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Back The Cloud Chamber
Chapters (35)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Author’s Note
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty

While he waited for the judge to come by, Nate reviewed his file cards. The judge had already made one circuit around the room, but now he was stopping at each table, to give everyone a chance to talk about his or her project. Nate kept hoping Naomi would suddenly show up, in time to be there when he demonstrated the crackling sparks of radiation in their box.

“So what do we have here?” a man asked him. He was carrying a clipboard and wearing a large tag that said BOB FOLEY, JUDGE.

Nate began giving his report. As he did he tried to imagine he was his father, out in the barn when it was just the two of them—how he’d put it if he were explaining the cloud chamber to his son.

“You won’t believe it,” Junie said to the judge when Nate got to the part about the alpha rays. “Even if he wasn’t my brother, I’d think he should get the prize.”

“Interesting,” the judge said. “Good job lettering the poster too.”

“Our mom helped with that part,” Junie put it. “But just wait till you see my brother’s demonstration.”

Wearing gloves, Nate took the dry ice out of the cooler, unwrapped it, and set the cloud chamber on top. He poured a capful of the alcohol onto the blotting paper. Everything was set. As Junie turned on the projector he took off his gloves and reached for the velvet box with the watch face inside.

“Junie,” he said, “did you move the watch?” “Of course not, silly.”

They looked under the table, in Nate’s book bag. The watch was nowhere.

“Just a second,” Nate said to Bob Foley. “I can’t find my radioactivity source. It’s got to be here someplace.”

Junie got down on her hands and knees and started checking the floor.

“I remember clearly setting it right next to my project,” Nate told the judge. He was sweating now.

“I’m sure you did,” the judge told Nate. “But I’d better be moving on to see the other youngsters’ work. Very original choice of topic, though. Fine effort.” He was writing something down on his clipboard. Then, incredibly, he was gone.

Nate was too stunned to move, but Junie pursued the judge. “You haven’t seen what it does yet,” she told Bob Foley at the next table. “It takes a minute or two to get the whole thing started. It can work even without my grandpa’s watch.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” said Mr. Foley. “I’ve got a lot of other work to judge.”

“But the great part is the sparkles.” Junie’s voice had a pleading sound. “Even without the watch, there can be sparkles, from real stars.”