Читать книгу Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave - Jay Williams - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

From a Clear Sky

Danny Dunn, his face flaming almost as red as his hair from the August heat, came panting up on the summit of the Sugarloaf, the highest point of the hills above the town of Midston. He paused, mopping his forehead, and looked out over the wide valley below, at the little toy blocks of houses, the red brick of the College buildings, and beyond them, the shining silver of the reservoir lake.

Then he shouted over his shoulder, “Irene! Joe! Come on! It’s this way.”

Irene Miller and Joe Pearson toiled up behind him. Joe’s long thin face was even gloomier than usual, and as he came to the flat stones at the summit he gave a loud, sad sneeze.

“Bless you,” said Irene, switching her glossy dark pony-tail from side to side to drive away the gnats which buzzed around her face. “Don’t tell me you’re catching cold on a hot day like this?”

“Id’s nod a code,” Joe mumbled. “Id’s addergy.”

“Addergy? Goodness, Dan, do you think that’s something catching?” Irene grinned.

“Allergy, I guess he means,” Danny said. “Poor old Joe. He’s allergic to climbing, to exercise, to perspiring, to mountains—”

“Okay, okay,” Joe howled, flapping his hands. “Very fuddy. The side of the hill is all cubbered wid godded-rod, ad I’b addergic to dat!”

Danny looked sympathetically at his friend’s red nose and streaming eyes. “Well, there’s no goldenrod up here,” he said. “And the breeze ought to make you feel better. Let’s rest for a minute.”

They made themselves comfortable on the sun-warmed stone, and Danny pointed to a bulge of gray rock swelling out on the mountain face below them. A wide crack split it diagonally.

“We can follow that crack down,” he said.

Joe glanced at his watch. “Eleved o’clock,” he said.

“I know just what you’re thinking,” said Danny. “Do we have time to find the cave, explore it, and still get home in time for lunch? Right?”

Joe nodded, and blew his nose several times. He was beginning to feel a good deal better in spite of himself, and when he spoke again it was in a clearer voice. “It isn’t that I’m hungry,” he said. “It’s just that I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast.”

“Not counting those two candy bars and the apple,” said Irene.

“I mean real food.”

Dan, with his elbows on his knees, peered out over the countryside. “Gosh, it’s pretty up here,” he said. “Makes you feel like a giant. Just think, there was a time when all that valley was water.”

“Water? You mean some kind of flood?” said Joe.

“No, Professor Bullfinch says that all this part of the country was once covered by a sea. What were standing on was part of the bottom.”

“Good thing it isn’t a sea now,” Joe remarked. “We’d have to go to school wearing aqualungs.”

“Oh, Joe, that was millions of years ago,” said Irene. “Maybe even before the dinosaurs lived.”

“Then how does Professor Bullfinch know about it? He’s no dinosaur,” said Joe. He lay back and stared up at the sky, yawning.

“Scientists find out from studying the rocks and the clay and sand, and types of earth, and the fossils in them,” Danny replied. “And believe me, what Professor Bullfinch doesn’t know about science isn’t worth knowing.”

Danny had been brought up in the house of Professor Euclid Bullfinch, who taught at Midston College and who was famous for his private researches. Dan’s father had died when the boy was very young, and Mrs. Dunn had taken the job of housekeeper for the Professor. Between the scientist and the child a real affection had grown up, almost like that of father and son, and the Professor had taught Dan a great deal about the wonders of science.

The boy continued, “They’ve found fossils of shellfish and plants and things that show how the sea bottom filled up with mud. Then something—maybe earthquakes—changed the course of the streams and the sea dried up or receded. Now there are only a few little trickles left, and Midston River, and the reservoir.”

“Gosh, maybe we’ll find some fossils in the cave,” murmured Irene.

“If we ever reach it,” said Joe. “Come on, let’s get going. The sooner we find it, the sooner we can go find some sandwiches.”

Danny began the descent along the crack in the rock, setting his feet in it with care and bracing his hands against the face of the stone. After a short distance, the crack widened until it was a narrow shelf that ran diagonally along the rocky face. This, in turn, gave way to great ragged boulders among which grew scrub oaks and junipers. There were blueberry bushes, too, weedy grass, and then, a little further down, the woods began.

Dan led his friends between the dark trunks of the pines. The ground was slippery with needles, and there was a spicy smell of resin in their nostrils. Gray beech trees and the rough bark of maples appeared, and the going became harder as the smooth carpet of needles gave way to underbrush, to partridge berry and sassafras, and tangles of blackberry vines. A pheasant shot up like a rocket with a clap of wings that made all three young people jump. A jay scolded them noisily as they clattered down the slope hanging on to saplings to keep from sliding headlong. The forest thinned. They emerged beside a long ridge of rock, partly covered with moss and shrubs, that stuck out of the ground like the back of a giant beast.

“It’s not far from here,” said Danny, with satisfaction.

Joe groaned. “Not far! That’s what you’ve been saying ever since you talked us into coming with you this morning. If you had told me I was going to have to climb up over Sugarloaf—!”

“Yes, Dan,” said Irene. “Why couldn’t we have come right up this side, nearest the town? It would have been shorter.”

Danny nodded. “I know. But the trouble is, when I first found the cave, last spring, I didn’t mark the trail to it. I was looking for mineral specimens for my collection and I took the road from the end of town up behind Sugarloaf, and past Rose Hill. Then I climbed Sugarloaf and started down this side. So I remember the landmarks from this direction but not the other.”

He made his way down the slope until he was standing in the shadow of the ridge. When his friends had joined him, he said, “Now, let’s see. I followed the bottom of the ridge and came out on a kind of point of ground where there was a big white oak. The cave was just below it…I think.”

“You think?” Joe said.

“No, I’m sure of it. Stop worrying, Joe.” He strode resolutely on. But suddenly, Irene caught his sleeve.

“Listen,” she said. “What was that?”

They stood still, cocking their heads. “I don’t hear anything,” said Danny.

“There it is again. Shh!”

They all heard it now, a faint, sharp tapping as of metal striking stone. It seemed to come from the ridge at their backs.

“That’s just a woodpecker,” Danny said, shrugging.

“Doesn’t sound like a woodpecker to me,” said Joe. “More like a pebble-pecker. Tell you what—let’s go home.”

Danny frowned at his friend. “You don’t really mean that, Joe.”

“I don’t? Oh. I thought I did.”

“And anyway, I’m not going to turn back now,” Dan went on. “When I found the cave, I didn’t have any light with me, not even a match. I planned to come back next day, but the next day was a school day and I forgot. Then, next time I remembered about it there was a baseball game I had to play in. Something always interfered—that camping trip one week end, and then Irene’s birthday, and—gosh, all sorts of things. I wouldn’t have thought of it today, except that Professor Bullfinch said something about his old friend, the geologist, coming to visit us. Now that we’re here, nothing’s going to stop me.”

Joe sighed. “Oh, I know. But trouble can come to you out of a clear blue sky, Danny. Like that time you promised Miss Arnold you’d never meddle with the science experiments in class again. Then, you dropped a little sulphur in that test tube when she wasn’t looking. Phew! It took days to get the smell out of the classroom.”

“I just wanted to see what would happen,” Danny said, indignantly. “But anyway, that’s got nothing to do with today. This time, we’ve got flashlights, there won’t be any trouble, and nothing’s going to happen.”

He turned away. Before he could take another step, something rang against the stones above his head, shot out into the air, and landed with a thump in the grass at his feet as if it had dropped from the sky.