving a case,” Frank replied.

  “Okay. So let’s figure out the How. Tico said the last time he saw his fossil was when he put it in one of those Fossils-to-Go bags at the museum,” Joe recalled.

  Frank nodded. “He said he put the bag inside his backpack and didn’t look at it again until the science club meeting on Tuesday.”

  “So someone could have taken the fossil out of his bag whenever, then put the other fossil inside. The stegosaurus thing. What did Isobel say it was?” Joe asked.

  “She said it was a piece of a stegosaurus plate,” Frank replied.

  “I still don’t know why someone would switch fossils. To confuse Tico?” Joe wondered out loud.

  Frank’s brown eyes flashed. Joe knew that look. It meant that Frank was about to have a brilliant breakthrough.

  “What is it?” Joe asked his brother eagerly.

  “What you said just gave me an idea. What if someone didn’t steal Tico’s fossil?” Frank suggested.

  Joe frowned. “Huh?”

  “The Fossils-to-Go bags are all the same, right? What if someone mixed up his bag—or her bag—with Tico’s bag by accident?” Frank said excitedly.

  Joe considered this. “That makes sense. But who?”

  “Joe! Frank!”

  Aunt Gertrude was calling to them. Joe and Frank poked their heads out the tree house door. Their aunt was down below, waving a piece of paper in the air.

  “What is it, Aunt Gertrude?” Frank called down.

  “I forgot to tell you. When we were in the museum, I found this clue,” Aunt Gertrude explained.

  The boys lowered the rope ladder and hurried down. They took the piece of paper from Aunt Gertrude and studied it.

  It was an article from that morning’s newspaper—the article about the missing T. rex tooth.

  “I think it fell out of that girl’s book when she dropped it,” Aunt Gertrude explained.

  “What girl?” Joe asked.

  “That girl you were talking to, with the long brown hair,” Aunt Gertrude replied.

  Joe and Frank turned to each other. Isobel!

  “Isobel didn’t have a fossil on Tuesday for show-and-tell,” Frank said slowly.

  “That’s because her fossil was in Tico’s
backpack. The stegosaurus plate,” Joe added.

  “Which means that she has the T. rex tooth!” Frank concluded.

  10

  Another Dinosaur Dig

  Frank was excited. They’d solved the case!

  Frank remembered how confused Isobel had seemed at the science club meeting on Tuesday when Tico had found the stegosaurus plate in his bag. It all made sense now, since that had been her stegosaurus plate.

  Except . . . if Isobel had figured out that she’d taken Tico’s fossil by mistake, why hadn’t she come forward? Especially when she’d realized that Tico’s “fake” T. rex tooth was actually the real  T. rex tooth that was missing from the museum?

  “Great detective work, Aunt Gertrude,” Joe told her.

  Aunt Gertrude flushed with pleasure. “Thank you!”

  “Do we have time to stop by Isobel’s house before dinner?” Frank asked her. “We really need to talk to her.”

  Aunt Gertrude glanced at her watch. “Well . . . maybe I could keep the lasagna warm in the oven. I’ll let your parents know. Do you need a ride?”

  “Yes!” Joe said.

  “Please!” Frank added.

  “I’ll get my keys. And, boys? Please change your shoes before we leave. You can’t go over to someone’s house in those dirty, disgusting sneakers,” Aunt Gertrude said sternly.

  Frank and Joe smiled at each other. Aunt Gertrude was still Aunt Gertrude, detective or not!

  • • • •

  Fifteen minutes later Frank and Joe stood on Isobel’s front porch and rang the bell. They had called Maya at the museum and gotten the Kaltmans’ address from her. Aunt Gertrude waited for the boys in the car.

  The Kaltmans’ house was a big, rambling gray Victorian that backed up onto Bayport Park. A metal sculpture of a T. rex decorated the front yard. Rolled-up maps and what looked like digging tools covered the front porch.

  Inside the house a dog began barking. Then Isobel opened the door. She frowned when she saw the Hardys standing there.

  “How . . . I mean, what are you doing here?” Isobel asked nervously. “Shhh, Poppy,” she scolded her dog, who was still barking.

  “We want to talk to you about Tico’s T. rex tooth. The museum’s T. rex tooth, I mean,” Frank explained.

  “We know you have it, Isobel,” Joe blurted out. “You switched Tico’s bag with your bag by accident, didn’t you? Or did you do it on purpose?”

  Isobel startled. She glanced over her shoulder and stepped outside. Poppy followed, baring her teeth and growling at the Hardys. Isobel closed the door behind them.

  “It’s okay, Poppy. They’re from my school,” Isobel told the dog. Poppy whimpered and lay down at her feet.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident. I would never steal someone else’s things,” Isobel told Frank and Joe. “I didn’t realize I had the wrong fossil until Tuesday. Not until we did show-and-tell during science club.”

  “So where is it? Where’s the tooth?” Frank asked her.

  “I have no idea,” Isobel confessed.

  “What do you mean, you have no idea?” Joe demanded.

  Isobel sighed. “After I got home from the field trip on Monday, I put my backpack in my room. My Fossils-to-Go bag was inside it. That is, it was Tico’s fossil bag, but I didn’t know that at the time,” she corrected herself quickly. “Well, Poppy got into my backpack while I was helping with dinner. I think he pulled the T. rex tooth out and buried it in the yard. He’s done stuff like that before. Until show-and-tell on Tuesday, I thought Poppy had just taken my fake stegosaurus fossil.”

  “Poppy buried a real three-thousand-dollar fossil?” Frank gasped.

  Poppy looked at Frank with guilty eyes.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for it, but I can’t find it,” Isobel moaned. “I know I should tell my parents and Mr. Wachowski—and the museum people too. I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

  “Hmm. Maybe we can help you find it now,” Frank suggested.

  Joe nodded. “Yeah. Maybe we can have another dinosaur dig—in your yard!”

  Isobel’s face lit up. “Okay, if you think it’ll work. Here. We can borrow some of my dad’s tools.”

  The three kids picked out some shovels and rakes from the pile of digging tools. Isobel led them to the backyard. “This is where Poppy usually buries her treasures,” she said, waving her arm in a wide arc.

  Frank glanced around the yard. The back of it bordered on Bayport Park. What if Poppy had buried the fossil in the park instead of the yard? They would never find it then.

  Then something occurred to Frank.

  “Hey, I have an idea. Can you go get your Fossils-to-Go bag?” he asked Isobel.

  “Sure,” Isobel said.

  She went inside her house, Poppy at her heels. The two of them returned a few minutes later with the bag.

  Frank took the bag from Isobel and held it out to Poppy. Poppy sniffed it eagerly.

  “Go fetch, Poppy,” Frank commanded the dog. “Where’d you bury it? Where’d you bury the dinosaur tooth?”

  Poppy barked excitedly. Then he took off running.

  Frank, Joe, and Isobel followed, carrying their tools. Poppy stopped at the base of a tall oak tree and began digging frantically.

  Poppy dug . . . and dug . . . and dug. He bent down and gripped something with his teeth. Was it the tooth?

  No. It was a red ball.

  “False alarm,” Frank announced, biting back his disappointment.

  “Wait a second.” Joe pushed his shovel into the dirt where Poppy had been digging. He upturned a big mound of dirt.

  Joe sifted through the dirt. There was a rawhide bone. And a football-shaped chew toy. And an old sock.

  Under the old sock was the T. rex  tooth!

  Joe picked it up and cleaned the dirt off with the hem of his shirt. It was definitely the missing tooth.

  “Yay, we found it!” Joe announced.

  “Yay!” Isobel shouted happily.

  The three kids high-fived. Poppy began barking again.

  • • • •

  On Saturday morning Frank and Joe took their breakfast up to the tree house. They both wore hoodies over their pajamas, and rain boots. They didn’t want Aunt Gertrude lecturing them about muddy shoes.

  Joe sat down on the beanbag chair and speared a blueberry pancake with his fork. Frank folded a pancake in half like a taco and ate it with his hands as he walked up to the whiteboard.

  The notes from Thursday were still intact.

  Frank picked up the pen and added Isobel’s name to the Who list. Then he wrote under How:

  Isobel took Tico’s bag by accident. It had the real T. rex tooth in it. Her dog, Poppy, buried the tooth in their backyard.

  Joe reached into the pocket of his hoodie and handed something to Frank. It was an article that had appeared in that morning’s newspaper. The headline read:

  TWO LOCAL BOYS FIND MISSING T. REX TOOTH IN BACKYARD

  Underneath the headline was a photo of Frank and Joe.

  “Don’t forget to tape that up on the wall,” Joe told Frank proudly.

  Frank grinned. “I won’t! And there’s something else I need to do.”

  He picked up the pen again and wrote on the whiteboard:

  SECRET FILES CASE #14:

  SOLVED!

  CATCH UP ON ALL THE HARDY BOYS® SECRET FILES

  #1 Trouble at the Arcade

  #2 The Missing Mitt

  #3 Mystery Map

  #4 Hopping Mad

  #5 A Monster of a Mystery

  #6 The Bicycle Thief

  #7 The Disappearing Dog

  #8 Sports Sabotage

  #9 The Great Coaster Caper

  #10 A Rockin’ Mystery

  #11 Robot Rumble

  #12 Lights, Camera . . . Zombies!

  #13 Balloon Blow-Up

  #14 Fossil Frenzy

  A Dino-mi te Mini Glossary

  allosaurus—A type of carnivore with six-inch-
long claws and very sharp teeth. It may have hunted in packs.

  apatosaurus—A type of herbivore with a very long neck and whiplike tail. It was part of the sauropod group of dinosaurs, which were among the largest creatures ever to walk on land.

  brachiosaur—A type of herbivore with a very long neck and small skull. Like the apatosaurus, it was part of the sauropod group of dinosaurs.

  carnivore—A living organism that eats only meat.

  herbivore—A living organism that eats only plants.

  omnivore—A living organism that eats both plants and meat.

  ornithopod—A type of dinosaur that was small-to-medium-size, mostly ran on two feet, and was herbivorous. An iguanodon is an example of a dinosaur that was in the ornithopod group.

  pteranodon—A very large winged reptile that lived in the time of the dinosaurs.

  sauropod—A type of herbivore with a very long neck, a long tail, a small head, and thick, pillarlike legs.

  stegosaurus—A type of herbivore with spikes on its tail and rows of bony plates along its back. Scientists believe that the plates were used for cooling the stegosaurus’s body and for scaring away its enemies.

  triceratops—A type of herbivore with three horns and a large, bony neck frill. It had anywhere from 432–800 teeth and used them to shear its food.

  Tyrannosaurus rex—A type of carnivore with tiny arms, strong back legs, and very sharp teeth. The name is often shortened to T. rex and means “king of the tyrant lizards.”

  ultrasaurus—A type of herbivore with a very long neck, a tiny mouth, small teeth, and nostrils on the top of its head. Like the apatosaurus and brachiosaur, it was part of the sauropod group of dinosaurs.

  velociraptor—A type of carnivore with very sharp claws and teeth. It was small, fast, and skilled at hunting.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.