Astronauts on the volcano

"Is that a volcano?" Conrad pointed to a smoking hilltop in the distance.

"Yes." The answer came. K.O. noticed the panic in the boy's voice, so he wanted to calm him down.

"Is it active?"

"I hope so, or else we can't find Sulfur there. All the volcanoes are active in the Kingdom of Sulfur. At least the hand device says so. "

"Isn't it dangerous to go there?" Conrad voice sound exactly like he was asking about the toxicity of the hydrogen sulfide.

"A little bit." K.O. nodded. "But we need an active volcano to collect Sulfur."

"Why do we always get dangerous work? Valerie could ride a roller-coaster, hunted a lot of Methane, watched slow giants, and what we could do? Gathering dangerous little ones from even more dangerous places!" Conrad snapped in despair.

"Don't you happen to know who was the one who insisted on making fireworks?" K.O. smirked.

Conrad stayed silent. K.O. was right. It was him. Elie and K.O. supported him, but really he was the one who wanted to make fireworks for the festival. Valerie was against his idea, but just because she had another plan, and the others vetoed that. Well, his sister was originally not against to take part of the festival, but she just didn't want to take part of making firework rockets. Conrad now agreed her. It was dangerous. Not just building the rockets, but collecting the required materials. Conrad wished he had known first what to expect.

"Have you changed your mind? Do you want to go home?" K.O. asked kindly. "Although all that is needed to make the rockets is sulfur."

Conrad was thinking hard. The smoking hill didn't look too desirable, but all they had to do was getting sulfur, and they would have everything for the rockets. Conrad pulled out his device and searched for the sulfur in the market hall. There was a lot available and wasn't too expensive, but it would no longer have been shipped out on time. K.O. was right. They had to come get it. But that volcano is fearsome! Plus, it was active. What if they have to run from the lava because it erupts?

"If you changed your mind, we can go back. We ask Valerie's friends to watch their fireworks." K.O. said, and silently waited for the boy, to decide.

It was a beat. Valerie's friends was the last ones, to whom Conrad wanted to explain why he turned back from the volcano.

"Let's go and gather that Sulfur!" He decided, but he was trembling.

"It won't be more dangerous, than phishing Phosphorus." K.O. comforted the boy.

"I wish I could gather the amount along the road!" Conrad sighed.

"I am afraid, it is not possible." The old man sighed. "The elemental Sulfur is solid, and very heavy. So they stay near the volcanoes. Only the compounds of Sulfur could travel far from the birthplace. Collect them, they will be useful in the future!"

"Even these smelly ones?" Conrad asked, and dodged a hydrogen sulfide molecule, which was rolling to the road.

"Especially the stinky ones! Although most sulfur compounds stink. Even in very small quantities. But they could be useful here or there. They are also used for making something smelly."

"Who wants to make something stinky?" Conrad was surprised. His mother, and his friends' mothers always doing cleaning, and make scented things around the house to smell fragrant. One of his friend's brother had stinky feet, and their family always wanted to vanish the uncomfortable odor from him. Why would someone make anything stinky with will?

"Do you like garlic?" K.O. asked. " It is a common spice."

"That really reeks. My dad once bought a small jar of garlic cream, and he put some to the meat on the grill. That was actually delicious."

"It was delicious, although the garlic has a sulfur compound. That makes the garlic smelly."

"Is there any other usage of smelly sulfur compounds?"

"There is one in the onion too..." K.O. laughed on the facial expression of Conrad. "The sulfur compound is responsible for the tears, when we cut onions."

"I think everyone would love to take this out of the onion!"

"You are right. But there is a certain use, which is based on this effect of the onion. You don't use Methane at home, but the compound is familiar to you."

Conrad didn't want to say, that the Methane molecule is a very familiar, yet hated compound for him and his sister, just nodded.

"The Methane gas is used for the households for cooking and heating. There are refrigerators, which working with Methane, but those are rare. The Methane, in bulk is colorless and odorless."

"Finally something that doesn't stink!" Conrad sighed.

"That's why it is dangerous. If the pipes puncture, you can't smell the escaping Methane gas. Since the Methane gas could explode, it is very risky to leave them unnoticed in the house. They could get energy even from the doorbell's ringing to ignite fire and explosion."

"Why do we still use Methane in homes?"

"It is less energy-wasting, than using electricity. It just had to be eliminated for safe use to be odorless. Thus, a sulfur-containing compound was added to odorize the gas. Now, if the gas is leaking, it can be felt because it stinks."

"Sometimes it's helpful." Conrad admitted reluctantly. "Why is this church so far from the volcano?"

They had arrive to a big temple, but the volcano was really far from them.

"They are also afraid of the eruption." K.O. stated simply. "Come on, let's go in!"

They entered to the temple, and stepped to the reception. There were only a few people in the hall, but no one stood at the reception desk.

"You don't need to use the gas mask in the area of the temple." A woman smiled to them from behind the reception desk. "We have filters, so you could relax."

"It is a great relief!" The two visitor said at once, after they took off the masks.

"I think so!" She smiled to them. "I suppose you want to collect Sulfur for the Firework Festival."

"Yes!" Conrad said, and pulled out his hand device.

K.O. helped him to fill the order form, and signed, as his assigned guardian. The woman nodded, and registered their order.

"Come with me please!" She said, and guided K.O. and Conrad to a room, where a lot of white jumpsuits were hanging. The woman chose them one each, and asked them to put on above their clothes.

"We look like Teletubbies." He noted, and his intonation signed, that he didn't like the idea.

"These are safety clothes. Their job is to protect you, they don't have to be fashinable." The woman replied seriously. "I suppose you didn't like the smell of the Sulfur compounds, that's why you wore gas masks."

"No." Conrad replied in frustration. "We didn't like that."

"These clothes, and the face mask will totally separates you from the toxic and harmful compounds around the volcano. Not too stylish, but useful!" She smiled to the boy. "Even your hand devices will get a plus cover." She handed over two bags for the devices.

"Could we use them around the volcano?" Conrad asked, surprised.

"Yes, of course. I put the permission of the required amount of Sulfur to your device, but you are free to gather energy bars."

"Do you mean chocolate bars and candies?" One surprise after the other.

"Yes, of course!" The woman nodded.

"Aren't they stink in this environment?" Conrad turned to K.O., and his old friend shook his head.

"The materials don't affect the energy. So they won't be stinky, or toxic, or harmful."

"Feel free to collect as much as you can!" The woman told them. "Tell me please by device call, when you want to come back from the volcano! I will let you out of the lock and it is the same procedure backwards."

The woman led them to a door, and closed the wings on her side. Afterwards the door, which led to the outside, was opened. K.O. and Conrad could walk out of the temple.

"This teletubbie costume crackles quite a bit." Conrad noted.

"Imagine, that you are walking on the Moon in spacesuit!" K.O. told him, and began to jump like the astronauts on tv.

"Good idea!" The boy cried with joy, and he began to imitate K.O.. "I am Bond! Astronaut Conrad Bond!" He laughed and jumped one leg to the other.

"A small step for a Bond, a big step towards Firework rockets!"

"Look, K.O.!" Conrad pointed to a bunch of little ones, with his device in his hand. "They are Sulfur atoms! Let' go and gather them!"

In the next moment Conrad stopped jumping. K.O. looked at him in surprise.

"Why are you stopped?"

"Something is odd. They can't be Sulfur atoms!" Conrad said doubtfully.

"Why?" The old man asked in amazement.

"Didn't you say the sulfur atoms were yellow?" He asked his old friend. "Those are red ones. Definitely red ones!"