BooksBarbecue
Back The Cloud Chamber Save as PDF
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

Often, coming toward the house at this hour, he’d hear the sound of his mother playing the piano, but today there was nothing. Inside, she sat at the kitchen table with the check register and a cup of coffee.

When she saw Nate in the doorway, she got up. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said, and opened her arms like she was going to put them around him.

He couldn’t meet her embrace.

“Nate,” she began. But whatever she was going to say, she didn’t say it. He didn’t answer. He simply walked past her and upstairs to his room, then closed the door behind him.

Twelve

NATE TOLD HIMSELF HE WASN’T GOING TO CARE ABOUT the science fair. Just blow it off, get a passing grade. Only he couldn’t help caring. Sitting in English class while the teacher droned on about the Odyssey, he drew sketches of the cloud chamber and made a list of all the materials he’d need to build it. Even though Naomi was officially his partner, he still liked to think of the project as his alone.

Most of the items—sheets of glass, glue, rubber stripping, blotting paper, flat black spray paint, a flashlight, masking tape, tongs—were things he could find in the implement shed or scrounge around for on his own. But there were a couple of things—dry ice and ethyl alcohol— that he needed to order from a scientific supply house. There was an address for one printed in the back of his magazine.

He also had to locate something that would serve as the radioactive source inside the chamber, for their control test. A glow-in-the-dark watch face—a radium dial from back in the olden days—seemed like the answer. There was his dad’s, of course, but Nate assumed he was wearing it the day they took him away.

At breakfast Mom spooned out the oatmeal. Once again she was in her bathrobe. Neither of them had said anything more since he’d come home yesterday, but now he had to talk to her. It was one of the humiliating things he hated about being a kid: You couldn’t even be mad at your parents all that long, because you always needed their help with something—a ride or a signature on a permission slip or, like he did now, money.

“The science fair is coming up at school. I need some money. It’s for the cloud chamber I’m building. I need to send away for some stuff.”

“Oh, Nathan,” his mom said. “I wish I could help, but money’s so tight at the moment. Can’t you choose a project where you use the things we’ve got on hand?”

“It’s a really special project. I’ll pay you back.”