Once Every Never Read Free Page A

Jenkins.”
    Dr. Jenkins, as far as Clare could tell, seemed to have been produced by the very same Lady Archaeologist 3000 machine that had spat out her aunt. She’d camouflaged her potentially attractive features with an almost identical starchy-updo, no-makeup, lab-coat fashion sense.
    “We went to the same school together, once upon a time,” Maggie said. “Can you believe it?”
    “I really can,” Clare murmured under her breath.
    At her side, Al stifled a giggling fit. Barely.
    “Dr. Jenkins recently became a full-fledged curator!” Maggie beamed benevolently and prodded the girls forward. “Say hello, now.”
    Clare waggled the fingers of one hand in wan greeting. Al choked out a “hiya.”
    “Er—hello …” Dr. Jenkins said, eyeing them as if they were a couple of soda cans unearthed at a Mesopotamian dig site. The curator’s manner was stiff and formal, and she smiled as though profoundly unused to the gesture. The result was sort of evil-clown grotesque. It was painfully obvious that Dr. Jenkins was deeply ill at ease in the presence of anyone too young to have qualified for a doctorate. “It’s, uh, it’s very nice to meet you … Alice, Clarinet.”
    Clare rolled an eye at her aunt. “Clare,” she muttered. Maggie knew better than to give out her full stupid name. Stupid musician parents …
    “Urm … we might be a while, Maggie,” said Dr. Jenkins. “I need your opinion on several aspects of the new exhibit installations …”
    Casting her eye around the Great Court, Maggie spotted a group of teenagers milling about in front of two tour guides. “Girls, why don’t you go and join the Summer School Enrichment Tour,” she suggested, the tone of her voice conveying the misguided notion that this activity was to be considered “cool.”
    Proudly defiant in her uncoolness, Al brightened up immediately.
    Clare, on the other hand, tried to silently indicate to her aunt that she’d rather spend an hour or two in the museum gift shop jamming unsharpened souvenir pencils up her nose.
    Somehow, Maggie didn’t get the hint. “Ceciley, would that be all right?” she asked the curator.
    “Oh! Oh, of course it would!” the good doctor exclaimed with ill-concealed relief. She turned to Clare and said, in the kind of tone usually reserved for new puppies and the bribery of misbehaving eight-year-olds, “It’s the Ancient Europe Tour, Clarinet, and there’s a display of bog bodies as an added bonus!”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    “Nothing more fun than bog people!”
    With that, Al doubled over in uncontrollable laughter only partly disguised as a coughing fit. Clare gave her aunt a peck on the cheek—whispering that Maggie owed her one, big time—and resigned herself to her fate.
    THE TOUR GROUP shuffled like a many-sneakered millipede from room to room, display case to display case, peering at coins and pottery shards, beads and rusted blades, broken glass bottles and gap-toothed ivory hair combs—all that remained of long-ago daily lives. Now priceless artifacts.
    But to Clare’s glazed-over eyes nothing in those cases could compare with the stuff on display in Harrods department store. A couple of the glass boxes in the Ancient Britain room contained polite little paper notices informing visitors that artifacts had been removed while the gallery was under renovation. Frankly, Clare couldn’t see how that made the exhibit any less interesting.
    It had been such a major disappointment when she’d first discovered that charmingly dishevelled, quip-slinging, adventure-loving archaeologists were totally the creation of some Hollywood executive’s fevered brain. Mystical artifacts and quests for priceless treasure, more of the same.
    “Could this stuff possibly be any more boring?” she muttered, earning a disapproving glance from a white-haired security guard who sat on a little folding chair by the entrance to the room. Drinking tea.
    Oh yeah. Definitely a hotbed of action , Clare