A few feet away, a man with lightly silvered black hair is clutching a lumpy, curved piece of pink plastic. He’s making a crazy-eyes face and laughing too hard to speak.
“Goddamn it, Charlie!” Ripley yells, earning herself dirty looks from half a dozen parents.
“You should’ve seen your faces,” he wheezes, brushing tears from his eyes before they can land on his green plaid button-down. “You hate me, but it’s worth it. Oh my God, I would do it again in a second.”
James leans over and murmurs in Ripley’s ear, “Only one kind of Canadian, is there?”
“Can it, Professor,” she whispers back. She swipes the trumpetlike instrument from Charlie. “Is this a reproduction of a Parasaurolophus crest? Where the hell did you find this?”
Charlie acts affronted. “My ancestors built the Great Pyramids. You think I can’t figure out how to 3D-print the nasal passages of a dinosaur?” He gestures for her to put it to her lips. “Try it. It’s really fun.”
“I’m not trying ithere,” Ripley says, gesturing at the tourists who are still fluttering after the jump scare. “I’ll get arrested.”
“I already called the Mounties,” Charlie says. “I told them the Americans were coming to steal our loonies.”
“American, singular.” Absorbed in Charlie’s noisemaker, Ripley waves absently at James. “This one is British. Charlie Bassa, James Smithson.”
“NottheJames Smithson?” Charlie’s dark eyes sparkle. Nothing delights him more than a surprise.
James offers Charlie his hand. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Charles. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“I’ll bet,” Charlie says, giving Ripley a conspiratorial smirk before turning back to James. “Quick: If you could invite any paleontologist in the world to dinner, who would it be?”
James blinks. “What?”
“Living or dead. Present company excluded so you don’t offend Ripley when you choose me.” Charlie gives James a Muppet-like open-mouthed grin.
“Er. Mary Anning, I suppose.”
“Really?” Ripley asks.
“Really,” Charlie purrs, looking from James to Ripley like he’s savoring another surprise.
James shrugs. “My mother took me to Lyme Regis as a boy. Mary Anning made pivotal discoveries on that beach, no matter that academic societies refused to admit her.”
“You like women who color outside the lines, huh? Makes sense that you showed up with this one.” Charlie smirks like he caught them banging on a bed of lab coats.
James’s expression is frankly alarmed. “We’re not—”
“He’s yanking your chain, James,” Ripley interrupts before he gets them both caught in a web of diminishingly plausible denials.
“And you love me for it,” Charlie coos.
Ripley’s dying by the time they work their way around to thebusiness at hand. Once James starts hinting about novel proto-bird fossils, though, Charlie latches on with dismaying quickness.
“You mean Will Stone’s fossil? Heck of a bird,” Charlie says. “Can’t wait to get a closer look at the APS meeting.”
Ripley forgets James is supposed to be doing the talking. “How did you hear about that?”
“Them Bones leaked the abstract yesterday.” Charlie pulls out his phone to show them the front page of the paleontology gossip site.
Jesus.Hundreds of comments. Thousands of likes. Paleontology nerds around the world are losing their damn minds.
Charlie beams. “Just between us, Will has been doing some work in our research collection. We’re hoping for a great collaboration.”
“He washere?” Ripley exclaims, appalled. “Will Stone wasin your research collection?”
She and James exchange a look. The Tyrrell has a collection of hundreds of thousands of specimens, many of which remain unidentified. If someone wanted to build a fake fossil, a research collection would be the perfect place to find the pieces.
