Shucked by Megg Jensen Page A

it to me? None of this makes any sense.” I took another swig from
my Mountain Dew, hoping the jolt of caffeine would give me some clarity.
Instead, my hands just shook even harder.
    “Didn’t you say that your dad is some
kind of antiquities dealer? A little shady?” Becky enlarged the picture again.
“Is that him?” She pointed to the side of the picture.
    All I could see was a shock of dark
hair, but no face. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe, but without a face, it’s
impossible to say.”
    My mind raced in a million different
directions. I’d thought she was holing up with my dad in England, but that was
definitely her in the picture. The timestamp underneath said it was taken two
weeks ago in Japan. She stood directly behind the Japanese businessman. I
hadn’t even noticed her the first time Becky showed it to me because I’d only glanced
at his angry face.
    “Tabitha, you’ve got something the
Japanese government wants.” Becky held a hand up to her mouth, trying to keep
our conversation private.
    I glanced around. No one was paying
any attention to us and I had no interest in any of them. Even a quick glance
at the corner of the lunchroom where Kailey was curled up next to Alex wasn’t
enough to faze me.
    “She probably didn’t think you’d even
hear about this.”
    “It’s true. I’ve never been
interested in the news. I’d just go about my life here, never the wiser.” I sat
up straight and looked at Becky.
    “So what are you going to do?” She
slipped her phone into her back pocket, getting rid of the evidence.
    “As soon I get back to Mimi’s house,
I’m putting that dogu somewhere safe.” I couldn’t believe I’d held in my bare
hand and even slept with it. My mom would have a fit when she found out. One of
the first rules of archaeology: never touch an ancient object with bare hands.
The natural oils in our skin could hurt its composition, rendering it useless
to scientific study. Any little thing could damage it.
    I gasped. It was one of the few
intact dogu in the world and I’d held it in my hands, played with it, slept
with it, and even tossed it in the air a couple of times. If I’d destroyed it,
I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.
    Anger bubbled up in my gut, the same
thing I usually felt when it came to my mom. If she was going to send me a
priceless artifact, she could have at least said it was a collector’s item and
worth a lot so I wouldn’t play with it. If I broke the dogu, it would be on
her, not me.
    “And then I’m going to do some
research. There’s something big going on here, Becky. We need to figure it
out.”
    “Together?”
    “Together.”
    Becky and I shook hands. So much for
a quiet life on the farm.

 
    Chapter Seventeen
     
    After school, I ran from the bus stop
to the front porch. I rattled the handle, frustrated Mimi left it totally
locked up, even when she was home and she knew I was coming. Reaching into my
backpack, I pulled out the set of keys Gramps had grudgingly given me. He kept
telling me if I lost them that someone would use them to break in the house. As
if they’d magically know which house the keys went to.
    Before I could get past the third
lock, Mimi flung the door open. She looked at me with quizzing look. “How was
your day, Tabitha?”
    “Fine, thanks.” I slipped under her
arm, kicked off my shoes, and ran up the rickety stairs to my bedroom. I
slammed the door shut, ignoring the scent of freshly baked cookies wafting
under the door. Tossing my backpack on the floor, I ran over to my bookshelf,
scared the dogu had gone missing.
    But there it was, sitting in the
exact same place it was when I left for school in the morning. I didn’t have
any of my field tools with me, so I slipped a sock over my hand. I reached out,
carefully, now with reverence for the item I’d played with so carelessly.
    As I slipped it into my
cotton-covered hand, I marveled at the workmanship. What had seemed to be machine
made now