The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg

  By June Whyte

  Copyright 2012 by June Whyte

  Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg

  A Chiana Ryan Mystery

  By June Whyte

  ONE

  The museum smelled of dust. Of old things. Of dry stuffed animals with blank staring eyes. It was our school end-of-term excursion and our teacher was herding us through the South Australian Museum—‘to enrich our lives, by observing how others lived in the past’.

  They’re Ms Winters—our year seven teacher’s words—not mine.

  My name is Chiana Ryan and I’m more into solving mysteries and writing stories, than studying dead things. Although we, (that’s me and my best friend, Tayla) did stumble across a dead body while solving our last mystery. And we, (that’s me, Tayla, Jack, Sarah and my goof-off bulldog, Leroy) did come close to being made dead ourselves when the bad guys kidnapped us.

  I sighed, a long drawn-out sigh. My best friend, Tayla, who is normally sane and fun to be with, was babbling on about horses. Yeah, horses. You know, those biting, kicking, hairy things that bolt, rear, buck or just plain lie down on top of you—just for the fun of it. And after trying unsuccessfully to shut Tayla up, I was opting whether to dump her in a mummy case, or ask my buddy, Jack, to help me lock her in with the stuffed crocodiles.

  What a swizz! She’d read two horse magazines the night before and today she was an expert on the subject.

  I turned to Jack who was dead keen on museum stuff. All elbows and knees, Jack towered over me by a good five inches. His short spiky red hair stuck up like porcupine quills. Probably forgot to comb it when he got out of bed this morning. His light blue school shirt had a damp stain on the front that looked suspiciously like milk from his morning bowl of Weeties.

  “Hey, Jack, aren’t these shrunken heads something else?” I asked, pointing to a large glass case full of wooden spears, clubs, nose decorations and human heads. The heads were black and shrunken to the size of large fists.

  Jack McEvoy’s blue eyes widened as he peered closer at the grisly exhibit.

  “Wow!” he breathed. “Says here these heads are over three hundred years old. People sure had cool hobbies back then. More fun than collecting stamps.”

  I’d been hoping to distract Tayla with the shrunken heads—but no luck. Her eyes, still glazed over with horsy zeal, didn’t even flicker in the direction of the glass case. Instead, she linked arms with me.

  “Isn’t it great your mum saying I can go with you and Sarah for the holidays? Did you know she rung Sarah’s Aunt Kate and arranged it for us?”

  “Mmmm…” I mumbled with about as much enthusiasm as a snail lining up for a race with a greyhound.

  My mum and step-father, Ken, had decided to go on a belated honeymoon, which was okay with me. After all, they’d been married for six months and deserved some time together. But I’d counted on spending those two weeks with Tayla—at her place—doing cool stuff like playing computer-games and painting our toe-nails green and jumping off the Semaphore jetty and swimming in the sea and practicing our sleuthing skills in case another mystery popped up just begging to be solved. Not shoveling smelly horse-poo at a riding school. And definitely not with my pain-in-the-place-you-sit-on step-sister, Sarah, and a step-Aunt I’d never even met.

  Why did Tayla have to go and spoil everything?

  Geez, if a stray dog glanced at Tayla, she’d turn a vomit shade of yellow. If a hairy spider came within eye-balling distance of her, she’d break the two minute mile running away. Yet she wanted to spend our precious school holidays with biting, kicking, snorting horses.

  And what was worse—she was dragging me along too.

  Suddenly, you-know-who smiled and punched me on the arm. “Hey, come on sour-puss. This holiday will be fun.”

  Fun? I scowled my meanest dragon scowl. “I don’t like horses.”

  My friend put on her snooty look, the one she usually keeps for scabby boys and little kids who annoyed her. Through squinty eyes I watched her hitch up her navy school skirt—all the better to show off her picture perfect legs—and toss her fairy-tale curly blonde hair from her eyes.

  “Chiana,” she said in her best grown-up voice. “The best way to overcome fear is to confront it.”

  Aaaarrrgggghhh!

  My normally fun best friend sounded like she’d swallowed the self-help book we’d borrowed from the library the week before. I glared my frustration. “I never said I was afraid of horses—I just don’t like them!”

  “Oh. So how come you fainted when that policeman’s horse brushed up against you in last year’s Christmas pageant?”

  “Tayla, it was forty-two degrees in the shade that day. People were dropping like flies after a ‘Sprayathon’. Or didn’t you notice?”

  “Whatever.”

  I turned away, hopping mad. Perhaps I could talk Mum into letting me stay home on my own while they went on their belated honeymoon.

  In the Egyptian Room, while everyone else oohed and aahhed over the tombs and embalmed mummies—like poor Renpit-Nefert who died and got herself wrapped in bandages about two and a half thousand years ago—Tayla rambled on about horse-feeds.

  In the Kauri room, while we were supposed to be taking notes on aboriginal artifacts, Tayla described every stitch of the new two-toned jodhpurs her mum bought her the day before.

  “Probably be three-toned after you hit the ground a few times,” I mumbled as we followed the class through the doorway and toward everyone’s favorite museum display, the 120 million year old opalesced fossil, Addyman Plesiosaur.

  The enormity of this specimen even shut Tayla up. A sign in front of the monster said this was the largest and most complete dinosaur ever found and although it represented a new species, couldn’t be named because important parts of the skeleton were missing.

  I hugged my bag to my body and looked up at the huge reconstructed figure towering above us. Even though it was only made of bones wired together, the prehistoric monster was scary enough to make me shiver in the warmth of the central heating. Fancy having one of those ugly critters chasing after you waving a knife and fork. Made horses seem almost cuddly.

  At the bottom of the display
a fossilized dinosaur egg, proclaiming to have the embryo of a Therizinosaur inside perched on its special stand. I stared sadly at the dirty grey egg which was about 3½″ round and thought: Poor little guy—didn’t even get to be born.

  The egg wobbled.

  I squished my eyes shut, opened them again, and stared.

  The egg stared right back at me.

  I shook my head and blinked. Perhaps Tayla was sending me crazy and making me see things that weren’t really there.

  Evidently tired of getting no response from me, Tayla turned to Jack and was raving on to him.

  “What about you, Jack?” she asked. “I bet you’re looking forward to our holiday. Sarah’s Aunt Kate says we get a horse of our own to look after and ride. She also said on the last day we’ll be competing in something called a Team Cross-Country event.”

  “Yeah, should be fun,” answered Jack, his eyes still glued to the monster stack of bones in front of us. “I can’t get there for the first week though. Have to play in the footy finals on Saturday.”

  “Why?”

  “Tayla, give it a rest,” I growled, still surveying the sneaky egg. “Of course Jack has to play in the finals. He’s their best player and also the team captain.”

  And then the egg moved again.

  It rocked from side to side as though the prehistoric baby inside was getting ready to burst out of its shell.

  I took a long step backwards. After so many millions of years without food I reckoned Baby Dino would have to be starving and I had no intention of being the first course on his menu.

  “Did you see that?” I whispered, grabbing Tayla by the arm.

  “See what?”

  “That dinosaur egg moved. I think it’s going to hatch.”

  Both Tayla and Jack looked at me as though I had suddenly sprouted an extra nose.

  “Dinosaur eggs can’t move,” said Jack. “Or hatch.”

  “They can’t do anything,” added Tayla trying to pull her arm from my death-grip. “They’re fossilized.”

  Before I could argue, a muscly guy dressed in a maroon and yellow uniform, like a museum curator, came barreling into the room. He crashed into me, then, without a word of apology, kept going—as though knocking a school-girl in the stomach with his elbow and scattering her notes over the floor was all in a day’s work.

  Tayla goggled, while Jack bent down to pick up my notes.

  “Did that creep hurt you?” he asked handing the papers back to me.

  “Nah. I’m okay.”

  I turned around, ready to tell the human whirlwind what I thought of him, but he was gone. I’d remember him though. Thin face, greasy dark hair, garlicky breath and an elbow sharpened to a pencil point.

  I frowned in concentration. “You know, Jack, I don’t think that guy’s a museum worker at all. I reckon he’s a fake.”

  “You could be right.” Jack looked thoughtful. “I wonder why he was in such a hurry.”

  “Get a move on you three.” Ms Winters—or Frosty, as we called her—poked her long nose through the doorway. “We’re waiting for you. The rest of the class is in the cafeteria waiting to order lunch and discuss their individual projects.”

  While Tayla and Jack headed for the doorway, I gave the sneaky Therizinosaur another quick study.

  Statue-still.

  I shook my head.

  Right…

  After bundling my notebook into my backpack I turned to follow the others—glanced over my shoulder one last time—and found the egg slowly and silently lifting into the air.

  My eyes spun. My brain switched off. I opened my mouth to call out to Jack and Tayla, but although the words formed, no sound came out. And by the time my voice pushed through my clogged up throat and reached my lips, the egg had disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.

  Holy catfish! I blinked. Scanned the empty room. Craned my neck backwards to get a better view of the pale yellow ceiling.

  What was going on here? How could a mega-million-year-old dinosaur egg suddenly up and vanish?

  Finally, Jack poked his head through the doorway and woke me from my daze.

  “Come on, Cha,” he called out. “Frosty says if you’re not in the canteen in two minutes she’ll deduct marks off your project.”

  “Jack! Look! The dinosaur egg! It—it’s gone!”

  Jack walked slowly toward me, his eyes wary.

  “Cha?”

  “Stop looking at me as if I’m crazy. See for yourself. The little Therizinosaur has disappeared.”

  Jack frowned down at the display. The plaque was still there—‘Fossilized Dinosaur Egg discovered by Professor Cyril Goodenough on 8th September 1934’—but the stand itself was empty.

  “Wow!” breathed Jack, getting excited and going a plum shade of red. “Did you see where it went?”

  “It was like a magician’s trick. The egg just seemed to rise in the air—then disappear.”

  “Wow!” repeated Jack, his eyes wide and his feet dancing on the spot as he gazed at the ceiling.

  I reached for my backpack.

  “Time to take notes,” I whispered, dragging out a notebook and my favorite silver colored pen.

  Excitement sizzled through me like a lightning bolt as I opened at a fresh page and jotted down the important facts so far:

  CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING DINOSAUR EGG

  1. Egg wobbled on its stand.

  2. Rose in the air like magic.

  3. Disappeared through the ceiling.

  “A new mystery?” whispered Jack, eyes shining like just-minted twenty cent coins.

  I nodded, feeling an excited grin spread across my face. “Yeah. And what do you know…it’s fallen right into our laps.”

  TWO

  It was in all the papers.

  ‘Valuable fossilized dinosaur egg disappears from State Museum.’

  There was even a blurry picture of me standing beside the giant Addyman Plesiosaur. I looked stiff and dorky. Like something from the museum displays. Like something that had been dead and stuffed for a couple of centuries.

  The caption underneath read: ‘Schoolgirl stands and watches while valuable egg disappears.’

  Holy catfish! What did they expect me to do? Throw on my Super-Cha cape and fly through the air to save the egg?

  At least with the disappearance of the dinosaur egg I had another mystery to solve. Now I could write a second true crime story about the amazing but fictitious Private Investigator, Rebecca Turnbull and her vicious Doberman, Fang.

  Earlier this year I’d won a true-crime writing competition for children under fourteen and now the online Kidlit magazine wanted to publish more of my work.

  Okay. All I had to do was solve the egg-mystery and I could write another story.

  Unfortunately, a couple of things stopped me from putting on my P.I. sunnies and trench-coat.

  One—there was very little in the way of clues. The police said the burglars must have lassoed the egg with a near-invisible wire then hauled it up through a small hole they’d cut in the roof. After that, both egg and thieves had disappeared without a trace.

  But what really got me spitting was the second problem. As we private investigators say—I couldn’t follow up on my investigations. How could I follow up on anything? For the next two weeks I’d be spending every minute of every day either shoveling food into one end of a horse or shoveling what came out the other end.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  On arriving home from the museum, Mum was out front waiting for me. Which was unusual. Normally she’s in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Wonder what’s up? I thought as I shut the gate and walked up the path. Deep wrinkles ran up each side of Mum’s nose, jumped over her eyes and burrowed into her forehead. Hmm…guess she wasn’t waiting to give me a banana and fudge flavored ice-cream cone.

  “Chiana Elizabeth Ryan!”

  Uh! Oh! Definitely no ice-cream cone.

  “What’s this about you getting involved in a burglary at t
he museum?”

  “Hardly,” I protested as I walked past Mum and threw my back-pack on the hall table before zeroing in on the kitchen and the huge cottage-shaped biscuit jar. “I just saw the dinosaur egg disappear. That’s all.”

  A delta cream biscuit half-way to my mouth, I stopped, puzzled. “Anyway, how did you know so soon? Did Ms Winters ring?”

  And then I spotted my step-sister, Sarah, perched on a kitchen stool, glass of milk in one hand, vegemite sandwich in the other.

  Of course!

  Blabbermouth!

  “Couldn’t wait, could you?”

  “Nope!”

  “Why didn’t you let me tell Mum what happened?”

  Sarah shrugged—all couldn’t care less. “More fun this way,” she said then grinned this real crocodile grin and I swear her pearly white teeth looked like they’d been sharpened to vampire points.

  Recently Sarah and I made a sort of truce. We’d agreed to try to get along. Try to live in the same house without blowing each other up. But six months of arguing and getting up each other’s nose made it a shaky truce.

  Although the same age—almost thirteen—Sarah and I were way different. Sarah was chocolate. I was licorice-allsorts. Sarah’s fair hair hung smugly down her back like silvery silk. My thick reddish coppery hair, although long, often frizzed and stood on end like it had been plugged into an electric socket then turned up to high. Sarah dressed like Miss Teen Australia. I wore knee-less jeans and whatever T-shirt jumped out of the drawer into my hand each morning.

  Ever since Sarah found out we were spending the holidays at her Aunt Kate’s, she’d been rabbiting on—talking big. You know, about what a mega horse-rider she was. Before the age of ten—which is when she’d discovered nail-polish and Sherpa fashion statements—she’d evidently spent every holiday at her Aunt Kate’s riding school.

  Probably jumping her horse over sky-scrapers and leaping swollen rivers in one bound.

  All I could say was: Huh! If Sarah was a whiz at this stupid horse-riding stuff—it must be dead easy.

  Mum followed me into the kitchen. She stood by the door, hands on hips, one toe tapping rhythmically on the multi-colored linoleum floor.