fine," she said confidently. The room was very small, and I don't think Dad had quite figured out what to do with it. It was too little to be a bedroom, and too large for a closet. We mostly used it for temporarily storing things before they went in the cellar or up in the attic. The painting would sure be the centerpiece of this room, I thought. Besides an old desk and a clock, the painting would be just about the only thing in there.
"Get the hammer and nails," Dad exclaimed. "We're going to hang the painting!" Fred helped me gather the tools from the cellar. It wasn't an easy task because Dad's tools were always getting lost. He said that he would no sooner find one than another two would disappear. Dad would kid us by saying that the house liked to eat his hammer and screwdrivers. According to him, if you waited long enough, the house would give them back. Sure enough, the missing tools would suddenly be found the next day. Maybe Dad was right!
We helped Dad center the nail on the wall and lowered the painting carefully until the hanger wire caught hold. Everyone stood back for a few quiet moments to fully appreciate the marvelous painting. The room glowed with the bright colors of the exploding volcano and running dinosaurs. It suddenly made the little room a very interesting place!
CHAPTER 4
All sense of time vanished as I stared at the prehistoric beasts. The great Tyrannosaurus rex looked so realistic. Its head was raised to the sky with its jaws open. You could almost hear its prehistoric roar! I turned around and realized that there were other human beings in the room also. "What happened to Fred?" I asked Amy.
"Oh—he had to run home to get something," she replied. "Something very important!"
"He better get back soon," I muttered. "It's getting dark, and I'm getting hungry! It looks like our Saturday afternoon adventure is almost over."
"Give me a couple of minutes, and I'll walk you home, Amy," I said, gathering up the tools. "I want to see what Fred is up to." As I pushed Amy's bike into their driveway, I observed a light shining from Fred's window. It looks like he's hard at work. "Can you see what Fred's doing?" I asked Amy. I waited outside the front door, kicking some fallen leaves with my sneakers.
"Bill! Come on up," Fred yelled from his open bedroom window. I ran up the steps and rounded the corner to his room. An eerie, green-yellow, glowing light poured into the hallway. The computer was on.
"Hey, Bill! We have a real mystery on our hands," Fred exclaimed, waving me into the room. "It's about the painting!"
Fred was busy hunched over his computer table. He had a really fantastic room. Above the desk were shelves lined with dinosaur models. There was just about every type of prehistoric monster you could imagine.
"What's up?" I asked. "You really took off in a hurry!"
"Look at this, Bill," Fred said. He started typing on the keyboard and pulled up some information titled "Dinosaurs" in big, orange letters. "I knew something was funny about that painting, but I had to be sure!" he said. "I've been checking out when the theory of the Tyrannosaurus changed."
I pulled up a chair and examined the screen more closely. "What changed?" I asked. "The dinosaurs look the same as I've always remembered." Fred looked confident and turned towards me. He was going to tell me the complete story.
"You know, for years it was accepted that the Tyrannosaurus walked upright and dragged its tail on the ground," he explained.
"So what?" I shrugged.
"Well," Fred replied. "We've got a problem. The painting simply doesn't fit into the time period in which it was painted."
"I'm sorry, Fred," I yawned, leaning back in the chair. "I still don't follow what you’re getting at. —So what's the problem?"
"The problem is that the dinosaur painting was signed and dated by the artist in 1953. Every artist around that time would have showed the tail-dragging Tyrannosaurus," Fred replied. "Our painting doesn't. It shows the modern version of the way the Tyrannosaurus looks. This means that either the painting is a modern fake, or Arthur's theories about dinosaurs were ahead of their time!"
"Couldn't he have just made a lucky guess?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," Fred mumbled as he resumed typing on the keyboard.
Suddenly, the echo of the downstairs phone broke the silence. "It's your dad, Bill," Amy called out. "Dinner time—you better get home!"
"The mystery will have to wait," Fred said.
"See you tomorrow," I said, walking out of Fred's room and down the steps towards the front door.
"I'll try and find some more good stuff about the painting," Fred shouted from his room. My fast walk turned into a run. Dinner must be almost ready!
That evening, my mind ran through all the events of the day. The flea market, the painting, and the mystery. They all spun in my brain as I fell asleep. It certainly wasn't a restful sleep. In one dream, I was being chased down the flea market aisles by a Tyrannosaurus rex. The real shocker was when the dinosaur started sneezing at me, like my sister April. Fortunately, I was saved by the buzzing alarm clock.
CHAPTER 5
Sunday afternoon started with a phone call from Fred. He was coming right over. It wasn't long before we were gathered in front of the painting in the little room. Even April and Amy had showed up. The complete patrol was there. Every eyeball scanned over our mystery gift on the wall. I spotted a small carpet leaning in the corner and rolled it out for us to sit on.
Fred began to explain his mysterious discoveries. "From what you've told us, the painting must only be a couple of years old," April commented, looking very confident. "That's why the flea market people just gave you the painting. It simply wasn't worth anything!"
"It sure does look old," Amy added.
"Hey—I'll get a magnifying glass," I suggested. "Maybe we can find something new!"
A few minutes later, I returned and started going over the entire painted surface. I wasn't really sure what I was looking for, but it must have looked very impressive to Amy.
"—Well, it's signed—Arthur 1953," I mumbled.
"We already know that!" April blurted out. "Tell us something new!"
My face must have turned bright red as I joined the others on the carpet.
Fred started telling us how dinosaur displays in museums are being modernized. "You know, they're now using lightweight copies of the original fossilized bones. Plastics are now being used to build dinosaur skeletons today. They are exact castings of the real bones, only they weigh a lot less. They are able to construct some really great dinosaur action scenes!"
"I read that the man who discovered the Tyrannosaurus rex in 1905 wasn't able to build the skeleton he wanted," April declared.
"That's right!" Fred exclaimed. "His name was Henry Fairfield Osborn, and he was director of the American Museum of History in New York. He had the right idea about dinosaurs, but it was forgotten over time. His Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was displayed incorrectly for many years."
"Why didn't they get it right the first time?" I asked.
"Like I was saying, the original bones were just too heavy!"
