Conrad was listening with a dangling nose to Valerie's adventures, that she, and Elie had experienced in the cave. He envied the roller coaster ride, which, unlike his sister, he would have really enjoyed. In addition, he would have really looked at the Radon atoms for himself. On the top of that, Valerie and Elie had collected a lot of useful little ones, which was really discouraging. He and K.O. were just cuttting coal cubes in the mine. Just like yesterday. There was nothing interesting about this activity anymore. The only consolation in the whole thing was that Valerie shared with him the candies she had received at the cave. They were real candies, nothing to think about while Conrad ate them. Elie and K.O. refused the sweets, so they had one bag each.
"Did everyone relax enough?" Elie asked, and all of them nodded. "Great. Let's go to the foil tent and make more methane molecules! As much as we hunted will not be enough."
The temple of this coal mine wasn't a special one. It didn't look like the elite graphite church at all. But it had more important facilities to process the mined coal. There were hangars, like in the war movies, tubes, where little ones were floating, and greenhouses, where anyone could process the solid coal to gaseous things. Their goal was one of these greenhouses.
Why do we use a greenhouse instead of the pen, like in the Lithium church?"Conrad asked, and didn't noticed the pain in Elie's eyes. He was just curious.
"The Hydrogen molecules are too little to use fence grid. They are so fast and small, that they would have fly away, before you could catch them!" K.O. answered. "The foil is able to keep them inside."
"This machine also helps to keep them under control. "Elie patted a transparent ball, with a strange device on the top.
"Hey, I know that! Grandma used to play bingo on a machine like this!" Valerie cried, which makes Conrad laughing.
"It is not a bingo-machine!" He snubbed her sister.
"It is looking like that, but it is a Hydrogen cutting machine!"
"Why should Hydrogen molecules always be cut apart?" Valerie sighed.
"Because we want to build something else." K.O. told to the girl. He was aware of the girl's weakness of harming something. "None of the atoms are mind this process. It cause temporary a slight discomfort them, and they will be happy again with their new friends. I promise!" He laughed on Valerie's facial expression.
"Whose molecules should we make first?" Elie asked, and the twins voted for K.O..
The man went to the ball, and filled with Hydrogen molecules. After that he pushed his device to the top of the ball. Valerie and Conrad watched in amazement as a molecule was flying from the ball into the tube and then the machine cut their bond. The atoms ate the energy and crawled out side by side on top of the machine. They were not so loud, like in the great plane of the Hydrogen Kingdom. Elie told them, that the atoms here were smaller, and their voice became too high to hear.
K.O. called a coal cube, grabbed the two free Hydrogen atoms, and held closer to the surface. The Hydrogens immediately made a bond, and gave candies and chocolate bars.
"So that's how we got the energy back from the Carbons!" The children cheered.
"Not so many, that you are hoping for." K.O. smiled, but the children didn't listen to him.
Valerie and Conrad was enthusiastically putting Hydrogens to the Carbons. One after the other, until the whole surface was covered.
"We have done!" Conrad reported.
"You finished only with the surface." Elie told him. "We have to put Hydrogens to all of the Carbon atom's hands."
"But they have no more empty hands!"
"That's why we are cutting their bonds too." Elie got her knife, and cut a slice from the coal. "Now we have two empty surface, so put the Hyrdogens!"
The twins obeyed, and after they had been ready, Elie cut the slices to pieces, and soon Valerie could hold her first Methane molecule.
"Elie! K.O.! This one doesn't have more hands!"
"Our first Methane molecule!" K.O. smiled, and patted the black and white little one. "Hold it firmly!"
"It is squirming a lot!"
"K.O.! "Conrad said, after examining the little one in Valerie's arms. "This little one is been built of Hydrogen and Carbon atoms. What is the name of the atoms now? Methane atoms?"
"No, nope!" K.O. answered, and successfully hid his smile. "They are still Hydrogen and Carbon atoms. But they are forming a compound, and the formation is called Methane."
"Compound?"
"The Hydrogen, or the Carbon alone are elements. They consist of only one kind of atoms. When a little one is consist of at least two kind of atoms, it is called compound."
"The Lithium hydride, you made for your device is also a compound." Elie said.
"So what is the chemical sign of this?" Conrad asked.
"Well, we already know that is not Mt." Valerie said, and the edges of her mouth bent down for the bad memory.
"Why would it be Mt?" The two adults asked in unison. The kids didn't look at them, they studied in depth the black powder stuck to their shoes.
"The compounds has chemical formulas, not signs."
"The chemical formulas are giving us information about the compounds. There are several type of formulas. The easiest is molecular formula, which only contains the number and the quality of the components. Could you guess, what is the Methane's molecular formula?"
"It consists of one Carbon atom and four Hydrogen atoms. So HHCHH?" Valerie guessed.
"No." Elie shook her head vehemently, to hide her smile. "Conrad? Any guess?"
"No. None."
"The chemical formula is CH4. Because the Methane is consist of Carbon and Hydrogen atoms. In details 1 Carbon atom, but we don't write down the number 1, and four Hydrogen atoms, that's why there are number 4 at the lower index."
The twins looked at each other, and smiled. Easy. It is very easy.
"What about the structure?" Valerie asked, since she failed to draw. the structure of the little one in her hands.
"That is called structural formula. Drawing a structural formula is more difficult, but we could practice in the evening, before going to bed." K.O. offered, and the kids accepted. "So let's work, and turn those little ones into Methane.
The work went faster, but it was deadly boring. Valerie and Conrad whimpered a lot, differently than usual, so the adults announced a competition between the two children. So they smuggled some excitement into the tedious work and ended up with plenty of coal and hydrogen in almost record time.
"The winner is Conrad!" K.O. announced in the end. The boy advantage was almost two cubes of coal.
"Valerie, congratulate him!" Elie forced the girl to shake hands with her brother. But Valerie was sad anyway. She wanted to win. "Good work, both of you!" She said, and patted Valerie's shoulder.
"What do you want to do until dinnertime?" K.O. asked, and smiled. He had already knew, but he asked them, to be polite. "You have a plenty of time!"
The kids cheered up immediately, and run away toward the playground. Elie, and K.O. tidied up the foil tent, and after a shower they went home, to the caravan. They both sat at the table, and speaking about the twins, the adventures of Valerie, Conrad's win, and K.O. was dare enough to asked Elie about her future plans.
"What do you want to do now, that you no longer have a job?"
"Basically I have a job till the new years. I am on vacation officially. My salary is also payed."
"What would you do after the new years eve?"
"I don't know." She shook her head. "Somehow I feel so empty inside. It's like just these kids and all this physical work keep my soul inside my body. If I don't do something, I'm afraid it will just leave my body and I'll be nothing. I don't know what will happen next, but somehow I don't even care. For now, I just want to survive today somehow. Hopefully it will work."
"Of course it will work" The old man consoled her. "You're grieving now. You mourn your past and your possible future, which will never happen. Cry calmly. This is natural and good for you. Let me know if we can help! There are still a tons of coal here, that we can turn into methane! " He said, winking at her.
Elie laughed. The old man was right. She was grieving. But she didn't want to. She wanted to explore the Island with the kids. This would be the greatest medicine for mourning. Living a happy, careful life. The life, that only children could live. To avoid pain and traitors. Her face turned dark, and the old man noticed this change.
"One day, you will wake up and you suddenly realize, that you are ready to embark on another journey." K.O. said, and patted the woman's shoulder. "And then you will only think back to the memories with nostalgia. For both the bad and the good."
"Are you sure?" Elie asked in weak voice.
"Sure." The old man answered confidently. "There will be better and worse days, but in the end you will just start one day. Smiling, confident and with sparkling eyes."
"Thank you."