She sighed. “But if dragons had been real,” she tried to rationalize, not sure why she bothered, “we’d have found other remains before now. Fossils. Bones. Just like we have with the dinosaurs and a hundred other extinct species.”
“Perhaps,” Grandpa replied with a shrug. “Or perhaps their bone structure was different from other reptiles of their time. Maybe it wasn’t meant to withstand extreme temperatures. For all we know, maybe their bones completely dissolved, leaving no trace behind. Except…” His eyes gleamed again. “This egg.” He grinned widely. “Thankfully those researchers had no idea how valuable their find really was. Or else I never would have gotten it so cheap.”
She stopped short. “Cheap?” she repeated slowly. “Define cheap.” She’d assumed since Grandpa had partially sponsored the expedition, he’d have some claim on the egg. She should have known better. Those so-called researchers had been nothing but money-grubbers from the very start.
“Well, cheap for the world’s last dragon egg,” he clarified. “But well worth it. Just think, Trin, of the throngs that will come once we announce our legendary find. The media, the scientists, people from around the world.”
“How much?” she repeated, nerves tensing. And where had he gotten the money? She’d cut up his credit cards six months ago, after the whole Nigerian unicorn horn incident. And their bank accounts typically hovered at less than zero status. In fact, the only real cash they’d seen in the last few months was the money she’d given him after selling her mother’s ring…
Oh God.
He couldn’t have. Could he?
“You didn’t. I mean, you didn’t use…” She trailed off, unable to even voice the accusation. But the look on his face told her all she needed to know. And her house of cards officially came crashing down on top of her.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “How could you?”
If they didn’t pay their property tax, their house would be seized. It would go on the auction block and be sold to the highest bidder. They’d end up homeless…
…they’d take her away.
“I had to!” Grandpa sputtered, his face flushed and his eyes flashing. “They were going to sell it to someone else.”
“You mean someone who could afford it?”
“Yes…I mean, no…I mean…” He gave her a tortured look. “You don’t understand. I’ve waited my entire life for this kind of discovery. Something special. Something extraordinary. Something that will shake up the very foundations of paleontology as we know it! How could I let something like that slip through my fingers?”
How indeed? By habit, she reached to twist her mother’s ring around her own finger, only to be reminded it wasn’t there anymore. Because she’d sold it. To keep her family together. Instead, it had paid for some kind of freakish mythical monster spawn. She wondered if the egg was even real. Had even come from a glacier. She imagined the researchers laughing to themselves as they boxed up some arts and crafts project and wrote out the bill. He’ll buy it, they’d probably sniggered. The gullible fool will buy anything.
She glared at the egg, tears welling in her eyes. It was all she could do not to unlock the case and smash the thing to smithereens. She thought about how hard she’d worked. How tired she was. And how none of it mattered in the end. Her grandpa cared more about his precious exhibits than he did about their family.
“Hey, hey!” She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see her grandpa gazing at her with concern in his eyes. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be excited. I mean, a dragon egg, Trinity! We’re going to be famous.”
“We’re going to be homeless.”
“We’ll buy a new house—a hundred houses with the money we make. We’ll go down in history.”
“Not before we go down in flames.”
He stared at her, disappointment clear in his watery blue eyes. “You used to love my discoveries,” he said softly. “You used to get so excited. What happened to you, Trin? When did you stop believing?”
She shrugged her shoulders, the lump in her throat making it impossible to speak. She remembered all the times her grandpa had come home from his many trips overseas with treasures from around the world. Real treasures—the kind scientists and journalists were chomping at the bit to see. But Grandpa would always make them wait—so she could see them first. It had made her feel so special—to spend hours with him, poring over the discoveries, imagining aloud what the creatures must have looked like when they still roamed the earth. Like some kind of magic—shared just between the two of them.
But then she’d grown up and realized magic didn’t pay the bills. Didn’t keep families together. And certainly didn’t guarantee the happily ever after the storybooks claimed. Which made it, in her opinion, pretty darn useless.
“Just go home,” she said in a gruff voice, wrestling to control her upset. “I’ll lock up. We’ll figure out what to do with this…this…thing…on Monday.” Maybe the guys who sold it to him had some kind of return policy…
“Don’t you want me to help—?”
“I think you’ve done enough,” she snapped.
Grandpa’s face crumpled, and her heart broke as she caught the hurt in his eyes. But her anger burned too hot for her to back down now. He had to know that what he’d done wasn’t okay. It wasn’t funny or kooky or cute this time. He was supposed to be the adult, the one who took care of her. And like every other adult in her life, he’d let her down.