Free Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier Page A

stupidity nor on the croc’s eye. She was more concerned with practical matters. “How are you going to get this out of the cliff? It must be four feet long at least.”
    “It’ll take digging like we’ve never done before, won’t it, Joe?”
    Joe shrugged.
    “But four feet of rock—won’t that be too heavy for you? What you need are men to help you. Strong men.” Miss Elizabeth thought for a moment. “What about the men building the walkway along the beach to the Cobb? They know how to cut rock, and they’re strong. Perhaps they could do it for you.”
    “Perhaps they could, ma’am,” I said, “but we haven’t the money to pay ’em.”
    “I will advance you the money, and you can pay me back when you have sold the specimen.”
    I brightened. “Oh, could you, Miss Elizabeth? We would be so grateful, wouldn’t we, Joe?”
    But Joe weren’t listening. “Mary, Miss Philpot, step away from it!” he hissed. “It’s Captain Cury!”
    I looked back. Clambering round the bend that hid Lyme from us was the only other fossil hunter who might consider trying to get at our croc. While most respected other’s finds, Captain Cury didn’t care who had spotted something first. Once he took a giant ammonite Joe and me had begun digging out from a cliff on Monmouth Beach and laughed in our faces when we told him it was ours. “Shouldn’t have left it, then, should you? It were me finished the digging, so it’s me as gets it,” he’d said. Even when Pa went to talk to him about it, he swore he’d already seen it and marked it out, and that it were Joe and me that was wrong to do the digging when it was his.
    Captain Cury mustn’t see the croc. If he did, we would have to guard it all the time. I stepped back from the skull, picked up a likely nodule, and moved down towards the water’s edge where there was a flat stone good for hammering on. Joe headed in the Charmouth direction, then stopped fifty feet away to scrabble amongst small chunks of fool’s gold, looking for a pyritized ammo. Golden serpents, we called them. Miss Philpot took several steps and begun studying the ground, then knelt to pick up a stone. From under my bonnet rim I watched as Captain Cury approached the croc in the cliff face, his spade over one shoulder. Now that I had exposed its eye more clearly, the skull seemed to be staring and grinning to attract attention. Captain Cury’s eyes skimmed the cliff, and he paused right where we had been standing. Joe’s feet on the stones went quiet, and I stopped hammering.
    Captain Cury bent over and picked up something. When he straightened, his face was just inches from the monster’s eye. My heart begun to pound. Then he held out a glove. “Miss Philpot, is this yours? It’s too fine for Mary.”
    “I expect it is mine, Mr. Lock,” Miss Elizabeth answered. She never called him Captain Cury but used his real name, the way she called Joe Joseph, and ammos ammonites and not snakestones, and bellies belemnites rather than thunderbolts. She was formal like that. “Bring it here, please.”
    He went over and handed it to her. I could breathe again, now he were away from the croc. “Found anything?” he asked when she’d thanked him.
    “Just a gryphaea. Devil’s toenail to you.”
    “Let’s see it.” Captain Cury squatted next to her. Fossil hunting does that to people—it breaks down the rules. On the beach a hostler can speak to a lady in a way he wouldn’t dream of doing anywhere else.
    I hurried over to rescue her. “What are you doing here, Captain Cury?” I demanded.
    He chuckled. “Same as you, Mary—looking out for curies to bring in a few pennies. Mind you, you need ’em more’n I do now, don’t you, the way your father left you fixed. Here.” He tossed something to me. It was a golden serpent.
    “This is what I think of your curies, Captain Cury.” I turned and threw it as hard as I could. Though the tide was out, I got it to land in the water.
    “Hey, now!”