Bones by John Wilson

Chapter One
    My mom meets us at the airport, wearing a poncho, a long paisley skirt and cowboy boots. Her hair is in two braids that swing wildly as she envelopes us in an enthusiastic hug. “Hi, Mom,” I say as soon as I get a chance. “This is Annabel.”
    â€œWonderful to meet you,” Mom says to Annabel, then looks back at me. “But you mustn’t call me Mom. That defines me by the role of mother—a role I love, but I’m more than that. You must call me Acacia. It’s a healing herb. Very good for skin ailments,” she says with a pointed look at the huge zit that has exploded on my chin. “It also cures allergies, insect bites and athletes’ foot. And the beans are delightful with guacamole.”
    I stand rooted to the spot, half overwhelmed and half horribly embarrassed. Annabel isn’t fazed. “Yeah,” she says, “it’s an astringent, like tannin. Did you know there are almost a thousand different Acacia species in Australia alone?”
    â€œReally?” Mom says, linking arms with Annabel. “I must go there one day. Aboriginal Australians have a wonderful history of using medicinal herbs. They have many more routes to healing than we do.” Any worries I had about Annabel getting on with my weird mother vanish.
    Mom and Dad split up several months ago. Dad and I moved to Australia, where I met Annabel, and Mom moved to a communal farm outside Drumheller, Alberta. A couple inherited it and decided to dedicate it to alternative lifestyles. About fifteen people live there in a house and a couple of trailers, growing their own food, raising goats and chickens and making their own clothes.
    The idea for a trip to visit Mom during the July school break came from Dad. The money came from Annabel’s Uncle Bill. He paid for our flights to say thanks for the part we played in getting the Loch Ard peacock back to his museum.
    I was missing Mom, so I was fine with the idea. I was nervous that Annabel might not want to come, but the news that there was a dinosaur skeleton on Mom’s farm clinched Annabel’s decision to join me. The skeleton had been discovered by a local farmer in a small valley—coulee, it’s called in Alberta—and was being excavated by scientists from the Royal Tyrrell Museum. There was no way Annabel was going to miss out on seeing a dinosaur dig firsthand.
    I follow Annabel and my mom as they traipse through the airport deep in conversation about botany and folk medicine, leaving me to drag along behind with the luggage. I’m happy that they’re getting along. It’s going to be a great holiday.
    â€œSo these are badlands,” Annabel muses out loud. We lean on our bikes, looking out over narrow steep-sided, cactus-filled valleys that go nowhere. We are at Horsethief Canyon on the Red Deer River. Dusty misshapen hills and weird spires of rock called hoodoos create a sci-fi landscape. Even on the edge of the badlands, it’s hot. I have trouble imagining what it must feel like down in those narrow valleys, sheltered from even the merest breath of wind. “ Hunger Games country,” she adds.
    â€œI wonder if there’s such a thing as goodlands ?” Annabel continues. “If there is, it would be the opposite of this. There would be gently rolling hills covered in grass and fields of wheat. Maybe a few cows or sheep grazing happily in the distance between broad, shady trees.”
    â€œ Anne of Green Gables country,” I suggest, and Annabel laughs.
    â€œI guess we should head down to the museum if we’re going to meet that scientist,” I say. Mom has arranged for us to meet Dr. Owen, the man who’s working on the dinosaur on her farm. He has agreed to show us around the museum.
    We push our bikes out of the parking lot and set off along the narrow paved road toward Drumheller. The wind whistles past as we wheel over the edge of the prairie and down into the