Free The Voice of the Xenolith by Cynthia Pelman Page A

English teacher, according to our bargain that she would not expect me to talk in class as long as I could prove to her that I was not just skiving off and being lazy.

    Granite
    By Amethyst Simons

    I have chosen to write about granite because it has become a topic of conversation in our house lately. We have been renovating the kitchen and my parents were trying to choose a material to use for the countertop.
    Because my father is a geologist, it is not surprising that they chose stone, and their final choice was granite.
    They spent hours choosing the granite, and my dad even took time off work to go with my mom to advise because of his knowledge of geology. They went to several companies before deciding, with my father analysing the colour and the composition and the markings. I think they must have driven the salespeople mad, but eventually they made a choice.
    The word ‘granite’ is derived from Latin, from the word ‘granum’ which means grain, like a grain of corn. So the word describes the appearance of the stone: bumpy and grainy. But our piece of granite, our countertop, is polished and is as smooth as a mirror. I do have a piece of granite I picked up on a beach in Cape Town, which is bumpy and rough and grainy, and you can easily see, even without a microscope, the different crystals in it.
    Granite is rock made up of different minerals, with at least 20% quartz and up to 65% alkali feldspar. It is formed under special conditions of heat and pressure which are intense enough to melt rock into magma, and this kind of rock is called ‘igneous.’ These conditions of heat and pressure are found deep underground, and are caused by different events: the plates of the earth colliding, or one plate being pulled underneath another, or the pressure and heat in ‘hotspots’ such as volcanoes. It is because of this intense heat and pressure, and the combination of the specific minerals, that granite is so strong and so long-lasting. Most of the crust of continents is made of granite.
    Granite is known for its strength and hardness, and this has led to the word ‘granite’ being used in an idiomatic way, to indicate strength of character, or hard-heartedness. Perhaps even hard-headedness.
    Sometimes I think that I am a bit like granite. Hard-headed. Or at least that is what is sometimes said about me. I know when I am told this that it is not meant as a compliment, but I haven’t yet decided whether I am pleased about being compared to granite, or not.
    Because granite is so strong and so hard, it is sometimes used as blocks and as flooring tiles in public buildings. There is a city in Scotland, the city of Aberdeen, where nearly all the main public buildings are made of granite.
    Granite is also used for tombstones, monuments and memorials because it is so long-lasting. I like to think of memorials being made to last, because I think it is important that the names of people who are now dead are never forgotten. You can’t remember someone if you don’t know their name, and engraving a name on a granite memorial is one way to help people remember them. Names are important.
    The particular granite my mom and dad chose for our kitchen has big chunks of blue feldspar crystals, which reflect the light where the stone has been polished. It is called Blue Pearl granite, because of the blue feldspar, but the background is almost black. My mother says she chose it because it is beautiful but also because of its strength.
    When I asked my father for the scientific name of this particular granite he told me it is actually not a granite but a syenite, and this means that it is almost the same as granite but only has small amounts of quartz in it. The fact that they chose syenite for the kitchen is important because it is an example of how a detective may find a kind of clue when he is searching to link up facts which don’t seem to go together. I will tell you in a little while why syenite is, for me, a clue.
    My favourite