Europium: Secrets of Leeland Falls

By L.M. Dempsey

Dmitri Mendel and Henry Mosel suspected they had discovered something big when they came across a cave with a mysterious substance glowing on the rock walls. But finding out what the silvery substance was and keeping it secret until the day of the Leeland Academy Science Fair would prove challenging. Their nemesis, Billy Cashton, and his father, Albert, would do anything to ensure a first-place trophy for Billy. After all, Billy had won the top prize every year. But the stakes are bigger than any of them realize. The discovery in the cave is a deposit of the rare earth element, europium. Billy’s father will do anything to find out where the cave is and to ensure Billy’s win at the science fair. But, how far will he go? Dmitri and Henry have a few allies of their own who will help them unravel the mysteries surrounding their discovery. Will Dmitri and Henry finish their project on time and secure the rights to the cave before Mr. Cashton does? The tension builds until the day of the science fair, when all the secrets are revealed.
Europium: Secrets of Leeland Falls is a fast-paced race against time. The story takes artistic license with the history of mining this rare earth element and weaves a narrative around the use of europium and its importance to national security. Dmitri and Henry also remind us of what the adolescent social cast can be like while embarking on the rituals of dating, all while warding off the evil Cashton Empire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.M. Dempsey
• Release date: Jul 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301054565

L.M. Dempsey

Lisa and Linda both reasoned that a single author name would better lend itself to a piece of fiction than two author names. But what name to choose? Since they are twins (identical) and both started out in this world with the maiden name, “L.M. Dempsey,” they decided to use it.Lisa Rubrich and Linda Balsamo were born in Appleton, Wisconsin, but grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. After both graduating from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Lisa with a degree in biology and Linda with a degree in marketing, they went their separate ways to pursue graduate degrees, Lisa in microbiology and Linda, a MBA. Lisa and Linda both worked simultaneously at the University of Illinois at Chicago in very different roles, often confusing fellow staff members who did not know their co-worker was an identical twin.Lisa Rubrich eventually became a certified orthotist and at one point ventured into the orthotic shoe business. She currently lives in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin with her husband and three daughters.Linda Balsamo went on to earn a PhD in human and organizational systems and wrote The Earl of Hampton, based on a true story she came across while researching Deaf Culture and its history. Her second novel, In the Land of Snails and Bunnies: Confessions of a middle manager confronting a pink slip, was tabled while this current novel was written. Linda lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and twin sons.

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Europium: Secrets of Leeland Falls

By:

L.M. Dempsey

Copyright 2011 by L.M. Dempsey

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: Pranks are Great (usually)

CHAPTER TWO: Theee Finest Education…

CHAPTER THREE: Baseball is Everything to a Geek

CHAPTER FOUR: Back to Reality

CHAPTER FIVE: Technological Innovations, the Beginning

CHAPTER SIX: Spring Fever

CHAPTER SEVEN: Getting Ready for the Science Fair

CHAPTER EIGHT: Suspicion

CHAPTER NINE: The Hole

CHAPTER TEN: The Goons

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Climbing the Ladder

CHAPTER TWELVE: Fair Play

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Ditching the Ladder

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE EARL OF HAMPTON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chapter One

Pranks are Great (usually)

MY NAME IS DMITRI MENDEL. A few years back, I had a semester in Hell, affectionately referred to as my last year in middle school that I’ll never forget. The year was 2002 and while most kids my age were going through their daily routine of eating, sleeping and generally trying to stay ahead of the hormone curve, I found myself on one heck of a rollercoaster ride. It was springtime, well, late winter really, and I was still in the process of finding myself. See, the first half of my eighth grade year was painful, but, no more so than any other year of school for someone considered to be a geek, with a capital G. It didn’t help that I was and still am a short, skinny kid. Add to that my fondness for math and science and you end up with a recipe for disaster. I’m sure you can picture the type…the students who, as a group, get picked on, or more accurately, picked off, easily, by the upper classmen. For most kids my age, eighth grade is a chance to be the Top Dog for the first time as far as school rankings go. There’s no one above you and a lot below you. You’re king of the hill for one year, which usually provides enough confidence to get you transitioned into high school, which puts you at the bottom of the pack again. But, not at my school. At my school, eighth grade is still Middle school and as far as the high school kids were concerned, you hadn’t arrived yet.

For most kids at my school, eighth grade was like purgatory. You’re old enough to feel like your time had come, but you had one more year before you were officially in high school. But my second semester in this eighth grade was different. It all started on a cool sunny day in March when I decided to boldly assert my strategic superiority. In other words, I decided to mess with my arch nemesis.

It’s hard to laugh when you’re running away from the biggest pinhead in the school. Yeah, there were gnarly kids at my school, like at any school, but Billy Cashton took the personification of el-creepo to a whole new level. See, he’s a well-connected dufus, and he knew it. He wouldn’t admit to being a dufus, but you get my meaning. Unfortunately, he’s good at everything. You know the type…smart, athletic, good looking (for a guy, I mean), and his father owned most of the town we lived in, Leeland Falls. I’m not sure why they decided to call the town Leeland Falls since I’m pretty sure the most falls we have are some tiny rapids coming down the Illinois River. Nothing on the magnitude of actual falls, but I guess that doesn’t really matter. Billy and I both go to Leeland Academy. It’s a private school outside of the Chicago area and has grades six through twelve. As my friend Henry likes to say, the academy provides students with THEEE finest opportunities in education and advancement your parent’s money can buy.

But, on this day Billy was not so smart. (I have known Billy since the sixth grade. Now, all of a sudden, he wanted to be referred to as Willem. Not William, but Willem, which is an oddball, hoity-toity name, if you ask me.) I was running because Billy just found out it was me who hollowed out his baseballs and refilled them so they would be off balance. Do you sense the totalness of my geekdom yet? Leeland Academy was having a special tryout for middle grades to see if they were good enough to be called up to Junior Varsity. Billy Cashton was already on the Junior Varsity, or JV, team, having excelled at baseball since he was old enough to hold a bat. He liked to show off allll his mad skills, whenever he could. This guy was the quintessential master at getting someone’s attention and then holding it until their eyes started to water. Seriously, you can’t help but watch the guy to see what he will excel at next. He sort of feeds on his amazing ability to get someone’s attention. So when he knew the coach would be looking, Billy threw his baseball real hard and fast to the first baseman. This was the funny part…it curved so far to the left that it looked like it might actually swoop up into outer space like a UFO. To say the coach was not impressed would be an understatement. When the first baseman threw the ball back, it went wide. Not only did Billy not catch it, it had the unintended consequence of making the first baseman really mad. Billy got frustrated and was so embarrassed and red-faced that I thought his head would spontaneously combust. Billy’s not one to handle failure very well. I think he inherited that attribute from his father. I laughed so hard from my perch on the bleachers that I almost wet my pants. Well, maybe I did a little, but who would know?

Billy looked at his baseballs and quickly realized someone had tampered with them. I really didn’t expect him not to figure this out eventually. Like I said, he was smart. He was not as smart as me and at this moment, this fact mattered. He surveyed the field and spied me up on the bleachers. The jig was up, but he knew, as well as I, that it was more important to explain to the coach why his throw was off, as well as his catching. The look Billy gave me felt like daggers going through my skull. It was time to make my escape. I was pretty high on the bleachers, but I had strategically chosen the seat on the end so my get-away would be swift. My best friend, Henry, was behind the backstop; having fulfilled his role of feeding doctored balls to Billy. I wondered if Billy would take his frustration out on Henry but it was too late to worry about that.

Henry and I had met in the sixth grade and had been pretty much inseparable…safety in numbers and all that. Henry was not your typical kid at Leeland Academy. He was on scholarship, since he’s pretty smart. Not as smart as me, of course, but smart enough to pretend not to be smarter than me. The whole thing was debatable, so we don’t dwell on it. Henry’s parents were not wealthy like most of the rest of the kids at our school. He was just a normal kid, with a normal family, living in a normal house. And fortunately for me, he was the equipment manager for the baseball team. ‘Equipment Manager’ was really a fancy name for a batboy, but you gotta give the kid credit for doing what it takes to be near the action. We both wanted to be on the baseball team really badly, but Henry figured he’d hedge his bets. If he didn’t make the team with these tryouts, at least he could ride the bus, even if it meant riding with Billy and his posse’ of Willem wanna-be’s.

Like I was saying, I was running as fast as I could. I had to get to my bike way up on the hill before Billy could explain to the coach what his problem was. I really shouldn’t have stayed so long, but I couldn’t help myself. The look on Billy’s face was priceless. Billy gets my goat more than he should. I’m usually a sensible type of guy but Billy… he gets under my skin. My mom says I shouldn’t let Billy take up valuable real estate in my head. It’s not like he’s paying rent, she said. I thought that was pretty funny…paying rent in my head. I think I understand what she was trying to say, but our hostility dance goes way back. I’m not even sure where it all began. I just know that it’s always been him against me, mano-a-mano.

As I raced off on my bike, I thought I was a dead man. Billy was so much bigger than I was. If he ever caught me, it would be game over. I imagine he would pummel me until I was unrecognizable even to my own mother. The prank was hilarious, though. It would be almost worth it if he caught me and pummeled me to death. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the time to look behind me as I peddled, but I did anyway. It’s a habit, I guess. I just had to know how close I was to my final resting place. Anyway, I looked back and kept expecting Billy to be on my tail and closing in on me. Man, my heart was racing a mile a minute. Visions of the pain I was about to experience were dancing behind my eyeballs. After a while, it seemed like I was going to safely cross that imaginary finish line that was my driveway. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees since school let out and my fingers were nearly frozen. I’m pretty sure I had wind-burn across my face. I coasted over the curb just as Henry came riding up behind me.

You ride like a granny, Henry commented. I could go around the block and still beat you home.

You see, I was riding a vintage bike. It’s an old Schwinn with a banana seat and grab bar on the back. The chain didn’t have a chain guard, so I had to rubber band my pants if I didn’t want them to get caught in the gear. The bike was the best color red you could imagine, sort of like candy-apple red. I love the color red, especially when it’s the color of Billy’s face. Only problem was, like any other bike, I had to pedal it. Henry, on the other hand, had a motorized bike that went up to twenty miles per hour. We could have redesigned it to go faster but Henry liked to follow the letter of the law and the law said, no more than twenty miles per hour. So, it went no more than twenty miles per hour, but it still beat me home.

Oh, yeah? Well, this grandma was peddling for his life. Wasn’t that hilarious? I laughed my tail off. Hey, you were close to Billy. What did he say? Why the heck didn’t he chase me? I thought I was a dead man, for sure.

You are soooo lucky. The coach recognizes a great prank when he sees one. I’m pretty sure I saw a little grin on his face as he tried to settle Billy down. He said if Billy retaliated, he’d be cut from the team. Then Coach kept all the balls for his collection. I think he was secretly admiring your work. Billy was steaming mad, but what can he do? Coach saved your butt. You better send him flowers or something. Henry was smiling. He had that look of satisfaction that comes when a well-thought-out plan plays out without a hitch. It was pure genius to have Henry feed Billy the doctored balls. I wondered how long it would take Billy to figure out Henry was in on the prank. He had to know. After all, we were best buds.

We parked our bikes in the back yard. My house was kind of big. The neighborhood sign said we lived in the Leeland Estates. Some guy named Leeland must have been a bigwig at some point. His name was everywhere. Almost as much as Billy’s last name, Cashton, was everywhere. Anyway, my house was big. It’s just my parents, Janet and Norbert Mendel, and me. They weren’t home much. I’m an only child. Mom said that once she had a perfect little boy, she decided that was enough for her. Truth be told, I think she just enjoys her work so much that more kids would have cramped her style. I’m okay with that, but there was so much Mommy and Daddy guilt around my house; I pretty much got whatever I wanted. But I think I was a pretty good kid and tried not to take advantage of the parental units too much.

Dad built this awesome laboratory under our coach house at the back of the yard. He always said a man’s work is important, and since I was into science, I needed a place to do my thing. He didn’t put it under the house in case I blew something up, which was always a distinct possibility, given my preference for all things that smoked or went bang. I had access to everything I needed. My dad owns Mendel Chemicals. He makes chemicals, obviously. Well, he doesn’t exactly make the chemicals, he has other people make them, or buy them. I’m not really sure which one it is. My mom’s parents were wealthy. Old Money, they called it. She sits on boards and does philanthropy work, which means she gives her money away to other people. I hope there’s some left for me when I’m older. I might need it in case Billy puts me in a wheel chair some day. Is that selfish of me? It’s not like I won’t have a job or a career, but having a little extra to start out with in life is not a bad thing.

After we parked our bikes, we went through the back patio door to the kitchen. Emily was there. She’s officially my governess and tutor, but gave up on tutoring me a few years ago when it became obvious I could excel on my own. But she still helped me with the whole social thing. Emily Pride was very smart in all those subjects I didn’t care too much about and on top of that, she was very pretty. Well, actually, she was hot. What can I say? If I were a few years older…

She lived with her grandfather, Copernicus Pride, who was also a scientist. There was a whole lot of science surrounding me. Copernicus worked for Technological Innovations, or TI for short, and had been employed by them ever since the company was started, which means he pretty ancient. This is where my real story begins. See, TI was owned by Billy’s dad, which meant he practically owned the whole town. You couldn’t go two blocks without running into something with the Cashton name on it. I’m pretty sure Mr. Cashton tried to get the town renamed after him, but the village elders or the mayor wisely turned him down. I’m sure whoever this guy Leeland was might have objected if he were still around. I think that because Billy’s dad practically owned the town that Billy thought that gave him the right to be way meaner than he needed to be with little guys like me. Anyway, Copernicus figured out how to purify one of the rare earth elements TI mined in California. The element, Europium, or Eu for short, is the sixty-third element on the periodic table and was used in televisions to bring out the colors on the screen. TI had a lock on the industry because they were the only mine in the whole country that produced this element and they made loads of money because of it. I mean, think about it. Could you imagine watching a television where there’s practically no red on the screen? All the lipstick makers would certainly go bonkers, I can tell you that. They’d have to feature colors like green. Who would wear green lipstick? Anyway, so without this element, there would be no red phosphor. No red phosphor, you ended up with yucky, dull colors on the screen. It was as simple as that. Copernicus was the guy who figured out the best way to purify the element, since there was such a small amount in the ore that was mined. I mean, we’re talking, like, 0.1%, (one tenth of a penny out of a dollar of rock, for those readers who are mathematically challenged) and getting it out was a very hard process. But Copernicus figured it out and had job security for the rest of his life, even if it meant he had to work for Mr. Cashton.

So, getting back to my story, Emily was like a big sister to me (but still really hot), which made Copernicus kind of like a grandfather figure. Emily also looked out for me. And, she made the most awesome after school snacks.

Hello gentlemen. How was school? Emily asked, looking up from her Cosmopolitan magazine. I liked to snoop through the pages when she wasn’t around. I learned a lot about girls from that magazine, but I wasn’t sure if any of the information applied to girls my age. I mean, some of the stuff in there could be kind of racy, if you ask me. I’m not sure if all of it was true but sometimes, I did pick up a tip or two about what girls liked and didn’t like. I was sure it would come in handy some day when my love life was not so pathetic. I was still at the stage where I had to look a lot of the words up. Still, it was a great source of information….and the pictures weren’t so bad either.

The usual torturous angst of teenage life, of which I’m sure you know nothing about, I replied. Oh, and the science fair is next month.

Hey, I wasn’t always this beautiful, Emily teased. I had braces and ponytails and the occasional pimple, just like every other kid your age. Anyway, you should not make assumptions about people by the way they look, Dmitri. You might be surprised by what’s inside the cover of a book.

Yeah, yeah, but first you have to notice the cover. Really…that’s all I could come up with. Sometimes I could be really lame when talking to girls, even if that girl was Emily. Did I mention she makes awesome cookies?

Hello, Henry, Emily said. She was obviously turning her attention to something more worthwhile. Girls always seemed to like Henry more than they liked me. I assumed it’s because he’s not as threatening as I am, being that I’m smarter and better looking than Henry. Are you going to compete in the science fair with my Dmitri or will you be competing against him?

With him, if he’ll have me, Henry replied. We just got started on an idea in The Hole but we are stuck. The Hole was what Henry called my underground lab. I liked the name because it sounded more like a Bat Cave with all the most advanced technology. I suppose, compared to most labs, mine was pretty cool, but it’s not like I could drive out of it by a secret cave entrance that disappeared into the side of a hill. I don’t think we stand a chance against Billy Cashton. He always wins. He cheats but I hate to admit his projects are usually pretty cool. He eyed Emily’s plate of freshly baked cookies.

Emily pushed the plate across the table. She made the cookies the old fashioned way. She actually mixed the parts together and baked them in an oven. She even let the cookie dough chill overnight in the refrigerator. She said that’s how they come out so soft…something about the length of the molecules, but I don’t remember exactly. Most people used the pre-made dough...you know, the kind you cut from a roll. They’re okay, but they are nothing like fresh mixed and baked. There’s just something in the texture of a good chocolate chip cookie that you can’t get from a roll of pre-made dough pumped into a plastic sleeve. If it were me baking, I guess I would have to use the roll kind. I know that some day I will have to fend for myself, but at the time, I had Emily to work her baking magic. Life was sweet!

Emily’s parents died when she was young. Her grandfather, Copernicus, taught her all about the old days. He's the one who got me into vintage bicycles. He’s very smart, too. He had been with TI since it was started back in the 1950s. Gosh, that’s like Leave it to Beaver days. At one point, someone from a new mine in China tried to steal Copernicus away because of his purification process. Ever since then, he’s been a highly paid consultant with TI. Seriously, this purification process was the key to unlocking the europium and the better you were at purifying it, the more profitable the mine became. Emily