Itchcraft Read Online Free Page A

front of her T-shirt.
    Sammy took the hint and didn’t question them further.
    The truck pulled up, and they turned to see Themba unlocking a huge padlock and unwinding a chain that linked the two large iron gates. A large sign screwed to the bars said, HEWITT B MINE. CONTROLLED AREA. NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY . Nicholas joined him to push the gates open, and when both men had returned to the truck, they trundled slowly into a rock-strewn field.
    Itch and Chloe knew a deserted mine when they saw one – they had plenty back home in Cornwall. There were the telltale spoil heaps of earth and stone that had been dug up and left, unwanted, in loose hills by each shaft. Rusty and decaying winding towers stood by a series of ugly concrete buildings. However, the sheer scale of the operation was new to them – it extended for miles, mostly downhill from where they stood. Areas of dense dark-green shrub were littered with patches of brown, broken rocks. A number of burned-out houses stood a few hundred metres away.
    ‘That where the miners lived?’ asked Chloe.
    Sammy shook his head. ‘Whites only. The miners were in shacks.’ He pointed to heaps of corrugated iron and wood nearby. ‘They all fell down. Even my grandpa’s.’
    The road, such as it was, circled round to a concreted area which looked new. Clean and swept, it too was surrounded by barbed wire, iron posts and NO ENTRY signs. An irregular double
click
from under Chloe’s T-shirt made her jump and she caught Itch’s eye.
    ‘That won’t be anything, Chloe – we aren’t near enough any rock—’
    ‘I’m still telling Dad,’ she said, and as the truck slowed to a stop, she was the first to jump down.
    Nicholas and Themba listened as Chloe told them about the extra clicks from the radiation detector.
    Themba nodded. ‘The thorium-rich mines are on the other side of the hill, Chloe. Many, many years ago there were tiny amounts of thorium here, but now the mine has been cleansed and tested and given the all-clear. The old buildings are being torn down and buried under clay because of their radioactivity. I’ve taken my Geiger counter right down this mine and there were no surprising readings. The shaft is completely restored. I wouldn’t bring Sammy if it wasn’t safe.’
    Chloe looked reassured. ‘OK. What happens now?’
    ‘Themba and I are going to do some tests on some of the rock about fifty metres into the mine here,’ said Nicholas.
    ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Itch.
    ‘It’s monazite,’ Themba told him. ‘Looks like this.’ He produced a small reddish-brown pebble from his pocket. ‘I got this from here. Should contain some lanthanum and almost all the rare earths.’
    ‘And thorium? That would make it radioactive, wouldn’t it?’ Chloe stepped back. ‘That’s where my extra click came from!’
    ‘Give me your radiation counter,’ said Nicholas, and she pulled it out from under her T-shirt. It swung on the end of her hand and he caught it. Themba held out the monazite as Nicholas closed in with the detector.
    ‘Listen,’ he said. At a distance of one metre, there was a click every ten seconds. He stepped to within ten centimetres of the rock – still no increase in clicks. It was only when the counter and the rock were almost touching that the frequency increased.
    ‘Probably just a little more radiation than a banana!’ said Themba.
    He was expecting surprise from Itch and Chloe, but instead got only rueful smiles. They had been told about radioactive bananas by an element dealer called Cake.
    Chloe took the counter back, and Themba threw the monazite to Itch. ‘Have a look,’ he said.
    ‘OK – well, is it valuable, then?’ said Chloe, glancing only briefly at the pebble in Itch’s hand.
    Themba laughed. ‘Actually, most rare earth elements aren’t rare; they’re just difficult to tell apart and isolate—’
    ‘Wait – so they’re not even rare?’ said Chloe, incredulous. ‘What’s the big deal,