The Giver: Extened Chapter

 

Energy for today and the future

Since the late 1800’s, science and technology has developed in drastic ways. Computers, cell phones, and medical discoveries have made changes that are monumental. Ways to power our nation have also drastically developed. Now we can power everything we need, but it may come with a cost. Since 1942, nuclear power has been experimented with and researched. Today it is the 3^rd biggest electricity supplier next to coal and natural gas. We may not even notice the things that are a result of nuclear energy, like the sun. Nuclear energy is energy that is released by the changes in the nuclear core of atoms, which gives the sun its heat and light. Nuclear power is widely used throughout the world. Germany, France, and Japan all use nuclear power. Nuclear power is very beneficial to many countries, but the waste and radiation it causes is definitely problematic when it comes to the safety of the environment, animals and humans.

             

Nuclear power comes from the burning of uranium, which was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaprothm a German chemist. Although, it wasn’t until 1896 that Antoine Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium gives off invisible rays of heat, therefore discovering radioactivity.

            In 1942, the scientists at the University of Chicago built the first nuclear power reactor under the athletic field. Scientists worked hard in 1945, to control nuclear power for electricity.  By June 27, 1954 the USSR Obninsk Nuclear Power plant was the first plant to generate electricity. In the following years, they worked hard to create stable nuclear power plants that could generate more electricity. Now, it is used in 30 countries and there are 104 reactors at 65 plants worldwide. Although there are many plants, each is closely watched by inspectors. You need a permit to start construction and a license to start operation. There are limited restrictions, but nuclear power has developed a lot since 1942 and is used to its great advantage.

 

            Nuclear power plants are very complex and very large. They cover a lot of ground, but all of the area is needed. The nuclear power in a plant comes from the reactor. Nuclear power reactors are around 11 times taller then the average adult human, and there can be up to four reactors in a plant. Although most nuclear power reactors need to be refueled every 1-2 years, most do need to be shut down to refuel. Nuclear reactors last up to 50-80 years, and the life span is growing with new updates and technology.

            There are two basic kinds of nuclear power reactors. One kind is Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs). PWRs heat water underground. The other kind of reactor is Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs). These are above ground and they boil water to make steam. This steam is used to turn the generator. In both kinds of reactors, unused steam is turned back into water and used again. The energy to boil or heat the water comes from uranium. The radiation created by reactors is contained in them. The reactors are surrounded by concrete walls that are several feet thick.

            A type of reactor that isn’t used as much as PWRs and BWRs is fast neutron reactors. These produce 60 times more energy on the same type of uranium. These may be used more in the future but require a lot technology right now.

            A nuclear power reactor is a very complex system and must be monitored closely. All of the necessary parts to a nuclear power reactor help it to maintain a standard condition and run orderly. The uranium in a reactor serves as the fuel, and it is arranged in rods called fuel rods. These rods are arranged into fuel assemblies is the nuclear core. The control rods are made with cadmium, hafnium, or boron. These materials absorb neutrons. The control rods are inserted or withdrawn to control the heat inside the reactor. A moderator is a material used in the reactor to slow down the fast neutrons released from fission so that more fission can take place. The material used for a moderator is usually water, heavy water, or graphite. Another part to a nuclear reactor is the coolant. It is a liquid or a gas that circulates through the core to keep the reactor cool. Its other job is to transfer heat evenly throughout the reactor. A steam generator is part of the cooling system. The cooling system is where the primary coolant is used to help make steam for the turbine. The pure vessels or pressure tubes are structures that contain the reactor core and a coolant. The containment is a wall to protect the reactor from intrusion, and to protect the outside from radiation. This wall is made up of concrete and steel, and is several feet thick.

            The water boiled for steam is boiled by nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is when a large atom breaks into two smaller atoms and they don’t need as much energy. The extra energy is released as heat and radiation.

 

 

            Nuclear power is a beneficial source of energy for a large portion of the world. Although it may seem perfectly safe, it has many dangers. A big part of nuclear power is the radiation it causes. If the radiation leaks, it can affect everything that is living. It is very dangerous and is hard to contain because it is transparent. Thick walls of concrete and metal are the only things that can stop radiation rays. 

            The form of radiation that is given off is beta particles, alpha particles, and gamma rays. Alpha particles are not penetrating. They can’t even penetrate dead skin cells. Beta particles are more penetrating, but all nuclear radiation can cause DNA mutation, tumors or death to skin cells. Gamma rays are the most penetrating of the three. They can cause burns on skin and in organs. Radiation is very dangerous, and can cause a lot of sickness.

            Most plants have sensitive systems that can detect when a leakage has occurred, and the reactors will automatically shut down. This is how plan equipment and operation has improved. Even though technology has improved, while operating a nuclear power reactor, plants have to be careful. If they wrong elements are placed into a reactor it could lead to an explosion. 

            Nuclear accidents aren’t common, but they have happened and may happen again in the future. In history there have been three major nuclear accidents worldwide. The first accident was at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979 something at this particular plant went wrong. Mistakes by workers and technical problems led to a partial meltdown in one of the reactors cores. 2.4 million curies of radioactivity was released. It took many years to clean up, and is the biggest accident in the U.S. to date.

            Another accident took place in Chernobyl, Ukraine. On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 in the morning a power surge occurred at a nuclear power plant. In ten seconds the output of power increased from 6% to 50%. This increase blasted two chunks of radioactive material out of the reactor and set 30 fires throughout the plant.

            The latest nuclear accident was in Fukushima, Japan. On Friday, March 11 2011, a tsunami hit Japan. The tsunami wasn’t called for, and couldn’t be tolerated. The plant was hit, but then when the earthquake struck the plant reactors shut down. The generators also didn’t work so there was no electricity coming from the plant.

           

            Nuclear power reactors produce a large amount of waste every year. In 2000, it was 220,000 tonnes and is growing 10,000 tonnes annually. 1 tonne is equal to about 2,205 pounds. The storage of the waste can vary from plant to plant, but it involves a specific plan and safe travel.

            Radioactive nuclear waste is transported by trains or trucks to an underground dumping site. The waste is held in casks that are made of thick concrete that contain the radioactive waves. They also counteract the heat of the waste to avoid a meltdown. They are placed in the ground, and buried. A concern about storing the waste underground is that if cask were to leak they would poison underground drinking water.

            High-level and low-level wastes are very different, but they are both still dangerous. High-level waste is a fuel used in the nuclear core, and it is also called spent fuel. It is highly dangerous and must be stored on the plant site for several years so it can be monitored. Once it is tolerable, it is transported by casks to a special dumping site. It will take many years to lose radioactivity. Low-level waste isn’t as severe and can be transported and stored underground without having to be monitored.  Also, the waste isn’t always sent to a dumping site. It is sometimes taken to a lab for research.

            Nuclear waste takes thousands of years to cool, and to lose its radioactivity. The problem with underground storing is that many people in the surrounding area don’t want a site to be built. It could lead to poisoned water and sickness or burns. Many towns will hold meetings where the residents can voice their opinions. Others don’t have that opportunity.

           

            Nuclear power is very beneficial when properly created, operated and stored. If not, then it can be very dangerous. Nuclear power has developed greatly in the last 50 years, and today it is necessary to power our nation. In the future, we can hopefully research nuclear power more, and find solutions for the amounts of waste created, and the radiation it causes.

 

Bibliography

 The Accident at Three Mile Island. 5 August 2004 www.echo.gmu.edu

 

 

 Fukushima Nuclear Accident. www.greenpeace.org

 

Green Peace. 2011 www.greenpeace.org

 

 Helgerson, Joel, Nuclear Accidents.

            p.55, Chernobyl

            Impact Books,1988

 

 The NEED Project, Uranium (Nuclear). www.need.org

            Manassas, UA

 

 Ocean Pollution. 24 April 2011 www.marinebio.org

 

 Radioactive Waste: Student’s Corner. 2000-2001 www.nrc.gov 

 

Storage. 27 June 2006 www.greenpeace.org

 

 Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors. www.world-nuclear.org 

 

 Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel. www.nrc.gov

 

 Weart, Spencer, Nuclear Fear. www.world-nuclear.org

            Harvard, UP 1988

 

 Williams, Valerie, Fission. www.mcecoop.apogee.net

            2009

 

 Wilson, P.D., The Nuclear Fuel Cycle. www.world-nuclear.org

            1996

 

The World Book Encyclopedia.Vol. 14 p.579-588

            Scott Fetzer, Chicago 2007

 

 

 

 

 

Hello!

Welcome to my Wiki Page! I'm excited for a new school year and for English class!

 

 

Book Report

 

 

1-12-11

Unbelievable is the fourth book in the Pretty Little Liar series by Sara Shepard. In this series, four girls who live in Rosewood, Pennsylvania come face to face with their past. Alison DiLaurentis, the fifth girl who would complete their group, is found 3 years after she mysteriously disappeared. Except, she is found dead, under a slab of concrete in her own backyard. The girls come face to face with everything that happened with, and to Alison that awful night she disappeared at their end of seventh grade sleepover. But the girls have no idea what happened. But then a new “friend” comes along. Someone who goes by A, sends them notes that hint at their terrible pasts, and what could’ve happened to Alison. A tells the girls not to tell anyone that they are receiving these messages, or else. A tells them the killer and A themselves, is a lot closer than they seem.

In the fourth book, however, Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin and Emily Fields ( Alison‘s four old best friends) find out who A is in the end. But before that, the encounter a lot more than expected. The suspect, Ian Thomas, was dating Ali at the time and Spencer has a fuzzy and reoccurring memory about the night Ali disappeared. She remembers chasing Ali out of the barn in which their end of seventh grade sleepover happened, and she thinks that she might have killed Ali herself. Although she remembers something else too: It wasn’t only her and Ali in the woods that night.

Emily Fields is shipped off to Iowa to live with her conservative cousins because her mom doesn’t accept her being gay. While Emily’s there, she gets blamed for inviting all of her cousins to a wild party. So, she gets sent back to Rosewood to deal with A once again.

Aria Montgomery gets involved with her teacher named Ezra Fitz, and A tells her boyfriend, Sean, that she and Ezra are together. Ezra is behind bars, and Aria’s mom is mad at her because she didn’t tell her that her dad was cheating on her for 3 whole years.

Spencer Hastings is being competitive with her older sister Melissa Hastings, as always. Spencer stole Melissa’s essay and was nominated with a Golden Orchid for it. Spencer tries to tell the truth, but every chance she gets slips right through her fingers. She is also struggling with the fact that she herself, might have killed her best friend Alison, out of pure jealousy. Spencer doesn’t go by A’s orders, and pays for it with the ultimate price. Spencer has to deal with that, along with A’s hateful harassments.

Although Hanna, is in the deepest trouble of all. She was seconds away from telling her friends who A really was, but was hit by A when she was in the school parking lot. Moments later Aria and Emily receive texts saying, She knew too much. Now Hanna is clinging to her life, although she can’t remember who A was. Hanna is constantly reminded of it, and until they find out who A is, no one knows just how far A will push the limit.

I would recommend these books to anyone grades 7^th and up. This book has 335 pages. These stories are ones you literally cannot put down, and leave you guessing until the final pieces fall into place. I liked them because they are very fun to read, because they have a lot of suspense and they are written really well. They are also easy to relate to. There are eight books in the series, starting with Pretty Little Liars, and ending with Wanted.

 

Extra Credit

If I could change places with one of the characters, it would be Hanna Marin. I would change places with her because she made some bad choices, all because she wanted to stay the “Queen of Rosewood Day”, her high school. She abandoned her boyfriend, Lucas, because he was simply a loser. He was the best to her, and didn’t care about how much Alison and them had hurt him in the past. He liked Hanna for who she was, not what she was. She also made wrong choices with her friends, because she really hurt people who truly loved her, and she may have overlooked some things. A was very close and she never had a suspicion about it.

SAL’S PLACE     

     When the sun is shining, one of Lake Michigan’s beaches would be a perfect place to spend a day with friends and family. Sal stops here briefly with her Gram and Gramps, to enjoy the calling of the seagulls and light splashing of the clear crystal waves. Millions of people love and share the beauty of Lake Michigan every day.  The lake brings many tourists, and offers many water activities. Being the fifth largest lake in the world, Lake Michigan’s average depth is 279 feet, but its lowest depth is 923 feet. Lake Michigan also has many beaches, parks, and lighthouses, including Grand Haven State Park, and Whitefish Point Lighthouse. Lake Michigan has many sights to see, all of them promise to take your breath away.

 

 

My information source
Link to Photo

 

 

MY PLACE
The place  that I want to visit is Summerville, South Carolina. Summerville is located  along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the southeast U.S.. It has a small population of 50,000 people, and has about 15 square miles in size.  Every year Summmerville has hosted the Flowertown Festival ever since 1941. The Flowertown festival is the biggest arts and crafts festival in all of South Carolina.  I want to visit this place because my half-sister Melony lives there. I have never met her before, but I would really like to meet her, her husband and her two kids.

 

 

     

Link to Photo
My information source

 

 

    Everyone grows quiet when the teacher walks in. All two-thousand of us. She looks at us and then down. Something is wrong, and I look back to find Olive but I can’t see her. The teacher looks up at us and her voice comes booming through the speakers in the walls.
    “Something.....,” she looks down and I think I see her wipe away a tear. “Something has happened. To us and countries across the Atlantic.” She takes a while to say this, almost too long. I feel jumpy, like any word she says could possibly set off a bomb. “Everything is poisoned.” She turns on the large T.V. and leaves the room. A man pops up, wearing a blazer and a striped tie. He isn’t smiling, and he waits a long time before he talks. “Today, milk and other dairy products were shipped overseas to Asia, South and North America,some parts of Antarctica and almost all of Europe. Do not drink this milk. It has been reported that it is contaminated with chemicals that are currently unknown. Do not drink any milk or dairy products that have been bought in the past week. If any has been consumed please get immediate medical attention. Thank you.”
    The man disappears from the screen. A silent and heavy depression falls over the whole room. All of us are silent until the teacher dismisses us from our class.
    I find Olive after class. She has a spunky red hairband on and striped leg warmers. She always sticks out. It is a unspoken rule that we all have to wear khaki pants, and grey polo shirts. Olive tells me that she doesn't wear regular clothes because she simply isn’t regular. She always leaves it at that.
    A sharp shiver creeps up my spine. Olive hasn’t said a word yet, she just stares at me. Long and hard. Now that Olive is acting normal, she seems even more unusual.
    “I drank it. Cameron, I drank the milk,” she says looking up at me with sadness in her eyes. “Dad drank it, you did too!” Tears roll down her cheeks.
    “They didn’t say it was fatal,” I say trying to bring the energy into her again, to make everything okay.
    “But everyone knows it is,” she hisses. “ Everyone knows, Cameron, and we can’t do anything cause these stupid teachers won’t let us go home from school early. They can’t!” Now she is bawling. Black mascara is streaked across her cheeks.
    “Look, we can’t do anything about it. Just go get your stuff and I’ll take you to your next class,” I say looking down. I know she’s gonna yell. She always does.
    “NO CAMERON! I WILL NOT STAND HERE AND DIE!” She has now made a scene as usual.
    “Okay, we’ll go home,” I whisper. Then she leaves and I turn toward the door for the parking lot.
    Sometimes I wonder if Olive just misses mom. She never talks about her, but I see it in her eyes. She has so much anger, and it is put toward other situations. I think sometimes she forgets that she wasn’t the only one growing up without a mother. Dad is especially sad, too. I see it in his face, the way he talks sometimes. He misses her, we all do. And sometimes I wish that she would come back to us. But no matter how hard I wish, I wake up every morning without her.
    We have to go through 100 floors on the parking ramp to get to our car. No one noticed, but they will when we don’t check into class. We drive past the run down buildings and dumpsters filled to the brim. Down the road a little ways is the neighborhood. There’s only one, and all of the houses are the same small style.
    Olive hasn’t said a word yet. I am not surprised. Once she didn’t talk to me for a whole week when I was ten because I took away her Princess Honey Doll. We were so close and she always wanted to play dress up, but she managed.  I am sure she won’t be saying much for a while.
    I walk in and see my dad planted on the couch. He has Chinese takeout in his right hand and some kind of bottled beverage in the other. He is watching the news.
    Olive storms up the stairs. “Stupid news reporters! Who do they think they are?!” She shouts until I hear her door slam. After I can still hear it but it’s muffled.
    “How was work today?” I ask my dad leaning against the back of the sofa. He looks at me, a look that says, “I wish you would just leave it alone but I’ll tell you anyway.”
    “Look, Cameron, I love you. I would never give you that milk. I know you know that I do work in that factory but I know nothing of this. So, leave it alone and can you go inform your sister she isn’t going to die. Please.” As he says this, he lets out a long sigh. Then he whips his head back to the T.V.. All I do is nod and smile at him. Then I get up and go upstairs.
    “Olive?” I call, looking in her room. I can’t find her. Until I hear a quiet sobbing, I think she has run away. Then I figure it out. I walk to the end of the hall and open a small thin door at the end of the hall. I creep up the staircase and see Olive. She is holding open a book, and has a gigantic pile of tissues next her.
    “It’s okay, you’re not going to die. You can stop crying know,” I laugh, turning back towards the stairs. I am almost all the way down until I hear her say,”It’s not that you idiot.” I spin around slowly.
    “It’s not?” I say. It would be just like Olive to be so scared over something like this.
    “No,” she sighs, and then gestures me back up the stairs. She goes farther back into the attic, and looks to see if anyone is here.

Then she whispers to me, looking me right in the eye,”I know dad has something to do with this.” I start laughing.

    “No he doesn’t! Are you crazy? Dad would never stand for something like this,” I say shaking my head back and forth.
    “I know he doesn’t want to Cameron,” she look down,”but these things don’t happen on their own.” Olive can really scare you when she serious. You almost expect her to snap her fingers and 35 highly trained assassins will come out of nowhere.
    “But somebody, I don’t know who, is forcing him to poison all of these people.”
    The next day Olive and I skip school. We complain we’re sick. I know dad doesn’t believe us but he lets us  stay home anyway. The instant he’s out the door Olive is on the home computer, trying to crack his account password.
    “You can’t get on his account,” I say quietly, hoping it went over Olives head. It does.
    “Cameron, we’re his children, we have a right to know,” she says. The computer lets out a sharp bleep, and the Welcome message appears.
    “Yes!” Olive laughs. She it starting to scare me.
    “Wow Olive. What was it?” I ask, pulling up a stool next to her.

“The date mom left,” she says, although she doesn’t look up. Her fingers are rapid on the screen. She  pulls up three documents, each of them titled: Session 1, Session 2, and  Session 3. She looks up at me breezily, and opens one. A document and a video tape pop up on the screen.

    “Turn the volume up!” Olive screams at me.
    “Raymond, we’re happy to have you working with us for this long. Give us your opinion when you’re done. Thank you,” the man says. He has a long lab coat on, and a name tag that says, DR. EDWARDS, EXPERIMENTAL HEAD.  
    “Whoa,” Olive breathes. That's all she says. I close the video window and scroll down the screen with my finger.
    “Olive,” I say, but I don’t stop reading.
    “What?” She whines.
    “Our dad doesn’t work in a factory,” I say. Now I know why dad would never show us his office. He always said he was embarrassed of where he worked. He didn’t want to show us. Olive and I would say that it was because he worked at a factory, and it was probably ugly. No. Not even close. Our dad was a scientist, more important then the one in the video. He had been experimenting with livestock for fifteen years. And now, he was responsible for this. For this dairy  poisoning. Something that had already made thousands of people  ill.  This chemical that was supposed to make animal reproduce faster, had mutated them. And my dad was being held responsible.
    “How come he never told us!? I can keep a secret. Right?” Olive was ballistic. She kept babbling on and on. I just sat there blocking her out.
    “We’ve got to get him out of this Olive. We can’t let him live him like this,” I say.
    “What are we going to do? Dad wants to do this doesn’t he? Were going to get him into a lot of trouble,” she says throwing her arms frantically.
    “Olive, it’s not his fault,” I yell. Then she stops talking. “It is not his fault. He wasn’t the one who did this. It was all of them. They all did it. And since hes not the supervisor, maybe we can get him out of this,” I say hopefully.
    “No we can’t Cameron,” she says, shaking her head. “These people mutated all these animals, if that's not a crime than I don’t know what is.”
    “All I know is that we have to get there. We have to get to the laboratory, now,” I say searching for the power cord coming from the car.  
    “We can’t just go, we have to have a plan,” she says, stepping to the side and pulling out the cord that’s behind her.  “Mom would know what to do,” I hear her mumble.
    “I do. I do have a plan,” I lie. Lie,lie,lie.
    We pass the sign that says, “Leaving Stevenstown” and Olive stops the car.
    “Where are we going?” She says, plugging in the location one more time to the GPS system.
    “Olive. Olive. Olive, look,” I say gawking at the giant puff up smoke in the sky above us.
    “What!?” She yells at me, finally looking up. “Oh, well there it is!” She put the car into drive, and zooms forward.
    In record time we’re at the laboratory. The tall grey building mocks us from four stories high. I feel like even the sun cowers behind it.
    “Are you stupid, park in the back?” I say, reaching for the power button. Olive smacks my hand.
    “No! Do you want them to suspect something? And besides, we’re here for the truth. Do you really want to hide in the back?” She rolls her eyes and pops the door open.
    We walk in and a talk thin lady pops up from the front desk.
    “How may I help you two?” She says, giving us her best fake smile.
    I look at Olive then say, “No English. No English.”
    “Oh, well you must be here to see our communications advisor,” she answers, giving us a small card.
    I nod and say, “Thank you.”
    Once were out of the woman's sight I nudge Olive and she gives me a grin.
    “I told you I had a plan.” She just keeps smiling at me and I try to hide that I made that up on the spot.
    “I’m guessing,” Olive says slipping the card into the door that says, NO VISITORS-EMPLOYEES ONLY, “that they think we can’t read English either.” They system beeps and the door clicks.
    “Perfect,” she whispers.
    Once we’re inside the door we put on white lab coats, and Olive pulls out a small video camera. We creep around, nodding to other scientists who are wearing identical lab coats.  My stomach twists as we see each one. But, everyone is buying it.
    Olive rounds the corner and we duck behind a counter. It’s dad. He is using a eyedropper and some test tubes with smelly green and blue liquids inside. Once he leaves, Olive starts recording three other scientists, all of them shaking with anxiety.
    “Where is it?,” says one, looking down.
    “ Right here. This is highly toxic. It can burn your flesh clean off” says the second one holding up the green test tube. Then he spills it. It goes all over his hand, and he screams bloody murder. The other two rush him into a chemical shower, turn it on, and close the curtain. Olive keeps recording. Then she smiles, as the other two begin talking.
    “I can’t believe that’s what they put into the animal feed. It didn’t help at all. Well until it reached their vital organs. Then they mutated and it’s all our fault,” says the first one, putting his head into his hands.
    “Hey, no one will find out. Well, eventually. Although we’ll be long gone by then. We have to shut down and move locations. Although, we haven’t started yet, and if anyone finds out in the next week we’ll be shut down and thrown in jail,” says the other softly. Then Olive turns off the camera. I don’t say anything until we hear the door click and the scientists foot steps fade.
    “We have to get out of here, Cameron,” she says, pulling the card from her pocket.
    “Okay, we have enough,” I reply, standing up.
    We walk out and return the key to the empty front desk. Olive doesn’t say anything until we are safely out of the parking lot.
    “My god Cameron,” she says this like we just witnessed a murder.
    “It’s okay Olive. Do you want me to drive?”
    “No, thanks. I’m okay. I just always looked up to dad. And now, this whole thing revolves around him,” she says, driving back into town. I suddenly fell better, as if there is a force field to block the people in the factory back.
    Once we’re home, Olive flips the camera and connects it to the computer. I’m in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water, when I hear the video playing. It’s so clear, almost like there in the room with us. Then it all hits me. I realize we’re holding vital information, that this will change all of the lives in the factory, including ours.
    “Olive, you can’t post that. It will hurt so many people. And we’ll have to move. We’ll lose dad, he’ll go to jail. Olive you can’t,” I say a small tear rolling down my cheek.
    “Cameron, I have to. It’s the only way this will stop,” she says. I can see the downloading bar moving quickly. Then I know she understands. She unplugs the videotape. She walks over to me, and gives me the biggest hug she has in a long time. When she was ten she got too old for hugs. So I take it all in.
    When we call dad the phone is shaking in my hands.
    “Hello Cameron, is something wrong?” He answers, his voice so familiar.
    “Yes, we need you to come home, now.” I hang up before he responds and twenty  minutes later he is at the door.
    “Cameron! Are you okay?” He look me up and down, checking for any signs of bleeding.
    “No, we need to talk to you,” I say opening the door further so he can come in.
    Olive and I show him the tape. He watches intently, gasping and shaking his head.
    “I need you two to listen to me and believe me. I didn’t want to do this. I never did, and I regret it. The day I signed the contract was the day before your mother left. I regret it, but it was the only thing that would pay the bills. I had no research I was working on and they told me I had to do it or I would be fired. Your mother was against it, and that’s  why she left. I know where she is but she can’t talk to me. She no phone or Internet in Northern Arizona. She always hated technology. She wanted to talk to you two but she couldn’t. I regret so much but can change so little. I love you two more than life itself and I just didn’t want to hurt you,” while he says this tears are rolling from his eyes and into his mouth.  “Post the video. Please.”
    “But dad, we’ll have to leave. Or you’ll go to jail,” I say looking at the computer screen.
    “Pack you’re things, we’ll leave. And I don’t want to hear anything else on the subject. And I know where we’ll go, trust me,” he says, standing up and heading for the stairs. “Post it now and we have three hours. Let’s go.”
    I haven’t seen flat land for hours, and I am starting to fell carsick. We’ve only stopped once to recharge the car and use the bathroom. Olive is sleeping and I am trying to imagine a beach in my head. Only, I am brought back to reality when the car is stopped and I hear the crunching of dirt road beneath us. I look out the window and see a gigantic farmhouse, along with two barns and many animals. The thing that sticks out the most is a tall, slender, woman. Her arms are folded across her chest, and she is smiling bigger then day. When I see her everything else fades back. I couldn’t imagine the feeling before, but know it fills me. Northern Arizona is going to be different, but better now that mom is part of our family.  I climb out of the car as I feel the missing piece slide into place in my heart. My mom gives me a hug and then she hugs Olive.
    “I never though I would see you again,” she whispers to us. “ I love you so much,” she says, small tears streaming down her face. “ So much,” she breathes.