Finders Keepers by Andrea Spalding Page A

expelled slowly. “If the Sundance ceremony is really sacred…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Joshua, that photo shouldn’t be in the museum. I wonder if we can do anything about it?”

Chapter Fourteen
    Before Joshua could answer, he caught a glimpse of a woman striding though the exhibits. His face lit up. “Hey Mom,” he shouted, “we’re over here.” The woman turned, smiled, and headed their way.
    â€œThis is my Mom,” said Joshua proudly. “She’s one of the archaeologists here.”
    Danny’s mouth gaped like a goldfish. It was the woman in the red jump suit, the one who had yelled at him.
    â€œHi, you must be Danny. I’m Mrs. Brokenhorn.” Joshua’s mother smiled. She didn’t say anything about yelling, she just shook his hand. “Joshua’s told me about you and I gather you have something you’d like to show me.”
    Danny nodded and fumbled in the pocket of his shorts. He handed her the somewhat grubby pile of tissues. Carefully, Mrs. Brokenhorn peeled them away until the lance point lay exposed on the palm of her hand.
    â€œHow lovely,” she breathed. “Amazing it’s still in one piece after all these years.”
    Danny and Joshua exchanged guilty grins. “More amazing than you know,” thought Danny as he remembered rolling around on the ground after trying to lean on the wind.
    â€œDanny, I think you have something really specialhere,” said Mrs. Brokenhorn. “Why don’t you come to my office and we’ll try to identify it.”
    Thrilled, Danny followed Mrs. Brokenhorn across the display area and through a door marked PRIVATE—STAFF ONLY .
    â€œThis is great. I’ve never met a real archaeologist before.” Danny bubbled happily to Joshua. “Why didn’t you tell me what your mother did?”
    â€œYou never asked,” said Joshua with a grin.
    â€œIdiot!” Danny stuck out a foot to trip Joshua up.
    Joshua smartly jumped over it but stumbled against the corridor wall.
    â€œYou can’t wrestle in here,” warned his mother, opening a door and waving them inside. “There are too many things that could be broken.”
    Joshua saluted her saucily, but obediently went to sit quietly on the only empty chair. Danny hesitated in the doorway. The only other chair had a pile of books on it. He looked around in amazement. There were books everywhere. The walls were lined with them. Danny had never seen so many books except in the public library. Where there weren’t books there were interesting objects, teeth and animal jawbones, lumps of rock, bones, pieces of pottery and several arrowheads. There was even a human skull among the papers on Mrs. Brokenhorn’s desk.
    Danny’s eyes opened wide and he pointed wordlessly.
    â€œThat’s a cast, you can handle it if you want to,” said Mrs. Brokenhorn as she stepped past Danny, removed the books from the other chair and placed them on the floor.
    Danny poked his finger in the skull’s eye socket then pulled a face and perched on the edge of the cleared chair.
    â€œNow, let’s have a good look at this lance point.” Mrs. Brokenhorn made a space on her desk and spread out a piece of blue paper. She angled a desk light so it shone on the paper and placed the lance point in the middle of the patch of light. The point gleamed and shone mystically.
    Taking what looked like a long fine pair of steel tweezers, Mrs. Brokenhorn stretched them out so one steel tipgently touched each end of the point.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” asked Danny curiously.
    â€œI’m measuring. Using steel calipers is much more accurate than if I had tried to place the uneven surfaces of your lance point on a tape measure.”
    Danny and Joshua watched with fascination as Mrs. Brokenhorn used the calipers to measure not only the length, but the width and the depth on several places of