The Dragon in the Cliff Read Free

hills above the rocky cliffs. To the west, the thatched and slate-roofed buildings of Lyme climbed up the sides of the steep valley from the bay and spread out across the hilltops.
    That night, lying in bed beside Ann, I was too excited to sleep. I was going to find that giant creature whose verteberries I found in the slide. How proud Papa would be. Everyone would come from miles around to see it. Seeing how good a curiosity hunter I was, Mama would let me go to the beach any time I wanted to. In the midst of these thoughts, I heard my name in the whispered conversation that Mama and Papa were having in their bed across the room.
    â€œRichard, you’re fooling yourself if you think you put an end to Mary’s pestering about the curiosities. Did you see how excited she was when she came in? Couldn’t wait to show me what she had found. Ran upstairs with all that mud still on her. It was foolish to let her go. Now there will be no end to this curiosity business with her.”
    â€œAh, there’s no harm in it, Molly,” Papa replied.
    And if anything ever really has a single beginning or a single cause, that was the beginning of my fossil hunting and the different turn my life has taken.

CHAPEL SCHOOL
    Lizzie Adams, whom I used to consider my closest friend, now does not approve of me. She says I think that I am better than everyone in Lyme, that the fossils and my fame have made me proud and unyielding. She is by no means the only one of the people in this town who feels this way. From the beginning, there have been those who disapproved of my fossil hunting, who believed that it was not a proper pursuit for someone of my sex.
    I had gone collecting with Papa only a few times before the Reverend Gleed’s wife, a very large woman with powdery skin, a fleshy nose, and colorless, thin hair, called on Mama.
    Mrs. Gleed came from Taunton to Lyme with her husband, the leader of the Dissenting congregation to which we and many other artisans’ families in Lyme belong. Taunton being bigger and more prosperous than Lyme, which has fallen on hard times, Mrs. Gleed considered it her duty to enlighten us poor, backward souls. Hearing her in the hall downstairs, Mama, who was preparing dinner, quickly wiped her hands on her apron—which was none too clean—looked at her image in the glass, and straightened the cap on her honey-colored curls, all the while directing me. “Clear away the table. It is unsightly. Hurry, Mary.… Oh, John is crying. Pick him up and quiet him, please. Where is Ann? Is she into any mischief? Mrs. Gleed will be thirsty, she’ll want some cider.”
    Mama took John from my arms, and before I could finish clearing the table, Mrs. Gleed was standing in the middle of the room. “Mrs. Gleed, how nice of you to call,” Mama said pleasantly, greeting the reverend’s wife, who was winded from climbing the stairs.
    Mama offered her a chair, and Mrs. Gleed dropped into it with a sigh of relief. “My, my,” she said, shaking her head, “What a climb.”
    Mama gave me a look, reminding me of the cider. On the way down the stairs to the scullery I heard Mrs. Gleed say, “Mrs. Anning, I don’t know how you and Mr. Anning manage those stairs, they’re so steep. I would call more often if it did not mean climbing up here to your little room.”
    I heard Mama laugh nervously. Her discomfort made me realize for the first time that to some people our living arrangements, which are much the same as everyone else’s that we know—a small scullery behind the shop, a large room above the shop, and another small room under the eaves for sleeping—are poor.
    I opened the door to the scullery, filled a glass with cider from the jug, and brought it back upstairs, placing it on the table in front of Mrs. Gleed. She emptied the glass, wiped her lips with her handkerchief, and turned to ask me, “How old are you, Mary?”
    â€œI am