Free The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole

circle. Set inside the large, thin circle was a smaller circle made of several bony plates, like flower petals. At the center was a hole. Could it be an eye? I wasn’t sure.
    I slowly worked around the lines that protruded underneath. I bared more of the fossil, but I could not make out what it was. I worked in between the two lines with a nail. There was something there. It was perpendicular to the two parallel lines. I scraped off the wet clay with mounting excitement. There was no mistaking what I saw. It was a tooth, and there was another one next to it. I had collected teeth like these near the large vertebrae. I laughed. Could it possibly be? I whirled about madly until I fell down on the sand with giddiness. When I calmed down, I looked at it again just to make certain. There was no mistake. I had found the dragon!
    I put the tools back in my pocket and ran all the way back to town, jumping over all the obstacles in my way, sliding, falling, picking myself up, and running until I reached the house. I threw the door to the shop open and tore up the stairs yelling, “Mama! Mama! I found it,” not realizing until I was in the house that Mama was not there.
    Without stopping to catch my breath, I ran to Hale’s to tell Joseph. I burst into the shop, startling poor Mr. Hale, who was on a stepladder. “Where’s Joseph?” I demanded. I didn’t wait for an answer, seeing him bent over an armchair. I shouted, “Joseph, I’ve found it! I found the dragon at the end of the Church Cliffs near the ledges.”
    Joseph looked at me as if I had just gone mad. “What dragon?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know if it is a dragon or a crocodile,” I said, stopping for the first time since I found it. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s a fossil in the cliffs, and it’s big.” I told him and Mr. Hale the story of my discovery from the beginning.
    â€œYou’ve only seen a tooth and you come bursting in here like that. I have no time for such foolishness,” Mr. Hale said, turning away to fetch a bolt of cloth that he had stored in the rafters.
    My certainty crumbled like dried marl. Papa and I had found other teeth like it, but we had never found an eye socket or a jaw before.
    I had to make certain that it was actually there and that I had not made it all up. Quickening my pace, I passed our house, made my way back down to the beach, and over to the east end of Church Cliff. There it was, the large eye staring at me. I took out my chisel and set to work again. The fossil was in a narrow band of limestone that lay between beds of shale. Shale splits easily. That meant that getting the fossil out of the cliff might be possible. But how big was it? I worked at it and worked at, but with only my small hammer, chisel, and a nail, I could not tell.
    The tide was coming in and I had no time to explore further. Reluctantly, I started for home.
    â€œDid you find anything?” Mama asked without looking up from her lace when I came in.
    â€œI think I’ve found the dragon!”
    Mama, looked up from her work, staring at me uncomprehendingly.
    â€œThe what?” she asked.
    â€œThe dragon, the one people talk about. It’s in the cliffs. It’s really there. It’s not just a story. It’s a big, big curiosity, Mama. The biggest we have ever seen. Papa said I might find such a creature, and I have.”
    â€œTell me what it is again?” Mama asked, still not understanding.
    â€œA dragon, or maybe a crocodile,” I repeated, describing the long line of teeth and the bony eye that stared at me. But it was not until the next morning, when she came with me to see the curiosity for herself, that she believed that I had found anything unusual.
    â€œMy heavens, what a thing!” she exclaimed, standing before the head.
    â€œIt’s a petrified dragon or crocodile, that’s what Papa said. He said that collectors talk about