Teenagers these days are techno-animals. Ear buds in place, thumbs flying over a tiny keyboard, theirs is an iWorld.

In the event of nuclear disaster, they’d be texting their friends about it.

Patrick and Isabell Russek are cut from a different cloth. This brother and sister collect — are you ready for this? — pens.

That’s right. Ballpoint pens.

Good old-fashioned, non-electronic, no-batteries-needed, they-tend-to-run-out-of-ink pens.

At their home in Germany, Patrick and Isabell have boxes and boxes full of pens — nearly 500, at last count. Each one is imprinted with the name of a newspaper, everything from Rhein Main Presse to the Yorkshire Herald.

And now, they’ve added the Independent-Mail to their collection.

In early August, they sent an e-mail to yours truly. Politely, they made their request.

“We would be happy if we could enlarge our collection,” they wrote. “We are therefore pleading that you may send us 1 or 2 ballpoint pens with the name of your newspaper on them, free of charge.”

Who could resist such a plea? I remember collecting things when I was a kid. Collections are cool. Cooler than MySpace — and certainly a bit more creative. So I gathered a fistful of colorful pens and drove to the post office.

A week later, Patrick and Isabell wrote to say the pens had arrived and they were delighted.

But I had to know more, so I e-mailed them back, with one burning question.

Why pens?

“Because people need ballpoint pens every day in the whole world,” wrote Patrick.

Well, there you have it. Simple! Pens are still necessary tools, even in a world ruled by computers. These Russek kids have their heads on straight.

They started the collection in 2002, when Patrick was 13 and his sister only 10. First they got a free pen from their local newspaper, the Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung. Then they wrote to newspapers all over Germany and later, the rest of Europe. Pens started pouring in, from Austria, Sweden, Scotland and England. A couple of British papers wrote stories about them.

Eventually Patrick and Isabell, as all collectors do, started thinking bigger. They e-mailed several hundred newspapers in the United States.

“From most of them we don’t get any answer,” Patrick said.

Some did, though.

Patrick and Isabell’s collection now includes pens from The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Rockdale (Ga.) Citizen, Lebanon (Ky.) Enterprise, Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Tulsa World.

“We are happy that we got pens from so many U.S. newspapers and we hope that we get some more,” Patrick enthused.

Patrick is 19 now, and most definitely not a nerd, if that’s what you’re thinking. He has tattoos. He likes to go to discos and rock music festivals. He works out at the gym and practices what he calls “fight sports,” especially ju-jitsu.

Isabell is a 16-year-old beauty, with long blond hair. She likes riding horses, dancing and singing.

Both of them write English very well.

When they receive pens from a newspaper in the mail, they visit that paper’s Web site.

“Sometimes it is very interesting to read them,” Patrick said.

At home in Edemissen, a small town near Hanover in north Germany, they read two local newspapers. They also get their news from TV and the Internet.

Refreshing, isn’t it? Young people reading the news. Curious about other cultures. Unplugging from technology long enough to pursue a hobby, something as quaint as building a collection.

Even so, make no mistake: Patrick and Isabell are citizens of the 21st century. When I asked them the total number of pens in their collection, they counted, then e-mailed me their answer — finished off by the universal symbol of a sideways smiley face.

“Wow, so many! : - ) ”

Jeanne Malmgren can be reached at malmgrenjeanne@yahoo.com.