Helen decided to visit
the excavation site on the outskirts of town, network with some of the
paleontologists, and maybe pick up some valuable work experience that she could later use to
fortify her argument the next time she confronted that terrible admissions
officer, Mrs. Bellingham, at her home. I’ll show you a restraining order, Helen thought as she trekked across the barren
landscape.
After an hour or so of
wandering, she found the dig site: a twenty foot by thirty foot square of earth
marked off with wooden stakes and string. Just outside the perimeter, a young man in his
middle twenties paced the area, occasionally taking his hat off and then
putting it back on again a few seconds later. He appeared to be muttering to himself.
“It doesn’t make sense,”
he muttered.
Helen, having decided to
‘fake it’ until she ‘made it,’ hailed him as she would an old friend. “Hey, old friend,” she hailed.
The man continued to
pace and mutter. “This is bad. This is very bad. Dr. Watson is going to kill me.”
“Hi, I’m Helen,” Helen
said, extending her hand. “I’m a freelance
paleontologist who happened to be walking by.”
“How could this have
happened?” The man asked.
“How could what have happened?”
“The dinosaur bones,
they’re missing. We had three quarters of
an stegosaurus's rib cage exposed, and now it’s just gone. Like it never
existed!” He resumed stalking and
scanning the ground. “Nothing!”
Helen took off her
backpack and unzipped the main compartment. “Good thing I brought my equipment,” she
said. She removed several
items.
“What is all that
stuff?
Helen ticked off names as she pointed to each item. “Endoplasmic Reticulator, Soul Detector, Anti-Matter Scatter
Capacitor, Carbon Dater Meter Reader, you name it.”
“You’re kidding.” The young man looked at her as if for the first
time. “What did you say your
name was?”
“I told you, it’s
Helen.”
“This isn’t paleo gear,”
he said, gesturing to the stack of hardware.
“In addition to
freelancing, I’m also a paranormal psychologist.” She held one of the devices out in front of her
like a divining rod.
“That isn’t a thing.”
“Look, dinosaur bones
don’t just disappear," Helen said. "This may be the site of a
major spectral disturbance.” She focused her attention on an area littered with boulders a
short distance from the dig site.
“I know what’s going on
here," the man said. "You stole them. You stole my bones!”
Helen’s gadget started
beeping like a son of a bitch.
“You think that’s going
to make me believe you?” the man asked. “You must think I’m a real sucker.”
Helen stopped at the
edge of a giant boulder and stood, mouth agape, looking at something on the
other side. “I think you better come
over here,” she said.
The young man shook his
head, but did as he was told. What he saw when he arrived caused him to drop his Indiana
Jones-inspired fedora in the dirt. It was a humongous pile of shimmering dinosaur feces--stegosaurus
by the look of it.
“I don’t believe it,” he
said.
“Do you believe me now?”
Helen asked. “Oh wait, you just said
you didn't. Never mind.”
“I do believe you,” the
man said. “I’m sorry I ever
doubted you. My name is Eric by the
way." He extended his hand. "My friends call me Homo.”
“Oh, are you...?”
“No, that’s just what
they call me.”
“You know, you don’t
have to tell people that when you introduce yourself.”
“Oh, I guess you're
right. It just felt natural.”
“You may even want to
consider finding new friends. Yours don’t sound very nice.”
“Aw, they’re not so bad,
although, come to think of it, one was just put in jail for committing a hate
crime.”
“Is that what I think it
is?” Helen asked, pointing to the poop.
“I still can’t believe
it,” Eric said walking toward the massive pile. The poop was roughly
the same height as he was--about five feet seven inches tall--but at least five
times as wide. He reached out to touch it. “It looks fresh.”
“Ew,” Helen said.
Eric's hand passed
through the pile as it would through the atmosphere. “Nothing,” he said. He held up a relatively clean hand. He put
it to his nose. “It doesn't even smell.”
“Freaky,” Helen said.
She approached the enormous collection of fecal matter with another one
of her machines. “Just as I thought,” she
said after waving it in front of the pile a few times. “Phantasmic excreta caca.”
“You want to say that in
English?”
