Hobart was so gleeful! He found a dinosaur tooth!!! His friends laughed! They mocked, “it’s just a piece of old broken pottery!”
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! In the hallway, upstairs, the cold air intake. He’d often used that before to hide Mom’s Birthday presents. He snapped his fingers and mimicked the Artful Dodger’s voice, “Yeah, boy, that’s the ticket!”
All the rest of that day he worried, even after he’d found such a great spot! 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!
He placed the precious package into his windbreaker’s pocket, and zipped it closed.
He ran to his bike, hopped aboard, and remembered! “The LOCK!” he freed himself and his bike, and zoomed away toward the centre of town, locked up his bike out front of the museum, and ran up the steps.
He stopped, caught his breath, and reaching for his hanky to dry his perspiration, he stopped himself! “That’s the tooth in it!!” and he used his sleeve instead.
He paused to take a look at his reflection in the window of the big glass doors, fixed his hair, and straightened his zipper, and looking through the glass, he peered in to see if Edward Hopper was on duty!
“Please, oh please, God… not today!”
Mr Edward Hopper, the one security guard that always gave him grief!
He pulled the door, and looked right and left, while pulling his lifetime membership pass out from under his shirt, and fully unfurling the lanyard, he tapped the reader, and heard the turn style “click”. 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. Marchenko! 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 Marchenko 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 cumulonimbus clouds he told his trusted friend about his find. As he carefully reached into his pocket, Mr. Marchenko himself found that he was holding his breath, he was really quite excited to see what Hobart had brought him!
As the story unfolded, along with the handkerchief, Mr Marchenko, 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,
“My buddy and I were riding around on the Monkey 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 inflected up to sound more like a question than a statement…
“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, on account of the rain we had on Friday night (his voice revealed the query) and exposed this…”
Mr Marchenko, took another breath, and cautioned, “well, we’ve talked about this before, Hobart, right? No harm! remember?”
Hobart looked up at Mr. Marchenko’s kind eyes that were twinkling, and realized that in his excitement he’d forgotten all about that!
But Mr. Marchenko, saw the regret in Hobart’s eyes, and consoled his young protege, “Ok! Good! nuff said about that!”
“Can you take me there?” He queried.
Mr Marchenko retrieved his bike from the underground parkade. As he rode out, Hobart joined him, and they raced each other back to the Monkey 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. Marchenko’s more experienced eye saw that there was much more there than Hobart had realized or seen! The Megalodon tooth had enticed him, and blinded him to the other clues that lay all around.
“A Megalodon! 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 Hopper 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 Marchenko rode away on the road from the eroded embankment, he worked out a plan in his mind, and who to call, lots to do, so exciting!
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. Hopper! Suddenly Hobart appreciated that oh so hated attribute of Mr. Hopper’s! 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 only history” Mr Marchenko and Hobart said in unintentional unison, and with ever so slightly bit of disdain, but out of earshot of that crude crowd, and then together they recited the motto of the Junior Archeological Society’s Creed:
“Being careful to do no harm, we’re listening to the buried past, with a hope for the future, while gazing into all that is now.”
Running Down Vimy 