Joe shut the door and turned back to me. That's when I saw that he was excited.
Usually nothing stirs my brother--he has a face like a rock, with little expression or change. Now, though, his brown eyes were lit like the sun shone through them, his cheeks were red, his mouth was open. He snatched his cap off and rumpled his hair so that it stood straight up.
'What is it, Joe?' I said. 'Oh, hush, baby, hush!' I put baby over my shoulder.
'What is it?'
'I found something.'
'What? Show me.' I looked to see what he was holding.
'You have to come out. It's in the cliff. It's big.'
'Where?'
'The end of Church Cliffs.'
'What is it?'
'Don't know. Something--different. Long jaw, lots of teeth.' Joe looked almost scared.
'It's a crocodile,' I declared. 'It must be.'
'Come and see.'
'Can't--what would I do with baby?'
'Bring him with.'
'Can't do that--it's too cold.'
'What about leaving him next door?'
I shook my head. 'They done too much for us already--we can't ask them again, not for something like this.' Our neighbours in Cockmoile Square were wary of curies.
They envied us the little money we made from them, while also asking why anyone would want to part with even a penny for a bit of stone. I knew we had to ask for their help only when we really needed them.
'Take him a minute.' I handed the baby to Joe and went to look at Mam in the next room. She was flat out asleep, looking so peaceful for a change that I hadn't the heart to lay screaming baby next to her. So we took him with us, wrapped in as many shawls as would stay on the little thing.
As we picked our way along the beach--slower than usual, for I was clutching baby and couldn't use my hands for balance over the stones--Joe described how he was looking for curies in the new rubble that had come down during the storms. He told me he weren't searching the cliffs themselves, but when he stood up after scrabbling round in the loose rocks, a row of teeth embedded in a seam of the cliff face caught his eye.
'Here.' Joe stopped where he'd left four stones piled up, three as a base and one on top, the marker we Annings used to keep track of our finds if we had to leave them. I set down baby, who was barely whimpering by now, he were that cold, and stared hard at the layers of rock where Joe pointed. I didn't feel the cold at all, I was so excited.
Straightaway I saw the teeth, just below eye level. They weren't in even rows, but all a jumble between two long dark pieces that must have been the creature's mouth and jaw. These bones met together in a tip, making a long, pointy snout. I ran my finger over it all. It give me a lightning jolt to see that snout. Here was the monster Pa had been looking for all these years, but now would never see.
There was a bigger surge of lightning to come, though. Joe put his finger on a large bump above where the jaw was hinged. Rock covered some of it, but it looked to be circular, like a bread roll sitting on a saucer. From the curve you might think it were part of an ammonite, but there were no spiral with spines going round. Instead there were plates of bone overlaid round a big empty socket. I stared at that socket and got the feeling it was staring back.
'Is that its eye?' I asked.
'Think
so.'
