Roller coaster to the graphite

"Whoaa! It is very fancy temple!" Valerie was amazed as they got off the train.

"Well, it's pretty design."Elie nodded.

It was a really fashionable building. It had been built from glasses and metal, and looked like a mini skyscraper.

"Do you think, they will give expensive graphite?" Valerie asked, since K.O. told them, that shiny things were expensive.

"No. It is not the cheapest temple for buying graphite, but this one is the closest to where we are camping. It is more important now, than a few candies plus on the label. What we don't have is time. If we want to do everything you have planned, we are forced to pay a bit more for graphite."

"Oh! I understand." Valerie gulped a big. She had to pay more, than the others, if she would want to achieve her goal.

"Look at the good side! We are also being at home for lunch!" Elie smiled to the girl. She noticed, how discouraged the little girl was. "You would have come here for graphite anyway, right?"

Valerie nodded, and smiled back.

"So at least you're done with mining faster! If I help you, the work will be done faster, wont it?"

Valerie that time really smiled back to her friend. Those dark tunnels somehow didn't even seem so scary anymore that she could have been with Elie.

"Okay, let's go in, and and arrange the paperwork!"

The assistant nun of the graphite temple had a great time. How could she not have been cheerful when the rich and famous Noble family wanted to buy the coal, they needed for Fireworks Festival from their church. Their only son was very handsome and single! Attractive party for any woman. He came to the church personally to gather and pay for the coal. It was high time for Carole to flirt a bit with him. Already, of course, within the promised boundaries of propriety and business. Carole put on a belt on her uniform, which highlighted her slender, shapely figure. She also combed her hair to flutter around her neck and used her infrequently used set of makeup. She definitely wanted to twist the young man's head. Slowly, but surely. Carole wanted to make an impression big enough to getting his phone number, at least.

So she wasn't particularly happy when she had to go out of the VIP room into the lobby because she was needed at the front desk. She hated the small chime at the front desk, and was planning to break that.

"Who the hell can fall in times, like this?" She growled to herself. She was angry for the customers too. The parents of the little girls whining for the earrings had all gotten the graphite for the workshop. She shouldn't have to come out.

""I'm sorry, but I have to leave you alone for a while!"

She smiled at the young heir, and reluctantly she went out into the foyer. There, however, she was greatly surprised. The guest who arrived was familiar. At least one of them. A young woman was standing at the desk with a girl, and chatting sweetly.

"Electra?" She asked nervously.

Everyone had heard of the coup carried out by Will Bennett in one of the Lithium temples. In the church that Electra Oly led before. Carole had no desire to hear anyone's whining. There was the heir to the Noble family, and she wanted to catch that man for herself.

"Carole!" Elie greeted her cheerfully. Her smile seemed to natural, not forced. "Valerie, this is Carole, my old classmate. Carole, this is Valerie, my friend. We would like to mine graphite for a pair of earrings."

"Of course! Would you like to mine them yourselves, or buying in a set?" Carole asked in relief that she didn't have much to talk to the former nun.

"We would like to mine by ourselves." Electra answered.

"All right. May I see your hand device?" She smiled at the girl. "I would like to check the documents, and the storage place. It take a bit of time. Would you like a candy?" She asked from the little girl, who was standing there silently. The girl nodded. "It is real candy!"

Valerie took one candy of the jar.

"Thank you!" She said, and handed her hand device over.

"Electra?" Carole asked stunned. She knew that device well. It was famous among them. Everyone envied the girl for it, it wasn't possible to get patterned devices at that time. Exactly only Electra had one in the class.

"Yes, that is my former hand device!" She smiled at Carole carelessly. "It is a bit old, but it was refurbished, so it could be used properly with the system."

Carole nodded, red over the documents, and asked them how many graphite they would need.

"Different earrings require different amounts of graphite. Which design would you like to make?" Carole told to the girl. Valerie looked at Elie, puzzled.

"I want earrings like the other girls have."

Elie was browsing her device, but didn't find any information.

"Carole, do you have a catalog?" She asked her former classmate.

Carole nodded, and gave them a catalog. However, she cursed the little girl in herself. Why wasn't she able to pre-select the design? The Noble heir in the VIP room was a far more better company, than two unsure customers. Fortunately the girl quickly found the earrings she had dreamed about. Carole counted the amount, and put the documents to the girl's hand device.

"Take these documents home and sign them with your parents. Then bring it back so you can go to the mine for the graphite!"

Valerie opened her mouth to answer, but Electra was faster.

"There's no need it, Carole!" She smiled, and signed the required documents. "I am her assigned guardian."

"Pardon?" Carole was amazed. She watched the documents of the nomination of Electra Oly to be the assigned guardian to Valerie Bond. "Do you know how long ago it was the last case, like yours?"

"38 years ago was the last case."

"Tell me, Elie, did you really leave the church there to be a babysitter?" Carole asked indignantly. She couldn't understand how anyone could do such nonsense.

Elie saw that Valerie was outraged at what Carole had said and hugged her not to say anything stupid.

"I am officially on paid holiday. Since Valerie had the plan to travel all over the Island, I just accompany them."

"Them?"

"They are twins." She smiled.

Carole was so shocked that she smoothly signed every document and handed it to the little girl.

"Pinch the little girl's device on the wagon and it will take you to the designated place. The staff will help you."

Valerie and Electra thanked her for her help, and left the lobby.

Gus Noble relieved as the nun left the room. She was a decorative woman, but at that time he was fed up with women. Woman of any age. Evie was unmanageable during the last week. Gus was already terribly fed up with his niece's hysteria but his mother and sister were pampering her, as they could. In his opinion, they were exaggerated because so many hairs were not torn by the Bond twins from Evie's head. The next day Evie cut her hair. Because there was too little hair left. Because of this, Bernhard wanted to compensate her with an earring and a really lavish fireworks display. So Gus were sent to buy the coal and the graphite. The nun was very pretty, and eager, but Gus still had his socks full of women's hysteria. He really didn't want one more to add.

As the nun left the room he peeked through the gap in the half-open door. Just to saw two more, tiresome women. His other niece, and the nun of the Lithium temple. Because of his freshly intensified misogyny, he watched the two of them shop. To his surprise, neither of them behaved the way they did last time. They were kind, smiling, and politely talking to the receptionist. Valerie looked cute, as she was reading the catalog with the warrior amazon.

And that brimstone nun wasn't so disgusted either. She was actually a very beautiful girl with her long brown hair. Although she was wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, she was somehow more attractive than the make-up assistant girl. He also noticed that Valerie hadn't had a tantrum because she only got one piece of candy. Evie would have swallowed a full box by this time. All in all, they behaved like normal girls, and Gus suddenly liked them, despite the previous experiences. As the two girls walked out of the hall, he could observe the walking of the nun, and he liked it. He liked it very much.

"I'm sorry I left you for so long! I hope you are not bored." Carole returned to him, hoping to build up the right atmosphere again.

"No, not at all! I just watched that little girl. She looked cute, well-mannered. It would be good company for our Evie. Did they come for earrings too?"

"Yes, they did."

"Are they coming back yet?"

"I don't think so..."

"Then I missed them. That's a pity. I should have gone out, but I didn't want to disturb you… " He said as cute as he could. He wanted to get the numbers of the twins and the nun, and the woman before him was so eager to help him.

"I could give you the number of the girl's assigned guardian. She was my classmate, but beware of her." Carole lowered her voice to warn the man.

"Why?" Gus made the fright.

"Electra is a total idiot." Carole was satisfied with Gus's facial expression. "Who is the mentally ill idiot, who gives up her leadership job to accompany a child around the island?"

"Did she give up her job? Really?"

"Yes. She became the assigned guardian of that girl. She demoted herself to a simple babysitter!" Carole was shaking her head. "Could you imagine?"

Gus agreed.

"Poor girl. I would like to send them two bags of your tasty candy! Could it be solved?"

"Yes, of course!" Carole said, and hooked on the man's arm.

Fortunately Gus didn't need to continue the conversation with the woman, because he got his order. He quickly asked the assistant about the former nun's number, paid for the candies, and vanished from the church as soon as he could. Although, he shouldn't have been in such a hurry because he could already hear Evie's tantrum from five yards away the caravan.

Elie and Valerie didn't noticed the twin's uncle, so they cheerfully went to the entry of the mine. There was a man, who asked them, whether they need a guidance, and Elie nodded. It was safer, because Valerie squeezed her hand stronger and stronger as they were coming near the mine. She was clearly frightened, so Elie should have consoling her during the ride. They needed the help of the man.

The man sat down on the front seat, and they had the back seat. Elie fastened their belts, the man asked for her hand device, and the wagon slowly started off on the railroad. As soon as they had reached the entrance of the black hole, Valerie closed her eyes, and hugged Elie tightly. The wagon continued its way on the railroad, and the speed is fastened. At first they went downwards, than left and right, up and down, through caves and above deep holes. It was a very astonishing roller coaster. Elie really enjoyed the ride, despite Valerie's panic.

"Open your eyes, there is not dark! There are lights everywhere!" She told the girl.

Valerie peeked out from her embrace, but turned back. She was really frightened.

"Do you want to turn around and buy graphite instead of mining them?"

"No." She mumbled to Elie's stomach. "When will we arrive?"

"Soon. The wagon has already slowed down." Elie caressed the girl's back.

She was right, they soon arrived to their designated place. They got out of the wagon. The place was lightened, but the man held out two safety helmets, with a light bulb on the front.

"Call me, when you want to leave!" He said. "Don't be afraid of the bigger little ones! They are more or less harmless. If a little girl accidentally panics, there is a built-in position indicator in the helmet. So we could find her anyway."

He waved and left. Elie put the helmet on Valerie's head, and locked. Just for sure. The cave was lightened anyway, the y didn't need additional light. But the man was right. Valerie was tend to do panic-attacks.

"Monsters?" Valerie stuttered. She could hardly stand on her feet, and now monsters?

"The are not monsters, but little ones. Bigger little ones. Like you have already met at the seaside."

"But Francium atoms are dangerous, and we couldn't call Aunt Ille now!"

"I don't think we could meet Francium atoms here, Radon atoms are more possible ones."

"Radon atoms?" Valerie tried to find out something about the mentioned little ones, but her hands were trembling. Elie patted her shoulders.

"They are the biggest of the Noble gases. They have eight hands and those hand are holding each other by two. They are very sleepy and lazy atoms, but there are ways to make them raging."

"And what happens when we meet them?"

"We climb on the top of graphite and wait for them to roll away."

"Are they expensive?" Valerie calmed down, so she began to think about topping up her dwindling pocket money.

"No. So there's no meaning in hunting them!" Elie laughed.

"Oh!" Valerie said disappointed.

"Let's mine the graphite, you need for the jewelry."

"It really look like a big birthday cake!" Valerie noted after she watched the Carbon atoms.

"Yes. It has layers. In the layers, every Carbon atom has three covalent bond. The fourth hands are between the layers."

"It is slimy." The girl said after she caressed the surface of the top layer.

"Yep. That's why the layers could slip on each other. It works like that in your pencils. One of the layers sticks to the paper, and there is the next one. The next one is sticks to the paper, and so on. You could draw a very long line, thanks to this structure."

"It is like the jelly in the metallic bond." Valerie caught a little hand at the edge of a layer.

"It is similar, but this lattice is so unique, that it has an own name."

"Why are the small red dots here or there?" Valerie asked, after charging the knives.

"For making your diamond, we have to make fullerenes from the graphite, and we have to cut the exact amount to make them. The red dots sign the tailoring pattern for the fullerenes. Could we start?"

Valerie nodded, and Elie cut the long line. Valerie had to cut the small lines, and store the graphite in her device. There were not needed to cut the bottom of the layers, so it was easier, than mining the coal cubes. It was also more faster. Valerie was surprised, when her device indicated by a loud beep, that they had already mined the required amount. Elie almost called the man with the wagon, when she heard a soft bumping sound.

"Come on, let's take a picture at the top of this stack!" She asked Valerie.

Elie lied, not to scare the girl. They climbed up to the graphite stock, and made a few pictures. Valerie wanted to go out, when the little ones had slowly rolled into the cave.

"Elie!" The girl were groaning from fear.

"They couldn't make us any harm. We are in the heights, and they are too lazy climb up here. But do you want to hunt? We need the little ones up above!"

"Are there bats?" Valerie screamed, and she had already forgotten that the day before she had wanted to scare her brother with them.

"No. There are little ones, we will need in the future! So let's hunt them!"

The girl was pushing the buttons almost blindly at first. After the amount of little ones decreased, she was able to open her eyes, and catch the molecules. Because there were molecules up in the cave, not atoms. They collected all of them.

"We have collected a lot of Methane molecules. K.O. will be happy! Now, we could see the others down. They are rare ones, so watch them carefully!"

Large, slowly rolling spheres were rolling down there. They really had eight hands, as far as Valerie could tell. They didn't care about the two spectators. If they accidentally hit each other, they didn't chirp like Hydrogen molecules, but only slowly, deliberately yawned. They rolled around the cave and then rolled nicely, slowly in the direction they had come from.

After the last one left the cave, The girls climbed down from the graphite pile, and called the wagon. The trip back wasn't enjoyable for Valerie either, so she was very happy when she finally got out of the dark maze. The man checked her collected graphite, gave her the candies, and he told the stunned girl, that the Methane molecules are free.

"Why?" She wasn't used for free stuffs in the Island.

"They are dangerous in the mine. Methane can explode in the cave and cause the mine to rupture. It also costs a lot to reopen, most of the graphite is ruined, so we're happy for someone to collect the methane."

"Then we shouldn't actually build up the methane molecules, just go into the mine and collect it?"

"You can do it for free!" The man smiled, and waved to the entrance.

Valerie immersed in her thoughts.

"Elie..." She began.

"Do you want to go back?" She asked, smiling.

"NO!" The answer came immediately, and Valerie grabbed her hand, and started to pull her away from the entrance of the mine.