Tara Binns: Ground-breaking Fossil Hunter

Tara Binns r e b d r t n e ak u n

Tara Binns te r und-brea

G ro

o r G

king Fo il Hun ss

ing Fossil Hu

TARA BINNS GROUND-BREAKING FOSSIL HUNTER

When disaster strikes the fossil hunters’ dig site, Tara Binns goes in search of clues.

It’s not long before she stumbles across an amazing prehistoric mystery.

Browse the complete Collins catalogue at

www.collins.co.uk ISBN 978-0-00-830661-8

WISE 9 780008 306618 www.collins.co.uk/collinsbigcat

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An adventure story

Lisa Rajan

Alessia Trunfio 25/02/2019 16:58

Tara Binns

Gr

r e t r e a b k i n n d g Fossil Hu oun

Written by Lisa Rajan Illustrated by Alessia Trunfio

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Chapter 1 Creeeeak!

Tara Binns pushed open the door to the attic at the top of her house. She clambered up the last few rungs of the ladder and crawled on to the floorboards. Then she stood up.

Yuk! A cobweb, right in her face. The spiders had been busy! She brushed it away and turned around, looking for the old costume box. There it was, waiting for her, half hidden by junk.

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No one except Tara came up here, so no one else knew about the box – or how special it was. Tara often wondered how it got here. Did her parents find it and dump it here?

They had never said anything about it. Maybe it had always been in the attic at the top of this house. Maybe children who had lived in this house many years ago had opened it, looking for ideas and adventure, just like Tara had.

Tara often wondered which costumes they had been given and which jobs they had tried. What dangers had they faced? What challenges had they overcome?

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The box was full of outfits for almost every job you could think of. There were uniforms, helmets, boots, goggles, flippers … and big ideas. The box had a costume for every job Tara could possibly want to try, and it gave her a different outfit each time she opened it. But it wasn’t enough to stand in the attic dressed as a football coach or a surgeon. No – the box wanted you to try your hand (or, of course, your feet) at the job as well.

So Tara stepped forward and reached for the lid.

She took a deep breath and heaved it open, her eyes shining with excitement. As she caught sight of the swirling mist inside, she felt a tingling in her hand. It flowed up her arm. It spread through her whole body, right down to her toes.

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Within seconds, Tara was spinning through space and time.

She felt herself tumbling and turning as she was whisked off on another adventure as ... who knows? She squeezed her eyes tight shut and wondered, What will I be today?

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Chapter 2 When the mist cleared and the spinning stopped, Tara opened her eyes. She looked around her. She was on a hillside, out in the fresh air, with a beautiful view down into a valley. But she wasn’t standing on grass – she was in a shallow hole that had been dug out of the dirt.

What job could she be doing in a place like this?

She looked down at herself to see what she was wearing.

From her feet up, she saw hiking boots, khaki trousers with spongy kneepads, a khaki T-shirt and a sleeveless jacket covered in pockets.

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There was a khaki hat on her head with … what was that? ... a lizard on it?

Am I a park ranger? she wondered. Then Tara realised the pockets of the jacket were bulging – with hammers, picks, trowels and brushes. Wait … brushes?

Then it clicked – the dirt, the hole, the tools … she was digging for fossils. That wasn’t a lizard on her hat, it was a dinosaur. She was a palaeontologist!

“Quick! Pass me that chisel!” said a voice somewhere nearby. “I think I’ve found something!”

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Tara looked over in the direction of the voice. She could see a girl kneeling in a similar shallow pit, holding a hammer. She was peering at something in the dirt. A boy appeared next to her and handed her a chisel. He then sat back on his ankles. He caught sight of Tara and grinned.

“Hello! I’m Ortez. Welcome to the dig. This is Ayesha.

She thinks she’s about to make an important palaeontological discovery!”

“A what?” asked Tara.

“She thinks she’s found a fossil!”

Tara stepped up out of her hole and went over to theirs. A dinosaur fossil? she wondered. She felt a surge of excitement. Ayesha was gently chiselling away at the rock on one side of the hole. Dust puffed in all directions with each bang of the hammer.

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Suddenly she stopped and sighed.

“False alarm,” said Ayesha, shaking her head. “It’s just another piece of stone.”

“How long have you been digging here? Have you found anything yet?” asked Tara.

“Not yet,” replied Ortez, “but this is a good spot.

A river flowed into an ancient sea here, in prehistoric times.

But the Earth’s crust moved and the sea bed was slowly pushed up to the surface. It took millions of years, but now it’s a green hillside far away from the coast. There are places like this all over the world, and they are usually very good spots for finding fossils.”

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