Hunky Dory

Before I knew what was happening, the Microdot had flung both arms round me and was squeezing me to a pulp. I said, “Geddoff!”

“I’m just showing you what she’d like to do to you. She’d like to hug you! And kiss you. Aaaah…it’s so sweet!”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” I said.

“Cos I want you to know how she feels. She’s in love with you! Only she’s too shy to tell you, so I thought I would.”

I said, “Is that what all the stupid giggling was about?”

“Yes. It’s really pathetic! They’ve all got crushes on you…they think you’re so cute!” She gave this great cackle, like she was inviting me to join in. “But poor Linzi, she’s got it worse than anyone. She is totally gone. She is, like, demented. She’s written your name all over, everywhere! I’ve told her what you’re like, but she just can’t stop herself. I feel sooo sorry for her.”

Crawling round the floor with the dustpan and brush, keeping my face hidden because I just knew I’d gone bright beetroot, I said, “So what did you tell her I was like?”

“Well, like you are…peculiar! Anyone that spends their time digging holes in the back garden and playing about in the mud…where’s the sense in having a crush on someone like that?”

This is what I mean about my family, and the difficulties I face. Scorn and derision at every turn. I don’t play in the mud and I’m not just digging a hole, I am excavating. It is serious work. They know this perfectly well; I’ve told them over and over. It is an archaeological dig. But the Microdot still treats me like I’m some kind of geek. Even Mum and Dad have a secret giggle—well, not all that secret, either, cos I heard them the other day telling someone about “Dory’s hole”, like it was just totally hilarious. It is an uphill struggle, in this house, trying to make something of yourself. One day when I’m Sir Dorian, and famous for my work on dinosaurs, they’ll look back and feel ashamed of the way they treated me.

Of course I might be famous as a Crime Scene Investigator. That’s another career I’m thinking of pursuing. I reckon I’d be good at it, as I find it most interesting on television when they examine the contents of people’s stomachs or collect maggots and bugs that have taken up residence inside dead bodies. The Microdot says I am gruesome. She says it is totally disgusting and would make any normal person feel sick, but that is just her point of view. Mine happens to be different.

Anyway, if I’m peculiar so is she. She screamed her head off the other day, all because there was a spider walking across her bedroom ceiling. She screeched, “Get rid of it, get rid of it!”

I’ve told her about a hundred times that spiders are perfectly pleasant and harmless creatures, just going about their business.

“What d’you think they’re going to do, bite you?”

She screeched that they might fall on top of her while she was in bed. They might even get into the bed.

“They could get down my nightdress!”

How peculiar is that? Fantasising about spiders getting down her nightdress. What makes her think any self-respecting spider would want to? I can’t understand it when girls start freaking out at the sight of anything with multiple legs. The Herb came across a centipede the other day; she didn’t freak. But then the Herb is different.

I spent the whole afternoon excavating. I’ve only got till the end of the month, then the builders are coming in to build Dad’s new workshop, so I’m trying to get as much done as I can. Aaron and the Herb are helping me: they are my official assistants. I am doing my best to train them, but I have to say it is uphill work. They don’t seem able to grasp the fact that there is more to excavating than simply picking up a trowel and digging as fast as you can. I’ve told them, you have to dig slowly. You have to dig carefully. You have to sift. Then if you find anything, you have to label it, and say where

it was, like how far down, and how far in. The Herb asked me today exactly what it was we were hoping to discover. Before I could give a more scholarly reply, Aaron had jumped in and yelled, “Dinosaur bones!”

“What, in Warrington Crescent?” said the Herb.

Aaron said why not. They’d have stamped about in Warrington Crescent same as they did anywhere else.

“In the back garden?”

“You gotta remember,” said Aaron, “it was all primeval swamp in them days. That’s what it still is, deep down. Then the bones kind of work their way up. Prob’ly quite near the surface, some of ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if we came across the odd one now and again.”

I said, “I would.” This is exactly what I mean about Aaron always claiming to know everything when in fact he knows nothing. I said, “I’d be very surprised.”

“So what are we searching for?” demanded the Herb.

I had to explain that it wasn’t dinosaur bones, which in any case would be fossils by now, but just whatever turned up. So far I have discovered:

An old coin dating from 1936 A piece of broken china (a shard, as we professionals call it) A small blue bottle (probably contained poison) A rusty penknife, almost certainly antique.

They are all cleaned up and properly labelled. I showed them to my assistants, thinking they would be impressed—thinking they might actually learn something—but the Herb just giggled and Aaron said, “Is that it?”

I said, “This is history, this is.”

“Some history,” said Aaron.

The Herb giggled again. Everything’s always a big joke with her; she finds it very difficult to take things seriously. “You never know,” she said, “it could be the scene of a hideous crime. We’ve got the murder weapon!”

“If you’re talking about that penknife,” I said, “it wouldn’t go in deep enough.” I know about these things; I’ve studied them.

“All right, then!” She snatched up the bottle. “Poison!”

It was all they needed. Next thing I know, they’re both going mad with their trowels, showering earth in all directions. I told them quite sharply to stop.

“This is not the way you’re supposed to do it! You’re ruining the site!”

Aaron panted, “We’re looking for a body!”

“You’ve got to admit, bodies would be interesting,” said the Herb. “More interesting than bits of broken china.”

I had to be very stern with them. I mean, yes, OK, body parts would be great. Teeth, or skulls, or thigh bones. I’d like to discover body parts just as much as anyone else, but it’s not the way that it’s done.

“If you’re going to help, then help properly,” I said. “Just try to be a little bit professional.”

The Herb mumbled “Professional, professional,” and stroked an imaginary beard, while Aaron went into exaggerated slow motion with his trowel. I said, “That’s better. You’re worse than the dogs!”

Dad has erected a special wire netting enclosure for the hole. He did it so that Mum, in her daffy way, wouldn’t go trundling down the garden with a barrow full of used cat litter and fall into it, but it also serves to keep the Russells at bay. I do love the Russells, but I sometimes can’t help wishing Mum had developed a passion for a more useful breed of dog. Dogs that could fetch, or carry, or herd. If the Russells got into the hole it would be total chaos. As it is, they all sit on the other side of the netting and whinge.

“Dunno why you don’t let ’em in,” said Aaron. “Get the job done far quicker.”

“Wouldn’t be professional,” said the Herb. “Hey, I just thought of a joke! Is it OK to tell jokes?”

I think I must have hesitated, cos she said, “It’s all right, it’s a professional joke…it’s a dinosaur joke.”

“Yeah, yeah, go on!” said Aaron. “Tell it!”

“Right. What’s a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

“I don’t know,” said Aaron. “What is a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

The Herb said, “A dinosore-arse!” She looked at me, triumphantly. “Funny?”

“Your mum wouldn’t think so,” I said. “She’d say you were being vulgar.”

The Herb gave one of her cackles. “Rude, rude, Mum’s a prude!”

“I reckon it’s pretty good,” said Aaron. “Here!” He gave me a nudge. “You tell the Herb about Amy Wilkerson?”