By now they’d established a sort of routine. If they were working on the written report portion of their project, they’d meet at the library after school, and later Nate would catch a ride home with Jed Landry. Jed had a job at the diner that got out just when the library closed, and unlike most people, he didn’t seem to treat Nate like he had some kind of contagious disease.

Now that they were gearing up for the actual construction of the cloud chamber, though, Naomi would come over to Nate’s house. He’d cleared the worktable in the implement shed for the two of them. He didn’t mind Naomi seeing his messed-up family, probably because he knew that she had her own embarrassing family stuff to deal with. She’d told Nate that one time, when she’d gotten home late, her father had taken his strap to her.

“It’s not that big a deal,” she’d said. “He does it a lot.”

“Even when my dad’s been in really bad shape, he never hit one of us,” Nate told her. “And my mom, no way.” He didn’t tell her about the time he’d seen her slap his dad.

“My dad believes that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child,” Naomi said. “But one thing’s for sure. If I have kids someday, I’m never going to hit them.”

He and Naomi had figured the materials they needed to buy for the cloud chamber would add up to twenty-four dollars, not counting the postage fee. He had thirteen silver dollars saved up from what Poppa gave him every birthday. Naomi said she could make up the difference with babysitting money.

It was funny how this worked. Four times now, Nate had shoplifted baseball cards at the five-and-ten, but when it came to getting the money for their project materials, it seemed like he had to do it fair and square. After school that day he and Naomi pooled their money and walked over to the bank. They bought a money order and mailed it off to the scientific supply house in Chicago, along with the order for dry ice and the rest of the items they had to purchase.

“While we’re waiting for our materials to come,” Naomi said, “we can build the box.”

At first it had bothered Nate, the way she seemed to view herself as a totally equal partner in the project, instead of what he’d pictured her as—more of a lab assistant. But now he thought that was a nice thing about her, actually. She wasn’t one of those girls who stood around giggling and waiting for the boy to do everything.