by Tim Collins
I raced outside to see Father instructing some boys from the hotel to carry the bones over to the station. Everything was fine. The crisis had all been in my mind, and my curse had not struck.
We soon boarded the train, which turned out to be much more pleasant than the coach. Our carriage was almost empty so we could pile all our luggage in without upsetting anyone. Mr. Armstrong was kind enough to pay for us to travel on a first-class train. It would be cheaper on a third-class train, but it would be much more cramped and we might not even be able to sit at all.
I stared out of the large window and watched the countryside speed past. It soon made me dizzy, so I closed my eyes, and before long I found myself drifting off. I can’t believe I spent all that time looking forward to my first train journey, and when it finally arrived I slept through it.
When I woke up we’d arrived at Paddington Station, which was filled with steam and smoke and rushing crowds. Mr. Armstrong said we could take a train that went under the ground, but the idea frightened Father, who got it into his head that the vehicle would burrow into the soil like a mole, rather than travel along a tunnel.
We couldn’t find a cab, so we lugged our bags down the street instead. Mr. Armstrong led us along a wide road that was bustling with carts, carriages, and buses. At one point I had to leap aside from a strange pedal bicycle with a huge wheel on the front and a small wheel on the back.
Father suggested buying one to take back home, but I don’t think it would be much use on our steep hill. It would be good for a rapid one-way trip into the sea, but that’s about all.
London is just as exciting as I hoped, but I was struck by the smell. There’s a stink like rotten vegetables everywhere. And at night a thick yellow fog descends, making everything dismal and gloomy.
Thank heavens we are staying in the rooms Mr. Armstrong keeps above his practice. Arriving in the city would have been much more frightening if we’d had to find somewhere to board.
Mr. Armstrong’s small, hunched housekeeper Mrs. Baker made us feel very welcome with a light supper, though her mood soured when she realized our cases were full of fossils.
“He should worry about the bones of his patients, not them horrid lizards,” she muttered. “They’re not going to put food on the table.”
“They would if he told everyone about their fantastic properties,” said Father. He plucked one of the bones out of his case. “This one can aid with posture, for example. It’s yours for just sixpence, and I’m cutting my own throat at that price.”
Mrs. Baker looked like she’d happily cut his throat for him. How inappropriate of Father to switch into sales mode when Mr. Armstrong is giving us free food and board. He needs to pick his moments more wisely.
GET REAL
The arrival of the railways transformed Victorian Britain. Engineers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel oversaw vast networks that were built at amazing speed. By 1870, the rail network covered over
12,400 miles. Even people without much money could use the trains, with third-class tickets costing as little as a penny a mile. But traveling conditions were cramped and uncomfortable.
Thursday, March 10th
Mr. Armstrong let me work in his library today. He has hundreds of books and journals about dinosaurs and ancient beasts.
Father could find nothing to interest him, so he announced he was going out for a stroll. I warned him to watch out for rogues and villains, but he told me he was perfectly capable of looking after himself.
He arrived back two hours later and announced that I’d been fussing about nothing, and most of the Londoners he’d met were perfectly charming. He said that a young man had accidentally knocked him over at one point, but he had taken great pains to help him up and pat the dirt off his coat.
I asked Father what time it was, but when he reached into his pocket he found his watch was missing. It had disappeared from the exact place the “friendly” young man had patted.
Father flushed red as he worked out what had happened. I hope he’ll be more cautious from now on.
This evening Mr. Armstrong took me through his maps of the American West and marked out the places he thought the best bone beds would be. These are places rich with fossils, which should provide excellent hunting ground for dinosaurs.
There are seven sites in walking distance from railway stops. From East to West, they are:
Creston Rock
Rolling Valley
Hell Creek
Black Canyon
Midway
Rock Spring
Pine Bluff
Tomorrow Mr. Armstrong will consult his travel agent and see if he can work up a schedule that takes me through these stops, with a week of fieldwork at each.
We might be going too far with this planning, as the trip is still only a dim possibility. But if any of the rich men from the society want to sponsor me, I’ll be able to tell them exactly where I want to go and how much it will cost, which will make things much simpler.
Friday, March 11th
Tomorrow is the big day. I’ll be addressing the society at five. I prepared my talk in Mr. Armstrong’s library today, and I hoped Father might be able to stay there and keep out of trouble.
My hope proved unfounded. Shortly after lunch, he announced he was going out to sell the bones. I was too distracted by my preparation to argue with him, so I let him go.
He arrived back two hours later looking rather shaken. After wandering for a few minutes, he’d managed to find an empty stall in a market and he’d laid the bones on top of it.
There were too many people to tailor individual signs for, so he just wrote:
Miracle Bones – Ask for Details
A very large man walked past and Father claimed that the bones could banish unsightly jowls. The man objected and attempted to assault father with one of the bones.
Meanwhile, the owner of a stall selling miracle tonic water stormed over and accused Father of stealing his customer. The large man accidentally hit this stall owner, and a fight broke out. A horse bolted, spilling the fruit and vegetables from its cart. Thieves descended on the scene, and by the time things had calmed down all the fruit, vegetables, and bones had gone.
A police officer soon turned up, but when Father told him his collection of giant lizards had been stolen, he dismissed him as insane and moved on to the next witness.
I told Father he’d end up in trouble. Maybe now he’ll learn to be careful in London.
It’s the fish lizards I feel sorry for. These magnificent beasts deserve better than to end up on the black market, being sold in dark alleyways by scoundrels.
Mr. Armstrong’s travel agent has drawn up a schedule for my New World dinosaur hunt, sailing from Bristol to New York in July, heading west by train to reach the bone beds in August and September, then sailing back in October.
It’s all beginning to feel frighteningly real, but I mustn’t get my hopes up just yet. First I need to impress the men from the society. The richest three are called Sir Fitzhugh Xavier Sapping, Sir Hobart Remmington Risewell, and Sir Leopold Pinkerton Hamilton, and Mr. Armstrong is convinced my trip will be funded if I impress at least one of them.
Saturday, March 12th
We arrived at the Geological Society late this afternoon. Mr. Armstrong left me in the hall to set up my fish lizard bones while he ushered the members in.
The first were three scowling men with gray hair who all looked as though they were trying to digest raw potatoes. They sat on the front seats and glared at me, the first cupping his hand to his ear, the second adjusting his thick eyeglasses, and the third smoothing down the wild tufts of hair on either side of his head.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that the most esteemed geologists in the country should be so ancient, but these three looked like they’d have been alive when the fish lizards were still
swimming around.
When the hall was full, I began my speech. The man with the thick eyeglasses let out loud grunts after everything I said, and I couldn’t figure out if he was angry or clearing his throat.
After I’d talked about each of the bones, I laid them out on the floor to reconstruct a full skeleton. There was a great commotion as the geologists shuffled forward to look.
The elderly man with the wild tufts of hair spoke first. “Nonsense,” he said. “A little girl like you couldn’t find a genuine prehistoric creature. I’ve no doubt it’s simply a crocodile that got lost.”
“They could be the bones of a tall human,” said the man cupping his ear. “My nephew saw a man who was nine feet tall once.”
“Or a dog,” said the man with the thick glasses. “I saw one as big as a horse in the park the other day.”
“Were you wearing your glasses?” I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the man. “I leave them at home to go to the park.”
“Well, how do you know it wasn’t a horse?” I asked.
An angry murmur swept through the room.
“Such impertinence!” shouted a man from the back. “Are you telling Sir Leopold Pinkerton Hamilton that he doesn’t know the difference between a dog and a horse?”
I felt my heart sink. Sir Leopold Pinkerton Hamilton was one of the rich men Mr. Armstrong had told me to impress. It didn’t look like he’d be sponsoring me, then.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. But I’m convinced these are the remains of a huge lizard that swam in the sea, not a tall man or a big dog or a lost crocodile. The remains of many such ancient creatures have been found. So why shouldn’t this also be one?”
“Because they were discovered by men of science,” said the man with the eyeglasses. “They weren’t just dug from a schoolgirl’s sandpit.”
I felt my cheeks heating and found myself scrunching my fists into balls. If these were really scientists, why weren’t they considering the evidence before them? They were blinded to the importance of my finds by my age and sex.
Mr. Armstrong leapt to his feet and clapped his hands. The chatter stopped.
“Gentlemen, let’s save our comments for the end,” he said. “I’ll be happy to present my account of the evidence if Miss Mansfield’s words are unclear.”
I decided to move on to my next topic, which was fossilized poop. This was meant to be the centerpiece of my speech, as Mr. Armstrong had told me that no one had ever discussed it with the society before. When I’d planned my speech, I was imagining it as a breakthrough moment, with everyone standing and applauding. But now I wasn’t feeling so confident.
I held up a poop fossil.
“I often find rocks like this near fish lizard bones,” I said. “I began to wonder why, and careful examination led me to believe these are not really rocks at all, but the fossilized poop of the fish lizard creatures.”
The geologists pulled disgusted faces, as if I’d suggested they eat the dung rather than merely look at it.
“I believe that by studying it, we can learn about the diet of the creatures,” I said.
The man with the wild tufts of hair rose to his feet.
“That’s quite enough,” he shouted. “These topics might raise a smile among your school friends, but I can assure you they are not appropriate in this company.”
I ran over and shoved the fossil toward him so he could examine it for himself. He couldn’t have looked more horrified if it had been fresh.
The man stormed out, muttering angrily. One by one, the others followed, until finally there was just Father and Mr. Armstrong left.
My chance to visit the New World has surely gone now. It seems I have not managed to escape my curse after all.
GET REAL
Fossilized pieces of poop can give us important information about extinct species, such as whether they ate plants or animals. The fossil-hunter Mary Anning noticed that dark gray pebbles were often found near the skeletons of marine lizards. She found that these stones contained small fish bones when broken apart, and wondered if they were lumps of ancient dung. She shared her findings with the geologist William Buckland, who coined the term “coprolites” for them.
Sunday, March 13th
According to Mr. Armstrong, the two men on either side of Sir Leopold Pinkerton Hamilton were Sir Fitzhugh Xavier Sapping and Sir Hobart Remmington Risewell, which makes me feel a little better. The three men who could have paid for my trip were against me from the moment they saw me. They would never have sponsored me, no matter how well my presentation went.
Mr. Armstrong said they might warm to me over time. When he first attended the society, he presented his collection of dinosaur back vertebrae. Sir Leopold Pinkerton Hamilton insisted they were the teeth of a huge dog and the others agreed. But the following week he returned with some actual dog teeth to show them the difference and he won them over.
I don’t think they’ll ever change their minds about me. Not unless I return with the greatest set of fossils they’ve ever seen. But I’d need to go to America for those, and I can’t do that without one of them sponsoring me.
It’s no use. I’ll just go home and look for more fish lizard bones. The tourists like them, even if the scientists don’t.
Monday, March 14th
We’re going back home tomorrow, but Mr. Armstrong has one final idea to save my American trip. I’m going to write to universities here and in America, outlining my discoveries and asking for funding. I’ll enclose my schedule and a full outline of the costs.
Mr. Armstrong seems hopeful, and he’s lending me a huge collection of journals and maps to take home, so I’ll be prepared if I ever make it to America. But I know my luck too well to believe it will ever happen.
Thursday, March 17th
We’re home now. I returned to the seashore today and hunted for fossils.
I wish I could bring Sir Leopold Pinkerton Hamilton, Sir Fitzhugh Xavier Sapping, and Sir Hobart Remmington Risewell to the beach. I’d show them how I find the bones and how I separate them from the clay and sandstone. Then they’d have to believe that my finds are genuine. And if they didn’t I could leave them stranded on the rocks while the tide rushed in.
Chapter 3
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Going West
Monday, March 21st
I had my first reply from one of the universities today. It’s from Boniface College Cambridge, but it’s not much help.
Dear Miss Mansfield,
I’m afraid I cannot offer any aid for your expedition to the New World, and indeed I would advise you to abandon it.
It is my belief that all living things over there are inferior to those here. Their repulsive land is littered with gloomy swamps, dingy forests, and dry deserts. As a consequence, all their native beasts are small and feeble compared to our noble steeds, proud bulldogs, and honest badgers. You would do better to roll your sleeves up and dig in the English soil for British fossils that will be the pride of our empire and the envy of our foes!
Yours sincerely,
Professor Welton Stanway Kibble
GET REAL
Amazingly, some scientists really did believe that native animals in the “new world” of America would be inferior to those in the “old world” of Europe. The idea came from the French naturalist Comte de Buffon, who lived in the eighteenth century. His ideas angered Thomas Jefferson so much that Jefferson ordered his soldiers to catch a huge moose to prove him wrong.
Wednesday, March 23rd
I got another reply to my request today, this time from Saint Stephen’s College Oxford. It wasn’t any more promising.
Dear Miss Mansfield,
I’m afraid I can’t offer you financial aid for your expedition, but I do have a favor to ask. I’m currently e
ngaged in a wager with Professor Jacob Bilton Meredith to see who can eat the widest variety of living creatures. Just this week I have enjoyed a guinea pig pie, a hedgehog tart, and a sea slug trifle. I would be most grateful if you could bring back the following ingredients from the New World:
A bison
A coyote
An opossum
Cure the meat if it looks like it’s spoiling in the heat. But don’t worry too much, I have an excellent stomach.
I can’t wait to see the look on old Meredith’s face when I serve up that little lot in a pie!
Yours sincerely,
P.S. I strongly recommend bread and weasel pudding.
Professor Ignacio Baldry Fitzsimons
I have no intention of honoring this bizarre request. I have no idea how oddballs like Professor Baldry Fitzsimons and Professor Stanway Kibble get such important jobs, while honest men like Mr. Armstrong have to pay for their own fieldwork and receive very little recognition. I wonder if all science is as unfair as this, or just fossil-hunting?
GET REAL
Some of the most famous dinosaur hunters were very odd characters. The geologist William Buckland attempted to eat his way through the entire animal kingdom, and is known to have served his guests mice on toast and roast hedgehog. He thought the most disgusting creatures of all were moles and bluebottles, so avoid those next time you’re in the supermarket.
Thursday, April 28th
No more replies from university professors. Even another weird one would be better than nothing.
I’ll just have to accept that my dream of visiting America and becoming a great scientist is over.