and dust.
Man, the air was unbearably dry and dusty. By the end of each day, my muscles were tired and sore and I felt like I’d taken a bath in dirt and sweat.
But the worst thing of all had to be the toilet. Scratch that — it wasn’t even a toilet: it was a dingy, smelly porta-potty that was totally gross. The first time I saw it I wanted to cry. I swear to God, it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since Biblical times. The floor was caked with dirt, the toilet seat crusted with dried urine, and the stench that emanated from that dark, dank hole was practically prehistoric. I swore up and down that I wouldn’t use it.
“Ew! I’d rather hold it in all day than sit there!” I complained to Dad, giving him my best “yuck” face.
“Okay, suit yourself,” he said with a funny smirk, like he didn’t believe me.
But you know the saying — “when you gotta go, you gotta go.” Short of relieving myself on Biblical remains, I didn’t have any other choice. I quickly learned to hold my breath and pee like lightning.
I could tell Einstein wasn’t too thrilled with my attitude. On one of the very first days I unknowingly committed a cardinal sin of archaeology: I picked up a rock. I remember turning it over in my hand, wondering how long it had been lying there. Definitely centuries — maybe even millenniums.
This would be a cool souvenir for Marla, I thought, and I dropped it into my pocket.
A second later, he was at my side.
“Hey Mack, what are you doing? Put that back.”
“Why?” I frowned. “It’s just a rock.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Honey that might look like a regular old rock, but it’s not. Everything here is a valuable piece of evidence from the past. That rock might be part of an ancient wall, or it could have writing on it with information and names.”
I took it out and looked at it again. It looked just the same as any ordinary stone you’d find in a public park or in someone’s backyard.
“Yeah, okay Dad — whatever,” I said, letting it fall back down to the ground with a loud plop. He sighed and walked away. I knew he was frustrated with me, but I didn’t care. After all, it was his big idea to drag me out here in the first place. I’d much rather be back home hanging out with Marla and buying gum from Nasir than digging through piles of old sand.
But everything changed the day I made my first big discovery. It was about a week into the trip and I was sifting through what must have been my hundredth pile of dirt when I felt something hard between my fingers.
“I found something!” I gasped, pulling it from the dirt and dusting it off with my brush.
A surge of excitement shot through me as I realized what it was. A pottery shard. But not just any old regular one: this was a large, fully intact piece. I held it gingerly in my hand like an egg, marvelling at the idea that I was the first person to touch this thing in two thousand years. After we washed it, we found that it had writing on it, too. Apparently, that was a pretty big deal.
“Great job, Mack!” cheered Dad. “Somebody get this girl an ice cream!”
I could see the pride in his eyes. You know, the look parents get like “one day you’re going to grow up and be just like me.” I have to admit, I was proud of myself, too. I walked around feeling like the Queen of Archaeology for a while. But the very next day, somebody else had an even bigger find and knocked me off the throne. It was a stash of ancient silver coins found wedged under a loose stone in one of the floors. News of the find buzzed through the site as Dad gathered everyone around to have a look.
“A stash of coins hidden under the floor. Can anybody imagine what they were doing there?”
We all took a moment to consider the possibilities, but nobody spoke up.
“Well,” he continued, “if it was just one coin, we would conclude that it was dropped accidentally and forgotten. However, an entire hoard of coins suggests that somebody put them there deliberately. The question is, who? Does anybody want to put forth a theory?”
He paused again while we all looked at each other nervously, wondering who was going to speak first.
“Don’t worry, there’s no wrong answer,” he laughed. “Which is exactly what I find so fascinating about archaeology: it’s all a big puzzle. Our task here is to rebuild lost civilizations. How do we do that? By using these ancient fragments from the earth, a bit of history, and a dash of imagination.”
Dad’s eyes sparkled as he spoke. I don’t think I’d seen him this alive since before Mom’s accident.
“So, how did these coins get here?” he asked again, holding one up for inspection. “Let’s take ourselves back to Biblical times when this dirt beneath our feet was a thriving metropolis. Maybe a slave was secretly pilfering them from his master. Or perhaps a desperate merchant hid his savings from the menace of an approaching army. Or maybe a housewife was hoarding money to keep it safe from her gambling husband. Whoever it was, they hid it here not knowing they would never see it again. Not knowing they’d hidden it so well, their stash wouldn’t be found until thousands of years later — by us.”
It was incredible. For a split second I felt transported back in time. And I wasn’t the only one. I could tell that the others were feeling the magic of Dad’s vision, too.
“You see, the people who lived here were just like you and me,” he went on. “Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, students, teachers, and tradesmen. They worked under this same hot sun every day and gazed up into the same starry sky as you do every night. And this site is the time capsule they’ve left behind. Everything we find is a clue to decoding the details of their lives.”
Cool! In that moment, the whole archaeology thing finally started to make sense for me. I began to understand why a couple would honeymoon here instead of Hawaii. And why a sixty-five-year-old woman would spend her life’s savings to be here. It was probably the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. There were ancient cities buried under our feet. I remember thinking that a person could get lost forever out here in the desert.
After that day, I knew it was true.
Chapter 13
Lately, Nasir’s ears were always on alert.
He heard the traffic noises suddenly grow louder — he knew that meant the door to the store had opened. Pushing the carton of toilet tissue onto the nearest shelf, he ran out of the stockroom to see if it was Mackenzie. It wasn’t. Instead, a young mother struggled through the narrow doorway, pushing a stroller with a newborn baby. Usually he would have run to help. Today he just sighed and turned his face away, trying to hide his disappointment.
Where has she gone? he wondered. It had been two weeks and three days now since he last saw her. He wasn’t sleeping well. He often woke up in the middle of the night with his body covered in a layer of damp, sweaty worry, his head jumping with questions.
Has she gone back to Canada? Did he say something to offend her? Maybe she’s become sick?
Leaning over the counter, he picked up a package of her favourite gum and held it tenderly in his hands. He thought about the day he’d
