One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing Read Free

never forgotten to send her gifts at Christmas and on her birthdays.
    Nannies aren’t emotional, she reminded herself. She took a deep breath and clenched her fists. “Steady, Hettie, old lass,” she said, quietly. “Chin up, chest out, firm step. There’s work to be done.” She was sure that a Charmaine-Bott would only be involved in something very necessary.
    She looked up the steps to the museum. An important message, Master Quincey had said with his dying words. Hettie gulped. Of WORLD importance. It HAD to be delivered. It was in room thirteen.
    The young nanny was sitting on the museum steps, very pale. Hettie thought of correcting her for getting dirt on her uniform, but she stopped herself. She rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Melissa,” she said softly. “Just sit quietly for a few minutes. Wait for us, we’re going inside the museum.” Melissa nodded.
    Hettie adjusted the strap round baby Simone’s waist, and straightened the child’s sun bonnet, then she climbed the steps to the museum entrance. Room thirteen, Master Quincey had said. She looked for an attendant.
    “Sure, lady, you mean the Early Dinosaur Hall,” said the uniformed man. “Everyone wants the Dinosaur Hall. You know, lady, that dinosaur’s nearly two hundred millions of years old. You get that? Millions. Take the elevator. Fourth floor.”
    The Scots nanny took the lift to the fourth floor. Room thirteen, its number in gold paint, was easy to find. Hettie remembered more of the 25th Earl’s last words. “ ... Message ... microdot... In largest beast.”.She looked inside the room. “Lawks!” she exclaimed. “The dear laddie could hardly have chosen anything bigger.” She walked in. Dominating the centre of the hall, and flanked by two lesser giants, was the fossilized skeleton of one of the largest creatures ever to roam this earth--a brontosaurus.
    Hettie made her way to the limestone plinth on which the three petrified monsters stood. She glanced about her. There were two visitors at the far end of the hall. She waited until they had gone, then she squeezed under the guard-rail and climbed on to the plinth, close to the head of the sixty-six-feet-long brontosaurus. She listened for a moment, to make sure no one was near. Then, gritting her teeth and holding back a shudder, she stuck her hand into the beast’s jaws and felt around. She found nothing. She was surprised. It seemed the obvious place to hide a message. She looked for another hiding place. Inside the rib cage, perhaps? She searched as carefully as she could, again with no success. Puzzled, she examined the tail bones. She tried to visualize the size of the message. She recalled the 25th Earl’s words. “A microdot,” he’d said. Would that be bigger than a pea? She decided it would probably be smaller. It must be pushed into one of the bones, then. There were hundreds. It could be anywhere. She made another fruitless search. Then came the sound of approaching footsteps.
    Hettie sighed. Sadly, she left the hall
     
    William Badenberg boasts that he is 2,922 today. Days, that is. Actually, he’s eight years old, and he’s enjoying himself. Birthdays are one of the few times when he sees his mother and father together. They’re not divorced. It’s just that Mr. Badenberg is always busy being successful.
    “It’s William’s birthday on Tuesday,” Mrs. Badenberg cabled him in Zurich.
    “Fine,” Mr. Badenberg cabled back. “Fix him a cocktail party. Buy him a new car.”
    “At eight?” cabled Mrs. Badenberg.
    “At any suitable time,” replied her husband.
    A telephone call to his Swiss office ended the confusion. Mr. Badenberg cancelled forty-three appointments, took two days from work, and flew home.
    William has twenty guests, suitably chosen from Mrs. Badenberg’s social blue book, and all children of the right sort of people to know.
    They are enjoying a lobster barbecue on the Badenberg patio. They are being