Read Online The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait - Free Book Online Page B

hung behind. ‘Dinosaurs give me nightmares,’ she said.
    Mary nodded. She had always thought them the very worst combination of bird and lizard.
    ‘Strange to think that they were walking around here. Even on this very spot!’ said Alice.
    ‘Were they as big as a house, or bigger?’ said Edith, in her precise way. ‘Or smaller? Some ought to be smaller, I think.’
    Mr Wilton turned to the children. His hands were in his pockets. ‘Perhaps you would like to hear this. Most of these bones were found by a Mr Chapman, a watchmaker, on a botanizing expedition. As the first bone came into sight, he found the foreman, stopped the digging, then telegraphed Mr Phillips, Professor of Geology, who oversaw their removal to this place here, as you see.’
    ‘You know a great deal about this, Mr Wilton,’ said Mary.
    ‘May we go now, please?’ said Ina.
    ‘I have some interest, yes. But I prefer not to parade my knowledge about. There is no better attribute than modesty. Ambition is the curse of the age, I always say.’
    Did he look approvingly at her black dress and its high collar as he spoke? Mary blushed. Though perhaps there was some­thing not modest about the way he was looking at her. His eyes narrowed and roved about over her body until she felt his gaze had a weight to it, and a heat. His mouth below hung slightly open, his lips wet.
    ‘ Please may we go?’
    She turned to Ina. ‘Yes, go,’ she said. She put a hand up to her cheek.
    The next exhibit was a large bone which was at first thought to be the thigh bone of the large humans mentioned in the Bible but was now known to be an animal’s. As Mary walked towards it she was conscious of the movements of her own bones: the way her hip bones swivelled in their sockets, the way her shoul­ders rotated as she moved, her wrists as she lifted her hands away from her sides.
    ‘Did people and dinosaurs get along together?’ asked Edith.
    ‘Some did, some didn’t,’ said Mr Wilton. ‘I dare say people weren’t too fond of the Tyrannosaurus rex.’
    ‘Certainly,’ said Mary. ‘But there is some new evidence to suggest—’
    Before she could finish, Alice cut her off. ‘Why are dinosaurs extinct?’
    ‘Because God ordered it so,’ said Mr Wilton.
    Survival of the fittest, thought Mary. Though of course that was not true, as Mr Wilton said, when applied to animals. But when applied to humans, to her  .  .  . The prettiest girls all married early and had two or more children. Except for the few who had died in childbirth. Perhaps they were meant to die, if God ordered it. But that seemed harsh, to leave children without mothers .  .  . Mary shook her head and tried to recapture her original thought:
    She was unmarried. Therefore unfit.
    ‘But why would He do a thing like that?’ said Edith. She looked up at Mr Wilton, worried.
    ‘We don’t know the mind of God,’ he said. ‘But I imagine He wanted Mankind to be safe from dinosaurs.’
    There was still time to put it right.
    She turned to Mr Wilton. ‘So you are not a believer in this theory of Mr Lyell’s, that the earth developed slowly over millions of years?’
    ‘I am not.’
    ‘But he has some geological evidence, layers of rock .  .  .’ Mary stopped. She had read something about it but hadn’t understood all. She did not want to seem a fool.
    ‘The earth developed as it says in the Bible. Six thousand years is a very long time. That’s what I was taught and I don’t think my teacher, old Mr Scammell, would lie to his pupils. He was most definite on the matter. No, I dare say we won’t be hearing much more about the so-called Theory of Evolution! It is just not right – does not seem right and therefore cannot be. Thinking too hard leads to strange results.’
    The Dean thought a great deal and was not happier for it, or healthier. Mary could not help thinking, though perhaps her type of thinking was not as dangerous, not being in Ancient Greek or somesuch. She thought