4 Violet nodded and smiled She does this a lot When Lao Lao reached Violet and Nick she hovered over the fossil Now that's a big dinosaur bone Violet was so excited If Lao Lao says it's a dinosaur bone thought Violet then it's a dinosaur bone Lao Lao was never wrong She didn't hunt for them as part of her job like Mom but Lao Lao knew bones I'll get Mom and Dr. Hart said Violet Will you stay here with Nick and our fossil find Of course Lao Lao knelt on her foam pad beside the fossil
Violet scrambled up the hillside She took seven steps And then seven more steps But her hiking boots lost their grip before she made it to the top Ahhhh Violet slid backward down the hill But one of her boots hit a large clump of rusty ironstone sticking out of the clay She fell forward reaching one hand out to catch herself from falling all the way to the ground She took a deep breath in counting to seven And a deep breath out counting to seven Are you okay yelled Lao Lao behind Violet Nick and Lao Lao were the only ones on the hillside The only ones who would've seen her Violet turned around toward them Yeah I'm okay she yelled back Violet wished Lao Lao and Nick hadn't seen that Not that they would make fun of her But still it was embarrassing Violet climbed the hill again carefully calculating each step But she imagined that she slid down the hill again and the large clump of bronze poking out of the ground didn't stop her In her mind she tumbled down the hillside until she ran into Lao Lao and Nick She could picture herself breaking Lao Lao's arm and Nick's leg so that pieces of bone popped out of their skin This 5
was what Mom called an intrusive or unwanted thought Violet didn't want people to get hurt But she couldn't help imagining that they did When Violet imagined bad things happening to her family and friends she told herself that the bad things hadn't actually happened And they weren't more likely to happen just because she thought about them either Dad had said she shouldn't try to stop the thoughts because that could make them even worse She didn't want to let her obsessive compulsive disorder take over For Violet OCD made her anxious or scary thoughts get stuck in her head and she would repeatedly carry out rituals like making lists of seven or checking for mistakes Violet wasn't going to let a fall on the hillside stop her The fossil she had found with Nick had been waiting at least 110 million years for them to discover it Mom and Dr. Hart would know what kind of dinosaur it was Once Violet got to the top of the hill she took seven deep breaths She had made it Violet scanned the crowd on the other side of the dig site Mom's cranberry fleece jacket stood out in the distance The kid with the chocolate brown baseball cap hunched over the ground next to Mom was Violet's younger brother Bo 6
And not too far from them was Dad He was hard to miss with his waterproof rainforest ready pants and jacket Violet walked toward them like she was on a mission But she didn't run The rule was to always walk so you didn't break the fossils Mom come quick yelled Violet while walking across the gentle slope of clay Mom Dad and Bo met her halfway on large chunks of ironstone Nick and I found something said Violet Oh great Mom's bronze hair stuck out of the gray bucket hat like ironstone poking out of the clay on the ground What did you find I found something too Bo put a piece of ironstone as big as his palm between Violet and Mom The rusty color shined in the sun That's great Bo Violet was happy for Bo But she didn't have time for his fossil right now Lao Lao and Nick were waiting for her And Violet didn't want anything bad to happen to the dinosaur bone she had found with Nick You didn't really look at it said Bo Don't you want to see the fossil He held the piece of ironstone up higher so it was between Violet's and Mom's faces Dad says it's a ginkgo leaf Dad would've known since he was a botanist The leaf impression was shaped like a fan 7
