BooksBarbecue
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

The two of them were in the implement shed, where the pieces for the cloud chamber were spread out. Watching Naomi laboring at his dad’s old workbench, Nate thought about times he and his father had built things here: their ship in a bottle, their ant farm, the walkie-talkies they’d rigged up that actually allowed a person in the barn to talk to someone in the house.

Naomi was bent over the diagram in the magazine and another one they’d found in a book from the library. “This business about putting in a depressurizing gauge has me confused,” she said. “They say here you need it, but in the other version you don’t.”

When he’d first read about the pressure gauge and saw how complicated it was, Nate thought they should just leave that part out. After all, it didn’t matter if they did a great job. But now, hearing her question, he said the first thing that came into his head.

“If my dad was here, he’d know how to rig it up.”

“So what’s going on?” Naomi asked him. “Where is your dad, anyway?”

There it was all of a sudden—the simplest question, and it had taken so long for anyone to ask it. Nate felt a rush of appreciation. Why was it so hard for people to say what they were really thinking?

“He’s at a mental hospital in Warm Springs,” Nate told her. “But my mom won’t let us visit. She thinks it would upset us or something.”

“Grown-ups have some strange ideas about what’s best for kids, don’t they? Like we can’t figure out what’s going on, just because we’re young.”

“It’s funny how they’re so anxious to protect us all of a sudden,” Nate said. “Back before it happened, my dad was doing a lot of crazy stuff, and nobody seemed to care if we saw it.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “My mother’s always so concerned I might read one little word in a book she doesn’t approve of, like a character saying a swear or something. But does she mind if my dad hits me so hard it leaves a mark?”

They didn’t say anything for a while then. He held up a sheet of glass that was meant to form the base for the cloud chamber. She uncapped the glue.

“So what are you going to do about your dad?” Naomi asked him. “You can’t just wait around forever. If it was me, I’d want to see him right now.”

Thirteen

NATE FIGURED IT WAS ABOUT THREE HUNDRED MILES from Lonetree to Warm Springs. He could hitchhike, except everyone in town knew him, and he doubted they’d pick him up. Even if they did, the first thing they’d ask would be: Does your mom know about this?