Remarkable Creatures

'You can't have that unless you pay, Mary.' The boy pulled at the packet.

'I haven't the shilling yet, but I'll get it somehow. Can't you let me have it and I'll owe you?'

In answer he pulled at the packet again. I hugged it to my chest. 'I'm not giving it up. I been waiting for this letter for months.'

The boy sneered. 'That be from your sweetheart, eh? The old man you went round with who left you, didn't he?'

'You shut your gob, boy!' I turned to the gentleman, knowing such a fuss in front of customers would sell no curies. 'Sorry, sir. Have you decided what you want?'

'Indeed,' the lady answered for her husband. 'We shall take a shilling's worth of crinoids.' She smiled as she held out a coin.

'Oh, thank you, ma'am, thank you!' I handed the shilling to the boy. 'You get out now, you!'

He made a rude gesture as he left, and I apologised again to the couple. Though the lady had been so understanding about the letter, she took her time about choosing her crinoids, and I had to swallow my impatience. Then I had to wrap them up in paper, and the man wanted extra string, and I got it all in knots, and thought I would go mad with fixing it. At last it was done and they left, the lady whispering, 'I hope there is good news in your letter.'

I went inside then and sat in the dusty workshop, the packet in my lap. I read the address again: 'Joseph Anning, Esq., The Fossil Shop, Cockmoile Square, Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire.' Why had he written to my brother? And why was it a packet wrapped in brown paper rather than a letter? What could Colonel Birch want to send to my brother?

Why hadn't he sent it to me?

I knew from the incoming tide that Joe and Mam would be back in half an hour. I didn't know how I could sit there with the letter and wait even that little while for them to return. I couldn't bear it.

I looked at the packet. Then I turned it over, counted to three, and broke the seal.

Joe would be angry, but I could-n't help it. I was sure it was really meant for me.

Along with a folded letter there was a pamphlet the size of the exercise books I used to practise my letters in at Sunday school. On the front page it read: A Catalogue of a small but very fine Collection of

Organised Fossils,

from the Blue Lias Formation

at Lyme and Charmouth, in Dorsetshire

consisting principally of Bones,

illustrating the

Osteology of the Ichthio-Saurus, or Proteo-Saurus,

and of Specimens of

the Zoophyte, called Pentacrinite,

the Genuine Property of Colonel Birch,

collected at a considerable Expense,

which will be sold at Auction,

by Mr Bullock,

at his Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly

on Monday, the 15th Day of May, 1820

Punctually at one o'clock