Lois Lowry - The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

Caroline groaned. "No wonder she said it was very, very attractive. She conned you, Mr. Keretsky. She sold you the ugliest necktie in New York City, for a ridiculously high price. Don't trust her again, under any circumstances."

"All right," he said, sighing, and put the tie back into the bag. "But the others, they are not ugly? You are certain?"

"The others are fine. The striped one's gray and dark green, with a little yellow. And the paisley's some nice shades of blue. They'll look nice on you."

"Caroline," said Gregor Keretsky, "you have once again preserved my dignity. Come to the cafeteria with me and I will buy you a big ice cream."

Caroline fingered her notebook. She really didn't want to miss a chance to talk to one of the world's most famous vertebrate paleontologists. But she had planned to work on a drawing of Tyrannosaurus Rex to keep in her file on Frederick Fiske.

She compromised. "Okay," she said. "I'll go to the cafeteria. But would you do me a favor? Would you tell me everything you know about Tyrannosaurus Rex?"

Gregor Keretsky began to laugh. "Caroline," he said, "that would take me days, I think!"

She laughed, too. She knew he was right. "Well," she said, "tell me a little about him, then, over some ice cream."

"By the way," she whispered, as they waited for the elevator. "I wouldn't wear those cuff links to London if I were you."

"These?" Mr. Keretsky held up one wrist. "Why not? These I just bought. There is something wrong with them?"

"Mr. Keretsky," Caroline said as tactfully as she could, "they're pink. "

"So, Caroline, what would you like to know about old Tyrannosaurus Rex?" asked Gregor Keretsky, as he put sugar into his coffee. "And why? I think by now, from all the reading you do, that you must know a very great deal already."

Caroline smoothed the top of her ice cream with her spoon. "I'm just doing some general research," she said. "Maybe I'll write a report for school, for science class. So if there's anything I've forgotten, something I might leave out—well, just tell me anything that comes into your mind."

Mr. Keretsky sipped his coffee and wrinkled his forehead into furrows. Caroline was familiar with his way of thinking; she had watched him do it before, and she had watched her brother, J.P., think in the same way. Their brains were like computers.

She watched while Gregor Keretsky fed the topic "Tyrannosaurus Rex" into his brain, and the computer whirred, picking out bits of information, while his forehead crinkled into ridges. In a minute, she knew, he would open his mouth and the information would come out in an orderly list. She waited. She lapped at a spoonful of ice cream.

"Tyrannosaurus Rex," he said suddenly, and his brow smoothed, "lived seventy million years ago, in the western part of North America—"

"Des Moines?" asked Caroline, with her mouth full.

But Mr. Keretsky shook his head. "More farther west," he said. "But there was a slightly different form of Tyrannosaurus in Mongolia—"

"No," interrupted Caroline. "Today I'm only interested in the American version." She figured that Frederick Fiske had probably descended from Americans.

"He weighed about seven and a half tons," Mr.Keretsky went on.

"Not anymore," Caroline murmured. "He's thin, now."

Gregor Keretsky didn't hear her. He was still whirring information from his computer brain to his mouth.

"Twenty feet tall," he said. "That would be—" He looked around the cafeteria and up to the ceiling, measuring the distance with his eyes.

"—about three basketball players standing on top of each other," Caroline suggested.

Mr. Keretsky's computer shut down. He laughed and looked at her in surprise. "It would?" he asked. "Never before have I thought of that analogy. I do not know basketball well. I have seen games, of course, on television, but somehow they have no enjoyment for me." Suddenly he looked downcast. He sipped his coffee again.

"I know, Mr. Keretsky," said Caroline sympathetically. "I understand."

"I cannot tell who is winning, Caroline," he whispered across the table, "or which player belongs to which team. To me their uniforms are all gray."

Caroline tried very hard to think of something comforting to say to someone who could see only gray. "Mr. Keretsky," she said, "just think how much you're able to enjoy elephants!"

He nodded grudgingly. "That is true," he acknowledged. "I do enjoy elephants." But he continued to look mournful.

"Also, your hair is gray," Caroline pointed out. "It's really a very nice color."

Gregor Keretsky smoothed his hair with one hand. "Is it?" he asked, blushing. "Thank you, Caroline. You cheer me up always."

Caroline ate the last melted bits of ice cream in her bowl and leaned forward. "Mr. Keretsky," she asked in a serious voice, "do you think it's possible that there might still be some dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus Rex around?"

"Caroline, my little paleontologist," Gregor Keretsky scolded her, "you should know the answer to that question. You have only to look at the alligator. The great Galápagos tortoise. The iguana. Even my friend the elephant—"

"I didn't mean them, exactly." Caroline stopped to think for a second. What she meant, actually, was a little hard to explain. "I mean something that has evolved so that it seems almost human. So that if it was wearing, say, a business suit, you wouldn't be able to tell it from a lawyer or a college professor."

Gregor Keretsky drained the last of his coffee, laughing. He hadn't taken her seriously. "Caroline," he said with a chuckle, "these lawyers, these professors. They all look alike in their—what did you call them?—business suits. But I think they are not dinosaurs, certainly."

"Right." She smiled, and decided to change the subject. It was too soon to introduce the Tate Theory to Gregor Keretsky. She would have to wait until she had more proof.

"I gotta go," she said, standing up and pushing back her chair. "Have a good time in London. I'll see you when you get back."

Gregor Keretsky smiled. "See you later, alligator," he said.

"After while, crocodile," Caroline responded.

It was a silly way to say goodbye. But it seemed very meaningful, between vertebrate paleontologists.

6

On Monday morning Caroline threw some overnight things into her gym bag. Everyone had agreed that it would be easier if she spent the night at Stacy's instead of coming home across New York City after dinner. Stacy's parents didn't mind. They never minded. Into the top of the bag, she thrust something she had bought, on Saturday, for Stacy. She grinned as she wedged it in on top of the pajamas, poking it down between two furry bedroom slippers.

"Bye, Steg," she said, as she returned her stuffed Stegosaurus to his hiding place on the closet shelf. No way would she take a stuffed animal to Stacy's overnight. Some things you don't tell even your best friend.

The apartment was quiet. J.P. had already left for school; he refused to be seen riding the bus or walking on a public street with his sister.

And her mother had left already for work. Most mornings she was still there when Caroline and J.P. ate their breakfast. But this morning she had gotten up at 5:00 A.M. She hadn't intended to. But it had something to do with her clock-radio, which J.P. had returned to her after a weekend of fooling with its insides. Caroline had heard bits and pieces through her closed bedroom door, very early, when it was still dark outside.

"James Priestly Tate, Jr.!" she had heard her mother roar.

After a moment she had heard a groggy response from her brother.

"Would you please explain to me," said Joanna Tate angrily, "why, although I set this alarm for seven A.M., it is still pitch dark outside? What time is it, anyway?"