A Bone to Pick Read Online Free

to the gift shop,” I said. “Maybe you should have read this sign before buying that.”
    He looked down at the sign and shrugged. “That’s Hollywood for you! Hey, Peggy, I just heard a great joke. One time Thor decided to go down to Earth and introduce himself to a beautiful lady who was standing at a bus stop.” TB snickered. “He said to the lady in a deep, booming voice, ‘I’m Thor.’ The lady turned to him and said, ‘You’re thor? Oh, my god, my feet are so thor I can hardly wait to thit.’” TB buckled over with laughter as if it was the funniest thing ever. “What? Don’t you get it? The lady had a lisp — thor, sore, thit, sit? Oh, never mind — you’re a joke killer.”
    After that TB slipped off to learn about Viking ships. I didn’t bother because he kept dashing back and forth to give me the rundown. “Their ships were flat so they could go up shallow rivers — kind of handy for raiding villages, right?” Then a few minutes later, “I just read they were the first to build ships that could sail the ocean and carry large cargo. Handy, right?”
    For me the best part was the stuff on burials.
    â€œEw,” sneered TB as I peered into a glass case with the dried-up bones of some dead guy. “Figures you’d be interested in this stuff.”
    â€œGet used to it, TB. Dead people are my thing.” The Vikings had two kinds of burials. Inhumation — that was pretty basic, really, burying the dead in the ground. And the other was cremation. Some Vikings believed if they cremated the dead person his soul was freed to begin life in the next realm.
    â€œIt says here sometimes they cremated important people in ships. How crazy is that? To burn a perfectly useful boat,” complained TB.
    â€œThat’s crazy, but not as bad as putting in fifty years to build a stone pyramid for some dead Egyptian king and his stuff,” I added.
    On the ferry ride home we sat on the observation deck where we could see the sky all pink and orange and watch the seagulls ride the wind. When the sun sank below the horizon, TB got all focused on some Viking game he’d downloaded on his phone from the museum app store. After that he didn’t make a peep.
    â€œThanks, Mom,” I said contentedly. “That was a great day — better than I imagined.”
    She beamed at me and passed me a gift bag. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Peggy. This is just a little souvenir of our day together.”
    I opened the bag and pulled out a beautiful book called Ancient Norse Sagas. “This is great. Thanks.”
    I looked at my watch. It was just after nine. Newfoundland was four and a half hours ahead, which meant Eddy had arrived. She was probably tucked in bed by now and ready to start field school in the morning.
    â€œThinking about Eddy?” Mom asked.
    I nodded.
    â€œWell, never mind, sweetheart, there will be lots of wonderful adventures ahead for you, too.”
    Maybe, but none would be as cool as going to the only site in North America that was an actual Viking outpost.
    By the time my head hit the pillow that night, I was zonked to the nth degree. Aunt Margaret had agreed to let me sleep in the next morning after I promised I’d put in at least four hours of painting later in the afternoon. As tired as I was, I opened my book of Viking stories and sleepily leafed through the pages. There were “The King’s Sagas,” “The Hero Sagas,” “Sagas of the Viking Gods,” and “The Creation of the World Saga.” That seemed like a good place to start.
Long ago, out of the damp mist and darkness of Niflheim and the burning fire of Muspellheim, came great spires of hoarfrost, mountainous blocks of ice, and brilliant sparks that filled the valleys of Ginnungagap. Soon after there arose from this massive wonder the very first giant, Ymir, and Audumla, the cow.