“Where did you get this?” I hissed under the babble of voices as reporters volleyed questions at Hailey’s mother. I waved the crumpled label at Hailey. The words Ichthy. butt. were still clearly typed on the front. There was no question it was the label from Mr. Joe’s missing bag of fossils.
Hailey turned pale and tried to snatch the label from me. I jerked my hand away. Suddenly a whole bunch of facts hurtled through my brain. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. Why hadn’t we suspected Hailey before?
She had just as much reason as Mr. Joe to want the dig to succeed. She’d told us that her mom might have to get a job somewhere else, that they might have to move.
Hailey had walked into the classroom just as Robyn was trying to find the fundraiser forms after the school carnival. Hailey would have seen the fossils inside the filing cabinet. She would have known which ones were the most valuable. She could have stashed the others somewhere so she could shift the blame for the theft to Robyn.
“It’s not what you think,” Hailey stammered. Robyn and Nick listened intently. “I know it looks bad, but I didn’t have anything to do with those fossils. The label must have caught on my sleeve…”
I found myself wanting to believe her. After all, I didn’t have any real evidence. And then, in one blinding moment, I realized that I did. One small fact that had bothered me weeks ago suddenly made sense.
“You are lying!” I said through gritted teeth. “And I can prove it.”
Hailey’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Tell me about Robyn’s prediction again,” I answered.
“She told me to beware of yellow school buses,” Hailey said uneasily.
“And what happened?”
“The bus pulled up in front of the school, and I tripped and dropped my backpack. The bus ran right over it. Ruined everything.” Hailey crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively.
“Everything?”
“Everything!” Hailey flared.
“Including the science booklet that was due that morning?”
Hailey hesitated.
“We were supposed to work on that booklet together, Hailey. And you left it until the last minute. I helped you finish it on the field-trip bus ride—after everything in your backpack was supposedly destroyed. But your homework and your binder were in perfect condition. How did that happen?”
“I…uh, forgot them at school…” Hailey was obviously thinking rapidly.
“Wrong. You told me on the bus you’d brought it home with you. So you were either lying then, or you’re lying now. I’m going to guess you pulled that homework out because it was worth half our marks, before you deliberately threw your backpack into the path of the bus.”
“Why would I do that? That’s ridiculous!” Hailey’s voice squeaked. “What does any of this have to do with the fossils?”
“You were trying to set up Robyn,” I said. “One more fantastic prediction was enough to have kids really believing that Robyn had psychic powers. Then you wrote an anonymous note that threatened to expose her as a fake, so Robyn would ‘find’ the fossils. That way you could make it look like Robyn ripped them off.”
“You did that?” Incensed, Robyn turned to Hailey. “I thought you were my friend!” she spat.
Hailey’s face was white to the lips. Around us, the press conference flowed on. The reporters hadn’t twigged to the extraordinary conversation unfolding in their midst. The reporter from South Dakota was peppering Hailey’s mother with a line of questions.
“Are you sure, Dr. Ross, that the findings in this remarkable discovery are absolutely certain to be authentic?” he was saying.
I fixed Hailey with a menacing glare. “You’re the one who came out here and planted those fossils. Not Mr. Joe. You knew it would rock the science world. You didn’t care about the dig at all—you just wanted to save your mother’s job!” I accused.
“That’s not true!” Hailey shrieked, tears coursing down her cheeks. “I did care about the dig! I never thought about it being a fake discovery until it was too late. I never knew what Itchy butt meant, and I had no idea that everyone would think this was the greatest discovery in the whole world!”
Hailey’s cries had interrupted the press conference. Every reporter turned to look at us. Camera crews pointed the lenses away from Hailey’s mother and onto us instead. Everyone in that creepy, expectant silence waited, pens poised, cameras rolling. Hailey looked like a trapped animal.
Hailey’s mother stood with her mouth half open. “Hailey! You can’t be serious,” she exclaimed in horror.
“Are you saying,” the reporter from South Dakota said slowly, his eyes narrowing, “that this whole thing is a hoax? That we’ve been led out here to break the paleontology story of the decade, only to find out it’s a lie?”
Hailey covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry! I just buried the fossils at the site because I thought that if more fossils turned up, the funding would come through. I’m tired of my mom moving to where the best jobs are. I didn’t want to move again!” She choked down a sob.
“Hailey…” Hailey’s mother struggled to speak. She paused for a painful moment, then sighed. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“How did a kid like you get your hands on such valuable fossils?” one reporter asked Hailey.
“I can answer that,” Mr. Joe broke in. “I had borrowed some fossils from the University of South Dakota. They were with some others from Drumheller I was using in Hailey’s class.”
“So you did steal them!” Nick exclaimed.
“No, I didn’t!” Mr. Joe rounded on him. “They were on loan to me.”
“Then why did we see an article in the paper about fossils being stolen from the same university?” I asked. “Seems like more than a coincidence, when you had a bag of them hidden in your filing cabinet!”
“It was a misunderstanding,” Mr. Joe said, his face reddening. “I’ve already straightened it out with the university. Remember I said I was developing a new method for dating fossils? Well, I needed fossils to experiment with, and so I borrowed a bag from the storeroom. My professor had told me to take a few that weren’t needed, and these ones hadn’t been touched in years. I didn’t realize they were important—the Ichthy. butt. abbreviation on the label didn’t register with me. Should have, I guess. But the Ichthylobuttosaur isn’t a well-known dinosaur.”
While the group digested this information, Mrs. Ross regained her composure. Furious, she fixed a hard stare at Hailey. “I’m extremely sorry that the actions of my daughter have caused you all to waste a trip out here for nothing,” she said. “I’m sure Hailey didn’t intend for things to go this far. I’m sorry you don’t have a story to take back to your editors.”
“Are you kidding?” the South Dakota reporter said with relish. “Fraud, a fake dig site and a kid behind the whole thing? This story is even better! This might even go national.”
Hailey froze, her face panicked. “No!”
“Will the museum press charges?” another reporter asked.
“I can’t speak for the museum in this instance,” said Hailey’s mother firmly.
“We have no further comment at this time.” She stepped away from the crowd, took Hailey’s shoulder and propelled her up the rickety steps to the parking area. As they disappeared, the press crews turned to Mr. Joe and us.
“Do you have anything to say about this?” a reporter asked Mr. Joe.
“Are you kids friends of Hailey’s? Were you in on this with her?” Someone shoved a tape recorder under Robyn’s nose.
“How did you know that she planted the fossils?” a television reporter asked me. The light from the camera glared into my face.
“I…uh…” My mind went blank. “Well, if it hadn’t been for that skunk…”
Mr. Joe stepped forward. “Please.” He held up his hand. “We can’t say anything more right now.” He herded Nick, Robyn and me toward the steps before anyone could say more. I looked back as we started up the stairs.
The television anchorperson scratched his head. “What skunk?” He shouted after me. “Hey, kid! What skunk?”
“The one that helped me solve the mystery, of course!” I called back, and I grinned at his confusion.