For my parents and grandma who took me to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History more times than I can remember JM To all those that inspire and nurture the best in ourselves PF
1 CHAPTER 1 Sifting through the dark gray clay to look for dinosaur bones calmed Violet Chen's mind and body It was the seventh time she searched the hillside that she found a patch of white coming out of the ground Of course she found it the seventh time she checked After all seven was her lucky number Violet had spent almost an hour at Paleo Park She felt like an explorer on another planet But here Violet glimpsed Maryland from more than 110 million years ago Paleontologists like Mom called it the Cretaceous period This was Violet's first time at Paleo Park But she knew the steepest slopes were always the best spots to hunt for bones from when she had gone on other dinosaur digs Do you see it too asked Violet Uh huh said her fourth grade classmate Nick He flapped his hands like he always did when he was excited Nick was in the Infinity Rainbow Club with Violet He had started the after school club for kids who felt different like he did Ms. Daisy their special education
teacher was in charge of the club She had arranged for the whole club and their families to come on a field trip to Paleo Park this weekend For the dig Ms. Daisy had assigned Violet and Nick as partners They bent down on opposite sides of the fossil Violet took her field notebook out of her backpack Ribbon bookmarks divided her notebook into different sections Each of the seven ribbons was a different color of the rainbow She opened her notebook to the dinosaur dig section in the middle and started a new entry December 8 Paleo Park Specimen 1 2 1 Far back corner of the park halfway up the hillside 2 Whitish gray object quarter size 3 Found near gray clay ironstone lignite Violet put her green ribbon bookmark on the page and closed the field notebook Violet and Nick used their paintbrushes on the fossil to clear away the ironstone pebbles the way Ms. Daisy had showed them The lignite or small chunks of fossilized
wood pieces crumbled into an ashy powder with each brushstroke Rubbing their work gloves gently on the fossil removed most of the sticky clay from it It was the size of a football Violet hadn't found a fossil this big before The rounded surface with little holes reminded Violet of a sponge And she knew what that meant Bone It has to be a dinosaur bone she thought Violet opened her field notebook to the page marked with a green ribbon She sketched the exposed part of the fossil Below her drawing she continued her list of seven 4 Spongy football sized 5 Appears to be a dinosaur bone Violet cupped her hands around her mouth Lao Lao Near the bottom of the hill Lao Lao knelt on a thick foam pad and combed through the ground Her silver hair peeked out of her straw hat When Lao Lao looked up at her Violet motioned for her to come up the hill Coming Lao Lao yelled back Your grandma makes it look easy to climb said Nick Lao Lao moved at a steady pace swinging her kneeling pad in one hand and her water bottle in the other 3
