Pam would have thrown the letter away, if it hadn't been for the postscript.

She should have known that if she didn't just freeze Jean-Louis to dry ice the first time he showed up in Grantville and started panting at her like an overenthusiastic Chihuahua, she'd end up having to deal with her mother again. And again. And again. Not that Jean-Louis could help being the nephew of the guy that Mom had married.

Pam stared at the fresh sheet of paper. God only knew what caused her to actually research lava lamps for her mother and even God probably didn't know why Velma would want to know about lava lamps now that she was living in Holland, but even with a mother like her it didn't pay to be impolite.

Especially not when Velma had gotten Jean-Louis involved. And Velma was now married to Jean-Louis' uncle. And Jean-Louis was really

… quite a bit better than okay, when you came right down to it.

Pam shook her head. Mom had been wandering around town talking about Spiritual Enlightenment before she left. Perhaps she was thinking of the lamps as a meditation aid. Oh well.

She dipped her pen in the inkwell.

" Dear Mom,

"I hope you like flat. It must be easier than climbing these hills. Especially with another baby coming. At your age.

"I am enclosing a copy of the report I'm sending to Mr. LaChapelle in Leiden, like you asked. There are a few things you need to know so you don't get upset with him.

"First the bad news. Mom, 'real' lava lamps are something that they just can't make down-time. The lava goo is made from some chemicals that the coal tar plant is just starting to think about making, and from some other chemicals which they say will be decades or longer to make.

"Now the good news: you can make a 'Motion Lamp.' It won't have the exact same sorts of globs and stuff, but it will have bubbles and blobs that move up and down. It can be pretty cool. You just take mineral oil (Baby Oil) and put it in a bottle with water and alcohol with a bit of spring on the bottom. The trick is that the amount of alcohol is very, very tricky to get just right. You end up adding a drop of water, then a drop of alcohol and so forth till it works.