Hobart was so gleeful! He found a dinosaur tooth!!! His friends laughed! They mocked, “it’s just a piece of old broken pottery!” They were very articulate children.
But Hobart paid them no mind. He knew who to talk to! He carefully wrapped it up in one of his socks, and placed in the top drawer of his dresser. Wait!!! He ran back! His mother would worry it! She’s gonna tip it out and… Where to put it!! He needed to keep it safe until after school on Monday!
Where did he put it to keep it safe, Steven?!?
All the rest of that day he worried, even after Steven had told him where to keep it safe, and he made up reasons for his curious mother should she wonder why he kept coming back in the house to check if it was still there. Angst!
All day at school, he worried, he’d brought it with him, wrapped in a clean handkerchief, and put it in his locker, at the back, under the gym strip bag.
As soon as the dismissal bell rang, Hobart ran to his locker!!! Phew! Still there, he looked left and right and checked his rear view mirror, what?!? wait?!? What?!?! I thought he was in a grocery story shopping?!?! Now he’s driving a car, Laurence you’re not making any sense boy!!!
He placed the precious package into his windbreaker’s pocket, and zipped it closed.
He ran to his bike, hopped aboard, pulled ET from the rack over it’s front wheel and said, “sorry, ET, but I have bigger well worn metaphor’s to fry!” and left the faded rubber fellow in some leaves by the bike rack at school there.
He rode to the centre of town, and locked up his bike outside the museum, and ran up the steps. He stopped, gathered his breath, or caught it Hmmm? He took out his hanky and dried his perspiring brow!
“WAIT!!! He’ll drop the…”
Not THAT hanky! the other one!
he looked at his reflection in the window of the big glass doors, and fixed his hair, and straightened his zipper. As he did so he peered in to see if Bobby Brown was on duty!
“Please, oh please, God… not today!”
Mr Brown, the one security guard that always gave him grief!
He pulled the door, and looked right and left, and pulled his lifetime membership pass from his back pocket, and tapped the reader, the turn style “clicked” he pushed his belly against the flippers, and he was easing himself in, when he heard him!
“Hobart! Isn’t it a bit early to be checking out the exhibits!?”
Hobart closed his eyes, and once again gathered his strength, dignity, and hid all the angst he could and turned to look… it was Mr. Marchinko! Oh my gosh! PHEW!
“How did you?!?” Hobart exclaimed,
(chuckling) “So sorry my little friend, I couldn’t resist! I’ve been practicing for a while now, if he caught me we’d both be dead!” Then they both laughed!
“Now then,” Mr Marchinko continued, “Why are you all so worked up, and wandering in here so early in the day?”
“Well, let me tell you…” Hobart sighed with relief.
In his office now, looking out the big windows at the clear blue sky, dotted with fluffy cumulonibal clouds – he doesn’t know, and Mr. Marchinko never corrected him! He liked Hobart’s little typographical errors!
Looking out the window, he told the man about his find. As he carefully reached into his pocket, Mr. Marchinko found that he was holding his breath, he was really quite interested to see what Hobart had brought him!
As the story unfolded, along with the handkerchief, Mr Marchinko, waited – paused – held back his initial fears, and the panic… he breathed out slowly, barely audible, and then said, quite calmly,
“Hobart, my dear boy, tell me more about this find?”
Hobart, gazing at the ‘tooth’ and turning it over in the kerchief as it lay on his hand, didn’t look up,
“The neighborhood children and I were running around on the bike trails, and Ben pushed me – on a accident! – and I went flying! and skidded down that sandy slope that leads to the Big Dipper?” Hobart’s voice enflected up to sound more like a question than a statement…
“ARE YOU TELLING ME THE TRUTH!!!” Mr Marchinko yelled at the top of his lungs…
no, wait… that’s uncharacteristic of Mr. Marchinko’s character in this story!
“Yes, I know where you mean, are you ok? Any broken bones?” he lightly chuckled
“what? oh, no, I was fine, just a little dusty is all, and Ben laughed but quickly said he was sorry, and was helping me back up, when I saw something sticking out of the the embankment. I think it had maybe eroded a bit more, and exposed this…”
Mr Marchinko, took another breath, and cautioned, “well, we’ve talked about this before, Hobart, right? No harm! remember?”
Hobart looked up at Mr. Marchinko’s kind eyes that were twinkling, and realized that in his excitement he’d forgotten all about that!
Mr. Marchinko, saw the regret in Hobart’s eyes, and consoled his young protege, “ok! Good! nuff said about that! How will Steven feel about casual spelling errors, especially deliberate ones!?!”
“Can you take me there?” He queried.
Mr Marchinko retrieved his bike from the underground parkaid, and wondered how to spell it. As he rode out, Hobart joined him, and they raced each other back to the bike trails, and along that path that led to the Big Dipper.
“There! Do you see?” Hobart was pointing at some newly exposed tree roots and crumbling earth.
Mr. Marchinko’s more experienced eye saw that there was much more there than Hobart had realized or seen! The megaladon tooth had enticed him, and blinded him to the other clues that lay all around.
“A megaladon?!? how do you even spell that? And how the heck could such a thing get here, by this river, in the middle of a town so well established?” But he was quite relieved at the minimal damage to the site. He turned to his little friend,
“All is well! Mr Brown won’t hear it from me!” They both laughed again as he continued, “…listen, minimal damage done here, but wait here, and guard this spot, I’ll get some folks here.”
As Mr Marchinko rode away on the road from the eroded embankment, Laurence wondered how far he could take the homonyms without Steven becoming bored.
As the archeologists arrive one by one, at first from the nearby larger city, and then from as far away as the capital, Hobart marveled at all the fuss. There was a fence around the site perimeter, and flags, and signage. Little men in white hazmat suits, and funny hats that entirely covered their hair, were carefully brushing away the dirt with brushes, tiny spatulas, and pen knives. Another stood by making notes, and others were carefully placing things in jars, and placing them in a tote. The news media was there, and they were being reigned in by Mr Brown! Suddenly Hobart appreciated that hated attribute of Mr Browns! He had things under control.
“yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ll know when we know, just keep back, we don’t want the site contaminated.”
“What’s all the fuss!” one of the reporters mocked, while trying to get a better angle through his lens, “What the heck do you think you have there!”
“It’s Steven’s soul!” Mr Marchinko and Hobart replied, but out of earshot of that crude crowd, “We’re listening to the buried past, and the hopeful future, while gazing into the now, of Stephen encountering his creator, through the creator’s word.”
Running Down Vimy 