The Dinosaur Mystery Read Free Page A

way. Jessie stepped back.
    Violet mumbled from her bed. “What’s the matter, Jessie?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
    Jessie squinted, but the light in the museum was gone, taking with it the shadowy forms.
    â€œNothing,” Jessie whispered to Violet. “It’s nothing.”
    She got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The room was still too bright. On the night table, Jessie could see the small mouse skull that had looked so delicate and pretty in the light. And over on a bookshelf, the glass eyes of the stuffed marmoset monkey seemed to be watching her. Jessie pulled the covers over her face, but quite a few minutes passed before she stopped seeing the huge black outline in the museum window across the way — the moving shadow of the long-dead dinosaur!

CHAPTER 3
    Dark as Night
    â€œI s it okay to have another muffin?” Benny whispered to Jessie the next morning at breakfast.
    â€œHere, take mine,” Jessie told him.
    â€œHow come you’re not hungry?” Henry asked his sister.
    Jessie yawned. “I’m more tired than hungry. I had the worst time falling asleep last night. First I was too hot, then it was too light in the room, then I thought I heard an alarm.”
    Just as Jessie said this, Mr. Diggs walked into the kitchen. “You must have heard a car alarm. They go off at all hours for no reason in a big city like this.”
    Mrs. Diggs came back from the pantry with more food for the children. “Pete left a message on the phone machine that everything was quiet all night.”
    At this, Jessie looked up. “Was he sure? I saw lights in the windows of the dinosaur room last night, right after I heard that alarm sound. Maybe it was Pete.”
    Mr. Diggs came around with more orange juice for everyone. “Oh, I doubt it. Pete spends the night on the other side of the museum at the control desk. We have remote cameras so he can keep an eye on the whole museum from there.”
    â€œBut I saw a shadow in the dinosaur room, just like the ones we saw when Pete first showed us the Tyrannosaurus last night,” Jessie explained. “Somebody was in there!”
    Mrs. Diggs shook her head and smiled. “Well, with an old building like this you get all kinds of reflections from the traffic, lights, and such.”
    The children finished breakfast quickly. They couldn’t wait to get started.
    â€œGuess what?” Benny asked his sisters and brother. “Mr. Diggs is going to give me a real sorting box for my rocks and real museum signs — little ones — so I can label my collection.”
    â€œAnd I’m going to give Soo Lee a display box for her bird’s nest,” Mrs. Diggs told the children.
    â€œAnd guess what else?” Soo Lee asked in an excited voice. “Benny and I are going to make a museum in the boxcar in Grandfather’s backyard when we get home! Mr. Diggs said Pete will give us real museum tickets to use when people come to our museum!”
    Mr. Diggs laughed. “Well, first you have to come to our museum to get some ideas. Let’s go!”
    That morning the museum was flooded with daylight. The five Aldens looked everywhere at once. In one hall, they passed a giant Viking boat with the longest oars the children had ever seen. A couple of rooms away, a giant whale hung from the ceiling, and fingers of light made it seem as if everything were underwater.
    â€œFirst stop, the planetarium,” Mr. Diggs told the excited children. “Eve Skyler, our director, needs a lot of help there.”
    Mrs. Diggs met everyone at the planetarium entrance. “I forgot to mention that this is a big surprise for Eve,” she said in a low voice. “She’s been so upset with all the confusion around here. And who can blame her? All this dust and nails and banging, and with most of our staff busy with Dino World, she’s had to cancel a number of sky shows.”
    Mr. Diggs unlocked