Miss Malone pressed her lips tight and shook her head. She also said no when Cooper later asked if he could ride one of the metal carts filled with rock that were scattered around the tunnels.
Chelsea kept her eyes open for clues, but didn’t see anything that jumped out at her like the map Simon had spotted in the Liberty Science Center.
Miss Malone’s eyes lit up as she said, “Isn’t it amazing, nearly everything man-made in the world comes from mining. We are dependent on the materials we dig up!”
“I never thought of it that way,” Jamal admitted. “I’m usually looking around at natural wildlife habitats and up at the sky to watch birds, not looking down thinking about what’s underground.”
“That’s why it’s so wonderful that our state offers you places like this,” Miss Malone added, putting her hand on Jamal’s shoulder. “Now let me show you something really cool!”
The Trackers followed her down another tunnel into an open cavern. Buckets of small, ordinary looking rocks stood at the entrance. “Please, pick out a rock everyone,” she said. The group gathered around the buckets, picking out a brown or white rock that fit nicely in the palms of their hands.
