GRACE STARED AT HER CLOCK. IT WAS ONE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING. Endless questions were spinning around in her head—questions with no answers.
Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer. She had to talk to someone. It was way too late to call Mai or Fred—they’d be asleep for sure.
“Jeeter?” Grace whispered into her walkie-talkie. “Are you awake?” She waited.
A few weeks ago, she and Jeeter had started chatting on their walkie-talkies late at night when she couldn’t sleep. He always answered her call, no matter how late it was.
“I’m here,” his voice echoed back. “Trouble sleeping again?”
“Yeah.”
“Another bad dream?”
“Uh-huh,” she sniffed, unexpected tears flooding her eyes. “My dad was calling for me, but I couldn’t find him.” She couldn’t believe she’d said it. She’d never told anyone what she saw in her dreams. But Jeeter understood. He’d told her before that he had bad dreams, too, since his mom had died.
“It’s all right, Grace,” he said. “No luck with the wave machine?”
“It’s not helping.”
“Okay. Tell me one of your stories, then. What about that trip you and your dad took to Parrsboro? You know, when he got that nickname, Old Fossil.”
“Again?” She smiled through her tears. The story was one of her favourites, too.
“It’s a funny story.”
“Okay.” Grace sighed and closed her eyes, snuggling back into her pillow. She recounted the days when she and her dad had gone on amazing adventures under sunny skies…and finally drifted off to sleep.
“Now Grace, remember what I told you. Stay as far away from the cliff as it is high,” her dad said.
Grace looked up at the towering cliff above them. “Why?”
“So if there is an avalanche or any rocks fall, you won’t be under them.”
Grace grinned. “Good tip, Dad. But all the fossils are over there!” She pointed to a pile of broken shale in a carved-out piece of the cliff face.
“Yes, that tends to be a problem,” he said. “Let me worry about that, okay?” He smiled, ruffling her hair.
They were on a fossil tour in Parrsboro. Several tourists were in the group. Grace watched a tall lady trying to walk along the rocky shore in flip-flops. Two small kids were poking sticks at a dead jellyfish. These tourists weren’t real fossil hunters, not like Grace and her dad.
“Excuse me,” an older lady with a British accent said as she approached them.
“Good afternoon,” Grace’s dad said.
“You’re the spitting image of my granddaughter, Lily,” she said, beaming at Grace. “I just had to come over and say hello. Are you having a nice time with your grandfather?”
Grace’s mouth fell open. Grandfather?
The lady turned to Grace’s dad. “I would have loved to have my grandchildren with me, as well, but they’re back in England.”
“He’s not my grandfather. He’s my dad!” Grace said, giggling.
The lady’s eyes widened. She stared at Grace’s dad’s grey beard and hair. “Oh, pardon me!” she said, her cheeks red.
“Understandable mistake,” Grace’s dad said. “I think of myself as an old fossil most of the time.”
The lady apologized again and hurried off, obviously embarrassed.
“My word, that was funny!” Grace’s dad exploded, doubling over with laughter. “Your mom would get a kick out of that, wouldn’t she?”
Grace held her aching ribs and nodded.
Her dad started hobbling around, pretending he couldn’t walk properly. “Give an old fellow a hand would you, young miss?” he asked in his best old-man voice.
“Give it up, Dad!”
“My word! I’ve got an ache in my back! I think my knee is giving out!”
They laughed hysterically the rest of the day.
That night they stayed at the Fundy Geological Museum as part of an overnight program. As they nestled in their sleeping bags, surrounded by dinosaurs, her dad whispered to her. “I’m so grateful we share this, Grace—this love of fossils. You don’t know how much it means to me.”
Grace heard the emotion in his voice and felt a lump in her throat. “Me too, Dad,” she whispered back. “I love you.”
Grace opened her eyes. She could swear she’d heard a cry. It must have wakened her. She lay there, listening for sounds in the deep quiet of the night. But it was dead silent. It must have been her own cry, she realized. She could still hear it, echoing in her head from her dream.
“I really miss you, Dad,” she murmured into the dark.