The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg Read Online Free PDF Page A

accidentally jump up and down on his foot with the heel of my riding boot—say, six or seven times.
    While I fastened Shakespeare’s chest strap, Noah picked up a cardboard box he’d left in the corner of the stable and moved toward me. I scurried backwards. If a ferret or a big hairy spider jumped out of that box, Noah Peterson was deader than dead meat.
    “Now,” he said, shaking the box under my nose. “It’s time for you to choose a Double Dare.”
    Aaaahhhhhh!
    “I’m not choosing one of your pathetic dares, Noah. So, get lost.”
    “It’s the rules.”
    “So? It used to be a rule for Eskimos to put girl-babies out in the snow to die before they realized they needed women more than they needed men.”
    “You’re afraid.”
    “Afraid of what?” I bleated. “Playing Double-Dares is kid’s stuff!”
    “Admit it, you’re afraid.”
    I shook my head and patted Shakespeare’s scrawny neck then tried to push past Noah to get out of the stable.
    “So,” he continued cementing himself to the door and making it impossible for me to get past. “Do you want everyone to know you chickened out? That Sarah’s stepsister and my step-cousin is a great big wuss?”
    “A wuss?”
    No-one called Chiana Ryan, schoolgirl P.I., winner of a real-life crime-writing competition, a wuss…
    I dug my hand into the cardboard box so hard my fingers almost went straight through the bottom.
    “Here,” I yelled, snatching a screwed up piece of paper from amongst the others and thrusting it into his face. “You’re the one who’s totally freaked out with this double-dare stuff. Me—I played more grown-up games when I was in nappies.”
    “So you’ll do it?”
    I shrugged.
    “Whatever.”
    With a smirk that had me digging my nails into the palms of both hands, Noah slowly flattened out the paper and read the message.
    “I double-dare you to tie six balloons onto one of Professor Goodenough’s trees.”
    My mouth dropped open.
    “Tie what? Where?”
    Noah repeated the dare.
    I gulped. Professor Goodenough? Wasn’t that the mysterious old guy who lived in the property with all the threatening signs out front?
    Noah stood away from the stable door and let me through. “And if you chicken out,” he said, “I’ll tell everyone you’re a yellow bellied, weak-kneed wuss .”
    * * *
    How had I let Noah Peterson talk me into something this dumb?
    By calling me a wuss— that’s how.
    Noah even said he’d come with me. Said now was a good time to go because most of the kids were out riding. Also said not to tell anyone about what we were doing because his mum would go ballistic if she found out.
    Yeah. Thanks heaps, Noah. If Kate found out, she would not make me happy by sending me home—oh no—she’d throw me up on Shakespeare and make me ride till I dropped—or Shakespeare dropped—whichever came first.
    After packing away the brushes and hoof-pick and curry comb and other horsy stuff I still hadn’t learned the names of, I watched Noah blow up six red balloons he’d found in a cupboard full of Christmas decorations. While he huffed, I leant against the wall. While he puffed, I carefully inspected the dirt under my finger-nails. Why should I help him blow up the balloons? After all—Noah Peterson was the one who was full of hot air, not me.
    Watching the red balloons bobbing and bouncing around on the floor, I shivered. What about the sign that said, ‘Beware Bull–Eats People’?
    Geez…what had I let Noah talk me into?
    And then I decided the only way to survive the next half hour was to grab a chocolate bar, a warm sweater, and a strong dose of P.I. courage.
    So, while Noah snuck a couple of bikes from the shed, I trailed inside the house. From the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom I was sharing with Tayla and Sarah, I snaffled a Mars bar and my new red sweater—figuring if I got chomped on by the people-eating bull, at least the blood wouldn’t show.
    As for P.I. courage—that was a bit harder