Scorched

attraction now too far a detour for all but the most determined of tourists. And though the money stopped flowing, the bills kept piling up, and much of the collection had to be sold off or loaned to wealthier museums just to keep the lights on and the doors open.

To make matters worse, her grandpa had started replacing some of his former exhibits with what some might call…questionable stand-ins, hoping to draw back the crowds. From a mangy Chupacabra corpse to a rack of jackalope horns, Trinity knew it was not for nothing the townspeople had started whispering about “Crazy Old Foxx’s Fossilized Freak Show.” It was only a matter of time, she knew, before they’d be shuttered for good.

And where would that leave her?

“Grandpa…” she started to plead, then closed her mouth. What good would it do? Her guardian, much as she adored him, was the quintessential nutty professor—too wrapped up in his own spectacular inner world to comprehend even the most basic of money matters.

Which left it all up to her.

Since she’d moved in after her mother’s death, she’d done what she could, from taking over the museum’s publicity and custodial duties after school so they could cut back on staff, to cleaning houses and mucking out barns on weekends to earn extra cash. But try as she might, it never seemed like enough. And her carefully constructed world was feeling more and more like a house of cards each day. Every time the phone rang or someone knocked on their door, she’d freeze in panic—convinced it was social services, come to take her away. Her caseworkers had never been truly convinced that her grandpa was capable of taking on the responsibility of an orphaned teenage girl. And they’d be more than happy for an excuse to throw her back into foster care.

But Trin was not going back. Not now that she finally found a family to call her own. And whether that meant hiding their financial situation from neighbors and teachers or begging debt collectors for “just one more extension,” she did what she had to do to keep the two of them together. Last week she’d even pawned her mother’s emerald ring to pay their overdue property taxes.

She involuntarily glanced down at her finger, still sporting a tan line from where the ring had been—before she’d been forced to hand it over to the shady-looking man behind the bulletproof glass. It had been the only treasure she’d been allowed to keep after her mother’s death and her finger felt naked without it.

But it was worth it to see her grandpa’s face, she reminded herself, when she presented him with the stack of bills. Enough money to pay their property tax and even a little left over to celebrate Christmas. Knowing their home was safe and their family intact was worth more than the Crown Jewels.

She sighed. Some days she felt much older than sixteen.

“Hey, hey!” her grandfather protested, catching her face. “Chin up, young girl! It’s Christmas Eve after all! And I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” she repeated, looking up with curiosity despite herself. “Are you actually going to let me open a gift early for once?” Grandpa had strict rules about waiting until after breakfast on Christmas morning for any unwrapping, and usually Trin was cool with that, enjoying the anticipation and all. But this year she already knew what she’d find under the tree—the expansion pack for her favorite RPG video game, Fields of Fantasy—and it was killing her to wait.

Sure, she knew it was a shameful indulgence—and the money it cost would have been better spent on paying their bills. But Grandpa had insisted, saying everyone deserved something frivolous at Christmas, and, for once, she’d been too excited to put up much of a fight. Video games were her kryptonite, after all. Her escape when real life got too tough.

“Absolutely not!” Grandpa shot back. “You know the rules.” He wagged his finger at her. She sighed. Maybe after he went to bed she could unwrap the box and download the CD onto her computer, then carefully wrap it up again and place it back under the tree. Terrible, she knew. But otherwise, how was she even going to sleep, knowing it was just sitting there under the tree waiting for her?

“Okay, not a present. Did we win the lottery then?” That would be a surprise she could certainly get behind.

Grandpa smiled mysteriously. “In a sense,” he said. “It’s a new exhibit. Arrived this morning when you were at school, from my guys in Antarctica.”

Last year, when times had been a little better, Grandpa had partially sponsored a small eco-archeological study on the effects of global warming on penguins. But for all the data the team had sent back so far, Trinity had been convinced they were just sitting up there, sucking down glacier-made frozen margaritas and running dollar bills through a paper shredder.

“Well, all right,” she said approvingly. “What did they find?”

“An egg,” Grandpa pronounced. “Perfectly preserved too. Evidently the team was out measuring one of the melting glaciers when they came across it, still half embedded in the ice. They believe it’s been just sitting there, frozen, for millions of years.”

Trinity felt her heart beat a little faster. “And what do they think it is?” she asked, trying not to get her hopes up. She had to admit, a new exhibit like this—if it could be verified—could be sold to pay off some bills. To keep the lights on. Maybe even get her mother’s ring back. “Some kind of bird? A dinosaur egg?”

Please let it be a dinosaur egg. They could loan it out to a bigger museum and collect a fee that would pay their electricity bill and—

“Even better.”

Trinity pursed her lips, enthusiasm deflating as she caught the gleam in Grandpa’s eyes. It was a look she knew all too well—the same he’d worn last summer when he’d presented her with fossilized Sasquatch dung he’d purchased off eBay. It had even, to her chagrin, come with a certificate of authenticity.

She sighed. Maybe they could advertise candlelit tours as romantic…

“Come on!” Grandpa urged. “You’re going to love this. I promise!”

She reluctantly followed him out of the office, heading down what had once been a gorgeous marble hallway, a majestic showcase filled with treasures from around the world. Sadly, today that showcase seemed as extinct as the dinosaurs themselves. The marble floors were cracked and stained and the treasures long gone, with only a few dinky exhibits remaining behind—those that no one had wanted to borrow or buy. It made her heart ache to see the halls that had once teemed with life and history reduced to a cavernous graveyard of broken dreams and empty display cases.

“Here we are,” Grandpa announced, stopping in front of the Millennium Chamber. Trinity raised an eyebrow in surprise. The chamber had lain empty for the last two years, with none of the remaining exhibits deemed worthy of Grandpa’s favorite room. For him to put the egg here—well, he must truly believe it to be something special. She bit her lower lip, her heart thudding in anticipation as she watched him unlock the door and gesture for her to enter.

She did, trying to prepare herself for inevitable disappointment and—

She stopped in her tracks, staring in disbelief at the egg perched in a glass case at the center of the room. It was beautiful. No—that wasn’t enough. It was breathtaking—the size of a basketball and the color of pure gold, its surface intricately etched with what looked like feathers. Or maybe scales…?

“Oh my God,” she murmured, approaching slowly. Maybe her grandpa really had stumbled on something big for once. After all, she’d devoured every book in his research library over the last two years and had never come across anything remotely like this. “It has this sheen. Almost—I don’t know—like it’s not even real.”

She found herself reaching out, her hand pressing against the glass. This wasn’t just some fossil. This was a real egg—perfectly preserved as her grandpa had said. Had it really been frozen in a glacier for millions of years?

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Grandpa asked in a reverential whisper. “I’ve spent my entire life searching for something like this. People will come from around the world to see it—once they hear what we’ve found.” He turned to her, his eyes glistening.

“But what is it?” she asked, reluctantly turning away from the egg and back to her guardian, her eyes filled with questions. “What could it possibly be?”

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” He stepped toward the case, a slow smile spreading across his whiskered face. “It’s the world’s last dragon egg.”