The Dinosaur Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Page B

work glasses. “But it won’t be the same, will it, Mr. Diggs?”
    â€œNo, it won’t. Those bones are irreplaceable,” Mr. Diggs said. “I can’t imagine why anyone would take them, though in a strange way, that’s my only hope. A thief who knew the value of those bones would probably be careful with them, whereas somebody who just damaged them by accident and covered them up wouldn’t know how to handle them. If that’s what happened, our T. rex will never be the same again.”
    â€œWould it be okay if we help search for the bones, Mr. Diggs?” Henry asked. “We’re not busy tonight. Maybe we could look around.”
    Mr. Diggs nodded. “It might not be a bad idea.”
    The phone rang just as Mr. Diggs was about to show Benny and Soo Lee how to label the fossils. He peeled off his rubber gloves and picked up the receiver. “Oh, hello, Eve. Yes, I was just working in the fossil lab with the Aldens.” There was a pause at Mr. Diggs’s end. The children could actually hear Dr. Skyler’s loud voice coming through the phone. “There, there. Now calm down,” Mr. Diggs said. “I know the work crew was supposed to finish painting the ceiling. All right, I’ll send them down right away. No, don’t worry, they’ll be there.”
    Mr. Diggs hung up the phone and turned to the children. “Sorry to interrupt you children, but Eve needs a hand. It seems when the painters carried their scaffolding through the planetarium, they scraped the walls and ceiling and left nicks and scratches,” Mr. Diggs explained. “The marks interfere with the sky show, and Eve is quite upset about it.”
    Benny said, “She was yelling at the big men just like they were babies when we came here. Dr. Skyler sure gets angry a lot.”
    Mr. Diggs had to laugh. “Well, Benny, she just gave me a good scolding, too. Not that I blame her. The work people are sometimes careless with their equipment. We certainly can’t have scrapes and marks on the ceiling, or we’ll be projecting things in the sky that aren’t really there! That’s what’s got Eve madder than a hornet right now! I guess the best thing is to get over there right away.”
    â€œDon’t worry Mr. Diggs, I can touch up the marks,” Henry said. “We’ve painted lots of things before and made them good as new.”
    â€œGood,” Mr. Diggs said. “Let’s clean off these instruments and put them away.”
    The children took off their work glasses, peeled away their rubber gloves, and went over to the sink to wash up.
    â€œEeew, what’s this messy bucket of white stuff?” Jessie asked when she went to turn on the hot water. “It’s so heavy.”
    Mr. Diggs came over to see what Jessie was talking about. He stuck his finger into the bucket and swirled up something wet and sniffed it. “Goodness, it’s plaster of Paris,” he said.
    â€œPlaster from Paris?” Benny asked. “It came all the way from France?”
    Smiling, Mr. Diggs shook his head. Then he took a scraper and tried to scrape the white stuff away from the sides of the bucket. It was much too thick and hard to handle. He moved the bucket under the faucet and ran hot water into it. “There, that will make some of it dissolve so we can get rid of it. Was Titus showing you how to make plaster of Paris?” Mr. Diggs asked, looking very puzzled.
    Violet shook her head. “He only told us it’s used to protect fossils after they dig them up.”
    Jessie pointed to the block of plaster and rock she had been working on. “He did show us how to drill away the plaster to get to the rock but not how to make it.”
    Mr. Diggs scratched his head. “Plaster of Paris is something we use at the sites where we find the fossils. It beats me why Titus would have to mix up any here at the lab. And I certainly can’t