Stone and Sand by Sibella Giorello

Author:Sibella Giorello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Sibella Giorello
Published: 2015-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Back at the camper-lab, I slip my backpack off my shoulders and brace myself.

Lanette closes the door behind us. “You want to go first again?”

“Sure.” Get my funeral over with.

I carry the beakers of sun-dried soil to the microscope, where Lanette presents me with a shallow cardboard box of glass slides. I take a small container of Vaseline from my pack and smear some on the slide, then pinch the beige sand grains in the first beaker. I sift them over the glass.

And pray Please. Help.

“What’s with the Vaseline?” Lanette pushes her glasses.

“The grains don’t slide off the glass, and the petroleum jelly doesn’t get in the way of what I’m trying to see.”

If there’s anything to see.

I slide it under the scope and lean down, adjusting the focus. What jumps out first is obvious—heavily-weathered quartz. Silica. Sand. Not exactly headline news. Plus, silica is among the earth’s most abundant elements, right up there with aluminum, oxygen, and evil.

“What do you see?” she asks.

“Sand.”

“No kidding?”

“Have a look.” I move back, trying to ignore the knot in my stomach which is not there from the cheeseburgers, fries, and mayo. She lifts the wire glasses, resting them on her forehead as she peers into the lens. The black hair touches her chin. “Okay, I take it back. This is pretty cool.”

“Yeah, after you see individual sand grains, beaches will never look the same.”

“Each one’s like surface of the moon. All those craters.” She straightens, lowers the glasses. “I’m sufficiently intrigued.”

Good. And bad, because I’m flying blind here. I grab another slide, rub Vaseline on it, and dust on the dark grains from deeper in the beach.

I adjust the focus. “You are seriously nearsighted.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

I’m trying.

And maybe.

Maybe?

I adjust the focus more.

Something. My heart gives a quick butterfly flutter. Something looks weird with these dark grains. They’re smooth. Like crystallized drops of black ink. “Check this out.”

She takes my place, ruining the focus. “This is sand?”

“And a good example of Moh’s scale.”

“Do Larry and Curly have a scale, too?”

I smile and spell out Moh. “It measures a mineral’s hardness. The softest minerals are ranked at one and two. Hardest minerals are nines. Quartz is seven.”

“Seven?” She lowers the glasses, blinks. “How could quartz rank that high when it’s full of craters?”

“Because beaches are brutal when it comes to erosion. Waves. Wind.” I go back to the eyepiece, re-doing the focus. These grains are stunning. But it’s hard to imagine them staying this smooth, especially with the relentless grinding that comes from grain-against-grain on any beach. “Whatever this mineral is, it’s got to be a nine.”

“Whatever it is? Meaning, you don’t know.”

“Does it look like these things come with labels?” I straighten my back. “That’s why we have things like Moh’s scale, so we can figure out what things are.”

“So which minerals are nines?”

“Diamonds.”

Her eyes widen. “You think . . .?”

I shake my head. “I doubt these are diamonds. There wasn’t any mention of them on the USGS map. But, these things could still be rare.

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