The Dragon in the Cliff by Sheila Cole Page A

perhaps.”
    As soon as I returned home I dove into the book that Miss Philpot lent me. From the various memoirs that made up the book, most of which were written by a Mr. Jameson, I understood that Mr. Werner believed that the earth was once covered by a vast sea that periodically receded, leaving portions of the earth bare, and then flooded over it again. The rocks and minerals that make up the surface of the earth have condensed out of the minerals in that sea. It was water, Mr. Werner believed, that shaped the earth as we know it now.
    I was taken by this description of the history of the earth because it explained how the fossils of clams, oysters, fish, and other sea creatures that I found in the cliffs had come to be there.
    The next day when I told Lizzie that I had been to the Philpot sisters’ house on Silver Street, her gray eyes widened with amazement. “Oh, go on! You really went?” she asked.
    â€œMiss Elizabeth Philpot invited me.”
    â€œBut you needn’t have accepted, Mary. You don’t belong up on Silver Street,” she told me in her knowing way. I did not answer and we continued with our work, I with my fossil preparation and she with her sewing. A few minutes later she looked up from her sewing and asked, “Weren’t you uncomfortable?”
    â€œWhy should I be? They were very courteous and kind. They made me feel very comfortable. They insisted that I stay to tea and that I have second helpings of everything.”
    â€œBut Miss Elizabeth Philpot is old. She is at least thirty, Mary, and not married,” Lizzie said. “From the looks of it, she will never be, poor dear. While she is not a lady—they say her father is in trade—she is rich. I shouldn’t have liked it.”
    â€œBut I did like it,” I insisted stubbornly. “Miss Elizabeth is interested in fossils and geology. We have things to talk about. She loaned me a book.”
    Lizzie shrugged. “I should have known that it was because of the curiosities,” she said. “They are always leading you into strange places. But come now, tell me all about it.” Which I proceeded to do in some detail.

DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATIONS
    Soon after we brought the crocodile’s body up from the beach, I sent another message to Squire Henley informing him that I now had the complete fossil. Still the squire did not come.
    Weeks passed and I worked on the fossil, cleaning away some of the Lias in which it was embedded so that it stood out better. The more I worked on the fossil, the more I doubted that it was a crocodile.
    My doubts and the squire’s failure to appear made me anxious. I had been counting on selling the fossil to him. Had I simply misunderstood him that day when he had jumbled the vertebrae? I so desperately wanted to make money that it was possible that I heard him say what I wished him to say. After all, he was the richest man in the district, and also a collector. What if he did not come? Would I dare sell the fossil to someone else when he was our landlord and he had made me promise to keep it for him? Others besides Miss Philpot had made offers. What if I sold it and then he appeared?
    My anxiety was not helped by the advice of our friends and neighbors. Thanks to Mama, they knew of Miss Philpot’s offer, and they all had something to say about how I should deal with the squire.
    Mr. Littlejohn told me to ask at least sixty-five pounds. “He won’t give you that, but if you start high, you’ll end up high,” he said.
    When I went to Mr. Adams to have the chisels sharpened I was told, “You were searching for the body for more a year. The squire should make it worth your while. It is not as if he can buy petrified crocodiles elsewhere.”
    â€œDon’t let him get away with giving you less because you’re a lass,” Mrs. Lapham at the market told me when I went to buy cheese. “Let Joseph do the talking for