A Bone to Pick. Gina McMurchy-Barber

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СКАЧАТЬ the one that came along and ruined it? That’s why an archaeologist needs a brush like this.”

      Aunt Margaret snatched it from my hand. “Well, today this isn’t an archaeologist’s tool, but rather a paintbrush that’s going to be used to give new life to our old house. And you, young lady, will have the privilege of using it.” She plunged the brush into the can of paint and slapped it on the side of the house, leaving a long streak of glistening turquoise. “There, you see. It’s going to be beautiful. Now get to it.”

      I heaved another sigh and took the now-damaged brush from my aunt. Helping her to paint the house was an idea she and Mom had cooked up as a way for me to earn my own spending money over the summer. I’d tried my best to argue that I didn’t really need much spending money. After all, when you lived three blocks from the beach, all you needed was a bathing suit, a towel, and a couple of friends.

      “And where will you get the money to rent a skiff at the marina when you feel like sailing?” Mom had argued. “And money for scuba diving with Vince Torino and TB? And how do you plan to pay for all those archaeology books you want to buy online?”

      “Okay, I get it,” I’d grumbled. My mom was a single parent, and I’d been taught young that money didn’t grow on trees. I guess we were lucky — if you could call it lucky — that my mom’s bossy sister and Uncle Stuart had invited us to live with them until Mom could afford to pay for a place of our own.

      At first, coming to live with my aunt and uncle at Crescent Beach had been rough. But then the greatest thing in my life had happened. One summer day Uncle Stuart and I were digging a hole in the backyard for our new koi pond when we accidentally unearthed the remains of a three-thousand-year-old Coast Salish carver. That was when we first learned that Crescent Beach was actually a Coast Salish summer fishing village dating back five thousand years.

      When it became clear that what at first seemed to be a large round stone was actually a human skull, everyone was in shock — well, mostly Aunt Margaret. The only thing we could think of was to call the police, who knew exactly what to do with our mystery man. They called in a provincial archaeologist, Dr. Edwina McKay. She was an expert in bones — an osteologist.

      That summer Dr. McKay — or Eddy as I came to call her — taught me a lot about excavating, and how to interpret the information that ancient bones told us about a person’s life and death. Besides learning a lot about the First Nations people who once lived in Crescent Beach, I also discovered I had a passion and talent for archaeology. You could say from that time on I was hooked on it.

      And speaking of really old things, Eddy was one of my best friends. She got me. And thanks to her I’d been on three important excavations. My most recent was at the tip of Vancouver Island looking for a sunken fur trade ship. That was the reason why I’d gotten into scuba diving. Now, when I wasn’t on some archaeo­logical dig, I was reading and dreaming about artifacts and bones and … well, pretty much anything to do with archaeology.

      So, for obvious reasons, being drafted into painting my aunt’s house felt like a prison sentence. That first day had been nothing short of agonizing — and not just because we’d spoiled a perfectly good archaeological tool. As the hot sun beat down on me, I watched jealously as tourists arrived in carloads. I knew they were all heading to Blackie’s Spit where they’d park and then land themselves a spot on the beach for the day.

      Then that afternoon the ice-cream man showed up and almost drove me crazy. He went by our house three times — the sound of his tinny music playing the same two bars of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” over and over was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Each time he passed our house he slowed down as if trying to wear me down. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and ran after him, waving my money like a six-year-old.

      By suppertime I was so tired I could hardly sit up, and holding my fork was painful. While I chewed my spaghetti and meatballs, all I could think about was how dreadful my life was going to be for the next two weeks.

      “Peggy, you’ve worked very hard today. I’m proud of you, sweetie,” Mom gushed. “Why don’t you call TB and see if he’ll go for a swim with you?”

      “Mom,” I slurred, “I’m so tired I can barely hold my eyelids open, let alone get on my bike, ride to the beach, and then swim.”

      “Oh, c’mon. It will be refreshing,” urged Aunt Margaret. Debating with my aunt was usually a favourite pastime of mine, but I didn’t even have the energy for that until she dropped a bomb on me. “By the way, I saw your friend the archaeologist at the grocery store today. She tells me she’s off to work in Newfoundland — said something about Vikings.”

      I sat upright and nearly gagged on my meatballs. “Newfoundland — no way! Well, did Eddy say anything about me?” Funny. A moment before I was too tired to even argue with Aunt Margaret. Now I felt as if I were going to jump off my seat like a jack-in-the-box. “When’s she going?” I muttered more to myself than to anyone else. “Maybe I can go, too.”

      Aunt Margaret snorted. “You’re joking, right? Of course, you can’t go —” she started saying.

      “Mom, can I be excused? I have to make a call.” Not waiting for her answer, I dashed out of the room. A few moments later I was punching in numbers on the phone. “Hey, Eddy, it’s me.”

      I heard her chuckle on the other end of the line. “I was wondering how long it was going to take before I heard from you.” I could feel her smile coming through the phone line. “But, Peggy, before you get your hopes up, you should know that this isn’t my show. I’ve been asked to teach archaeology field school for Memorial University. One of their professors cancelled at the last minute, and it looks as if I was the only one who could fill in on such short notice.”

      “But Aunt Margaret said something about Vikings. I didn’t know you were an expert on Vikings,” I said, feeling my newfound energy starting to drain away.

      “I’m not an expert on Vikings, but I do know about archaeology and excavating. I guess they were desperate and I was available.”

      “So what exactly will you be teaching?”

      “These students have done a lot of classroom learning, but they’ve yet to go out into the field and put their theoretical knowledge into practice. They still need to learn the methods of excavating a site — surveying, mapping, setting datum points, using tools properly …”

      “In other words, things I already know how to do.”

      Eddy chuckled again. “Believe it or not, Peggy, you still have much to learn.”

      “Maybe so, but I bet I know more than the students you’ll be teaching at field school.”

      “Well, you could be right.”

      “So I still don’t get what the Vikings have to do with field school.”

      “Right, well this year Memorial’s field school is at a place at the northern tip of Newfoundland called L’Anse aux Meadows. A while back a couple of archaeologists discovered some Viking artifacts there. After eight years of excavating, they proved it’s an authentic Norse site — in fact, it’s the only one in North America,” explained Eddy. I remembered learning a bit about the Vikings in school. Like how they came to the East Coast of Canada a thousand years ago. “It turned out to be so important that the place is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

      “Is that the organization that protects special places and things?” I asked Eddy.

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