Read A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) for Free Online Page A

held up the first object. “This is a plastic leaf. We find lots of plastic things: bottles, toys, bags, mixing bowls, and serving utensils, for example. Before we made laws that plastic had to be biodegradable, they made the kind of plastic that took centuries—or even longer—to break down and go away, unless it was melted or burned. So when we go hunting around for old things, we see plastic everywhere. Do you think plastic makes good recordings? Pass it around and figure out your guess. But don’t say anything until you’ve seen them all.”
    She handed the leaf to a little girl with long braids in the front row. As the leaf was going around her audience, Dani turned to pick up the next object. “Here’s a leather scrap. Leather is made from animal skin, and it has the same properties as other things that were once part of something living. Who can think of some other examples?”
    The little boy in the second row waved his hand. “Tree bark?”
    “That’s a good example, but we don’t find it very often. Trees are constantly building new bark, and the pieces that fall to the ground decay pretty quickly.” She glanced around for more eager hands, then pointed to a girl in the back row with wavy red hair.
    “Books?” the girl asked.
    “Excellent! Yes, we take very good care of books, and both the paper in their pages and the cardboard and cloth in their bindings are good examples of material that was once part of something living. Now don’t forget, you’re guessing which material makes the best source for our recordings.” She gave the leather scrap to the little girl with braids, who looked at it solemnly before passing it on.
    She held up the small round stone. “This stone represents things made of non-metallic minerals. Other examples are things made of clay, like pottery, china plates, and ceramic tiles. Glass, which is made mostly of sand, is the same kind of source as clay, unless it has a metal, like lead, in it, and then it depends on how much.”
    She handed the stone to the little girl in the front, who by now was taking her job very seriously. Then she took the last object from the table and held it up. “Here’s a metal disk, but it represents all the metal things that we might find, like doorknobs, lamps, car parts, or other things like that. Can anyone tell me something that’s shaped like this metal disk that used to be very common?”
    From somewhere in the middle rows, a young boy in a blue tee shirt put his hand in the air tentatively. “Coins?” he asked, when she called on him.
    “Yes, exactly! Have you ever seen a coin?”
    He looked down shyly. “My dad collects coins. Sometimes he lets me hold some of the ones that aren’t all shiny.”
    “How about the rest of you? Have you ever seen coins?” A smattering of hands—she estimated about 20 or 30 kids—said yes. “Several hundred years ago, school children paid for their lunches with coins and paper money, and grocery stores would take your paper money and give you change.”
    Dani handed the metal disk to the pigtailed little girl, who took it and asked her in a whisper, “Is this a real coin?”
    She whispered back, “No, not a real one. But it’s shaped the same.”
    Facing the assembly again, Dani reminded them of their assignment. “In your small groups, as you look at each of these and feel them, guess how well they would work for my job. Decide what order they should go in, from best to worst. And then we’ll have a little game.”
    She gave them a few minutes to talk about it, then moved among them to listen to what they were saying, collect the four objects after they made their way to the back of the room, and hand out the game boards the institute had developed for presentations.
    “When you’re ready to play, touch the red dot along the edge to turn it on. We’ll all start at the same time. When I say to start, you’ll see the four objects you just looked at as small images above your game boards.