Read Online A Pocketful of Eyes by Lili Wilkinson - Free Book Online Page B

professor. This is the closest living relative of the trilobite. And do you know how they mate?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘The male is smaller, and not as strong. So he climbs onto the back of the lady crab, holding on with his front claw, while she swims in to shore to lay her eggs. Sometimes he can hold on for months at a time.’
    ‘Clingy.’
    ‘It shows a certain dedication to the breeding process.’
    ‘Or just laziness,’ said Bee. ‘He could have swum there himself.’
    ‘Maybe,’ said Toby, inching towards Bee. ‘Maybe he just wanted to be close to her.’
    Bee studied the horseshoe crab. It didn’t look much like a crab at all, more like some kind of prehistoric armoured miniature stingray. She wondered how anyone could want to be close to anything that hard and spiky. She could feel Toby’s warmth next to her. He wasn’t hard and spiky at all.
    ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘How strange other species are. How different the boy crab is from the girl crab.’
    ‘Like the difference between girl humans and boy humans?’
    ‘Even more so, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘I mean, we’re mostly the same, right? On the inside. Apart from wombs and things, and some small structural variations. It’s just culture that makes us seem so different.’
    ‘Our hearts aren’t the same,’ said Toby. ‘You can tell on an ECG. The intervals are a bit different. The funny thing is, if you put a man’s heart into a woman, it’ll start behaving like a woman’s heart. But if you put a female heart into a male, it’ll always beat like a woman’s heart.’
    He put one hand on his own chest, and pressed the other against Bee’s, and closed his eyes in concentration. Bee wondered if he could feel her heart beating faster and faster as soon as he’d touched her. The somewhat sly grin on his face indicated that he could. Bee’s cheeks grew hot. She wanted to lean forward and . . . but she knew she shouldn’t. Toby didn’t really like her. He was just a flirt. If he really liked her, he would have made it clear. He would have said something or done something after the incident on the tiger. And anyway, she was glad he didn’t like her. Because she didn’t like him.
    ‘Come on,’ she said, taking a step backwards so Toby’s hand fell. ‘Let’s go and see Kobayashi.’

MUSEUM DIRECTOR AKIKO KOBAYASHI was sitting at her desk studying a stapled sheaf of paper covered in tiny numbers. Bee and Toby waited in the doorway for her to notice them. She put a hand to her temple and closed her eyes with a sigh.
    Toby knocked quietly on the doorframe to get her attention. Kobayashi jumped and opened her eyes.
    ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Toby. ‘But we were wondering if we could have a word.’
    Kobayashi looked flustered and a little annoyed, but she nodded and they sat on the other side of her desk. Bee noticed her slide a letter under another pile of papers.
    Kobayashi peered at them through her narrow chrome-framed glasses. ‘You again,’ she said. ‘Why do you always turn up at the most inconvenient of times?’
    Toby seemed about to say something, then glanced at Bee and thought better of it.
    Bee introduced herself and explained that she, too, had been working with Gus. Kobayashi’s expression softened.
    ‘Of course you were,’ she said. ‘And you must be very upset. I’m sorry if I was abrupt.’ She gestured to the sheaf of paper. ‘We have to submit the budget to the government next month, and it’s rather like trying to add up every star in the sky using an abacus.’
    ‘Is the museum having money trouble?’ asked Toby, leaning forward and putting on his best concerned-and-supportive face.
    ‘Well, that’s one way to put it,’ said Kobayashi. ‘Natural history museums aren’t as cool as they once were. Now it’s all about science museums and immigration museums and sports museums. It’s hard to attract private donors with so much glitzy competition.’
    ‘Hey,’ said Toby,