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

April sixth,” said Nate. “We made sure to check.”
    Granny nodded. “Good . . . and what newspaper was it?”
    Tessa, Nate and I looked at each other. None of us had noticed—and we should have—
duh
. The town the newspaper came from might tell us the town the ostrich egg came from!
    Granny saw we felt dumb, so she tried an easier question. “Was the newspaper written in English?”
    I thought for a second. “Yes, because I could read the date.”
    Granny nodded. “In that case, it didn’t come from a certain nearby nation. They don’t speak English there.”
    â€œSo President Manfred Alfredo-Chin couldn’t have packed the ostrich egg,” I said. “He must not be the thief . . . unless he has helpers in an English-speaking place.”
    â€œWe already know Professor Bohn is the thief, Cammie,” Tessa said. “And when we call Red Heart Delivery, we’re going to find out that Professor Bohn’s the one who sent the egg.”
    I didn’t think so.
    And I was right.
    But for all the wrong reasons.
    After we put the dishes in the dishwasher, we went up to Nate’s room on the third floor to use his computer. He looked all over the Web, but he couldn’t find Red Heart Delivery anywhere.
    So we trooped back downstairs to find Granny, who was reading in the West Sitting Hall, and she got up and looked till she found an old paper phone book in a drawer in the Family Kitchen.
    There was no Red Heart Delivery there, either.
    â€œMaybe they don’t want publicity,” Tessa said.
    â€œAll businesses want publicity,” Granny said. “Otherwise, how do they get customers?”
    â€œThen why can’t we find them?” Nate asked.
    â€œOnly one reason I can think of,” said Granny. “Because they don’t exist.”
    â€œWell,
that’s
disappointing!” Tessa said.
    â€œA dead end.” I sighed. “What do we do now?”
    Granny shrugged. “When you come to a dead end, you try another direction.”
    And the next day, Monday, that’s just what I did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    I’m in fifth grade, and Monday is the day fifth graders have library after lunch.
    For our investigation, this turned out to be lucky, because Mr. Brackbill, the school librarian, likes to give us Internet research assignments.
    That day the assignment was: Find five dinosaur facts from five reliable websites.
    Dinosaur facts—
yes!
    Even better, we were allowed to pick our own partners, and right away I looked around for Evgenia. She is one of those quiet kinds of people you don’t notice till one day she says something that is seriously smart.
    â€œI have an idea for what to research,” I said as soon as we sat down at the computer table. “Not that long ago, a dinosaur egg fossil was found in a certain nearby nation. Let’s look that up. I mean”—I suddenly realized that might sound bossy—“unless you have a better idea.”
    Evgenia grinned as she logged us in to the computer. “You’re detecting again, aren’t you? When Janand Larry talked about that missing egg last week? I thought, ‘That sounds exactly like a job for the First Kids!’”
    We started by searching “dinosaur egg” and the name of the certain nearby nation. Bingo—we got lots of results from science magazines, newspapers, museums and TV stations. One of them included both Professor Rexington and Professor Bohn, so we tried that one first, and . . . guess what?
    We found out the two paleontologists don’t like each other at all!
    It’s not because of personal stuff. It’s because of science. I didn’t understand everything in the article, but basically they disagree about whether the dinosaur that laid the missing egg is a close relative of birds that live today. Professor Bohn thinks it is, and Professor