"Where is Valerie?" Conrad asked Elie, when he was waking up in the next morning, and didn't find his sister next to him.
"She went to her friend, to return the dress." She replied in a low voice, since K.O. was still sleeping.
However, her efforts were in vain, for the next moment Valerie tore open the caravan door and fell into Elie's arms, crying.
"Miya's gone too!" She sobbed very loud.
Elie tried to comfort her, but the noise woke the old man as well. Moreover a man also knocked at the door, offering work to them.
"Do you want to help us to clean the area?" He asked, and Elie nodded.
"Thank you for the offer!" She smiled, and she pushed the children out of the car. It was high time to occupy themselves with something meaningful.
"Collect the remainder of the rockets into this bag. The energy bars are all yours!" The man informed them, and signed the area, which needed to be cleaned.
"It is huge!" Conrad growled when he realized he had to work again.
"Collect some pocket money!" Elie dazzled his hair, and showed them, how to make this cleaning. She swiped her hand device, and the machine collected every bit of trash from the ground. But there was a small amount of chocolate, and candy among the trash. "Look" There are energy bars among the trash!"
"It is not too much!" Valerie said, frustrated.
"But more, than nothing, and yesterday you wanted to collect some pocket-money." Elie smiled to the girl. "Let's see who can collect the most!"
The twins were never deterred by anything from a little competition, so they started collecting right away. They finished the designated area in a quarter of an hour, so the man, who asked them to help in the cleaning, gave them another one. That one was finished in just twenty minutes.
"Elie won again!"Conrad gasped.
"But this time I am on the second place. In the first area you were the second one, so there is a tie between us!"
"But I collected more energy bars, so I won." Conrad replied.
"But I collected more trash!" Valerie cried back.
"That's just trash! Not money!" Conrad replied in a loud voice.
"Not necessarily!" Elie said, when she became bored the fight. "There is the recycle car! That collects the trash." She pointed to a big truck on the road.
"Recycle car?" Valerie asked, surprised."What does that do?"
"In short, they pay for the garbage. Let's go and sell them the trash."
The staff of the recycle truck asked them to put the trash to a scale, and they paid for the collected items in one.
"Now, I am the winner!" Valerie said, and she held out her tongue. "I collected more energy bars!"
"I am the winner!" Elie said, and put her hand over Valerie's mouth, to push back her tongue. "Are you curious about what are they doing with the garbage?"
The twins nodded uncertainly. What could they have done in the garbage truck? They are taken to a landfill or incinerator.
"If you are curious about it, you can check it out!" The man at the scale offered to them. "Justin! Justiiin! We have curious young visitors!" He cried.
A young man, Justin came to them, and led them inside the truck. Valerie and Conrad was amazed, because there were a lot of machines inside the truck, and those machines were working on the garbage, they had collected. It was amazing.
"We have to select the garbage first." He told them. "The firework rockets consist of three parts. The paper outing, the inner glass, and the metal cutting part. The first machine selects the paper part. The next gets out the metal with magnets, and the remaining is basically the glass."
"Then we don't actually produce garbage that couldn't be recycled?" Conrad asked, while he was watching the big containers at the end of the truck.
"Unfortunately we cannot select the garbage in 100%. There is a small fraction, which is real garbage. This fraction is deposited."
"Oh! But they could also be torn apart if we untied their ties, right?" Valerie asked.
"Yes, it is possible, but that is a very expensive, and labor intensive process, so we just take them to the garbage. Even so, we saved a lot of material from getting to landfills." Justin added, when he looked at Valerie's disapproving facial expression.
Since the kids didn't have any more questions, the three of them thanked the opportunity to see their work, and went back to the caravan.
"How can they put garbage to a beautiful land like this?" Valerie blurted out.
"Unfortunately, people often don't care about either beauty or the future, but only look to their own benefit. But look at the good side. They, in the truck, are at least partially trying to do something against the rubbish heaps." Elie rubbed Valerie's back.
"Okay, okay." The girl sighed, but she wasn't convinced at all.
"Ahoy!" K.O. was waved them from the caravan, and they all hurried to him. "Let's talk about the future plans." He told them, and invited the three youngsters into the caravan. "Where did you go so early in the morning?"
"We have been collected some pocket money." Conrad answered.
"And did you succeed?"
"A lot of little things go a long way." Elie told to K.O., and the old man nodded.
"What are we talking about?" Valerie asked curiously.
"Future plans." K.O. said. "As you know, I have to go to the Iridium Kingdom to have the car serviced. What are you planning to do while I'm away?"
"How long will you be away?" Valerie asked saddened.
"Two days to traveling there, and two backwards. I don't know how long the hooks will be repaired, maybe a day or two."
"It is almost a week!" Conrad cried out.
K.O. nodded.
"I don't have enough hydrogen to fly anymore, so I have to go on the highway. This doubles the travel time. But I don't want to take you with me either, because there are at least five resizing points on the way and Conrad can't stand it. We should find something funny for you by this time."
They were silent, but all of their brains were working. The adults were searching in their hand device, so Valerie was trying out her idea too.
" Why don't we go back to the Kingdom of Hydrogen?" She asked finally. "We could buy a fresh load of Hydrogen molecules, and we could fly to the Iridium Kingdom in a day."
K.O. and Elie stared at the girl.
"I could manage a platinum cover for my gems, so I could accompany K.O., while Elie and Conrad could stay in the Hydrogen Kingdom. There will be a new Noble Race in two days. If we buy the Hydrogens from a large-scale harvester, we could sort them, because they don't get out the heavier ones from the bulk. Elie and Conrad could start the race, if they don't want to come with us."
"It could work..." Elie mused. " Conrad, K.O.? What do you think?"
The boys were thinking for a while, and nodded. The little team was heading back to the Kingdom of Hydrogen in a minute. They did, what Valerie suggested. K.O. bought Hydrogens from a large-scale harvester, who was laughing on them at first, but was willing to sell them the requested amount of Hydrogen. Since they were four for the work, the molecules were selected early in the afternoon.
"Why are you so wild?" K.O. bulged to the little ones, who slowly ventured to his hands. And when they realized the scratching was enjoyable, they stumbled upon all four of them for a little caress. "They are the cutest little ones, aren't they?" He asked the youngsters, and they all agreed.
"They haven't wanted to bite us yet!" Valerie approved, and caressed the excited molecules.
"They didn't have a smell at all, and they are very peaceful!" Conrad nodded.
"K.O.!" Valerie said suddenly. "Where did you buy your lamp?"
"In the Kingdom of Iron. Do you want to buy one?"
"Yes." She nodded. "You said you didn't want to keep the Tritiums. However, a lamp would come in handy in the tent. We could use the Tritiums in a lamp."
"Conrad also wanted a lamp for his luminescence molecules, so we could buy the lamps, and participating in the race the tomorrow. After all of this, we will travel after you by train the day after tomorrow." Elie said.
"So everything is settled, we are leaving."K.O. said. "Valerie! Jump into the caravan!"
Both of them hopped to the front seat of the caravan, which seemed to be a small box, comparing to the new, green-lilac striped balloon.
"The balloon is really looking better, than the previous one." Elie stated, while they were waving after the receding vehicle.
"Valerie chose the colors and the pattern." Conrad said. "She didn't like the previous pattern at all."
"Strange. She really likes the tent, even though it is made of the old balloon."
"An ugly patterned tent is better than not having one." Conrad said wisely.
"You are right." Elie said, surprised. She hadn't seen this mature side of Conrad yet.
"Moreover K.O. said we can paint the tent to any color we want, we just have to buy textile paint. But there are going to be definitely no flowers on it!"