The Disaster Days

by Rebecca Behrens

  No.

  I couldn’t let myself go there.

  Another tear slid down my cheek, so I rolled toward the wall, to face away from Zoe. I didn’t want my crying to wake her. I stifled a cough with my elbow. Then I coughed again. Nothing seemed to clear my lungs. It felt like they had been coated in peanut butter, something sticky and thick. Even though the air on the porch was crisp and thin, I couldn’t get enough of it out of my lungs to get more inside me.

  Oscar needed a doctor; Zoe needed a doctor. Maybe now I did too.

  Something scratched at the window screen above me. Thank goodness they’re both asleep—or surely that would’ve caused another scritch-scratch panic. Probably only a branch, but who knew what might be out there. Last night a bird had sneaked inside the living room, and the porch was even more exposed to the elements. What else could join us in the blanket fort? I pulled the hood of Andrea’s coat away from my ears to listen for the howling I thought I’d heard the night before, but the only sound was the wind rustling trees and rattling the window frames, and Oscar’s fitful, whimpering sleep.

  During the babysitting course, when Mrs. Pinales had told us to get help in an emergency, she’d warned, “Don’t try to be a hero in these situations.”

  Neha had frowned. I understood why. She was used to being a hero on the soccer field and elsewhere. When we were young, we played a game outside called “Animal Heroes,” in which we pretended we’d found all kinds of injured or abandoned baby animals (really our stuffed ones) in dangerous situations and rescued them. The make-believe game I had always wanted to play was “Library,” in which we’d mostly pretended to check out books to each other and collect overdue fines. Some people just seem designed to step up, take charge, and be heroic. Neha was one of them.

  The world outside the porch had gotten eerily still and quiet. We were so totally alone, without even stars in the sky above us. I would really appreciate a hero swooping in right about now.

  It’s not that I didn’t want to be heroic. I just knew I’m not the type. So far, I’d been doing more harm than good. The earthquake hadn’t caused Zoe’s cut or Oscar’s fall from the swing set—I had. I’d already failed to keep them safe.

  The truth was, me being left in charge was more dangerous to them than an earthquake.

  12

  The thrum of rain hitting the roof of the porch woke me the next morning. Zoe and Oscar were still conked out underneath the blanket pile. I slowly peeled the covers off myself to head for the bathroom. If I hadn’t felt like I was in danger of bursting, I don’t know that anything could’ve convinced me to leave the meager warmth of our fort. It would be my forever home. When I first put my feet on the floor, it surprised me that I didn’t feel the rough-hewn beams with my toes—but I was still wearing my sneakers. It was too cold to take off my shoes, and anyway it seemed wise to keep them on in case we had to race away in the middle of the night. I shuddered, partly from the damp chill and partly from the thought of a fresh disaster forcing us to flee from Blanket Fort 2.0.

  The screened porch smelled like cedar, salt air, and fresh rain, my favorite blend of scents. To me, that’s home. But the inside of the house still reeked of gas. I covered my nose with my sleeve as I slalomed through the living room and kitchen to the hall. My DIY gas mask caused me to take in even less air—like the difference between drinking from a straw with a pin-size hole versus drinking from a straw that had been pinched shut. By the time I reached the bathroom, my chest ached and I was wheezing. Maybe the air I managed to get inside my lungs, tinged with the gas fumes, could make my asthma even worse. I shuddered from a cough.

  I didn’t want to stop in the kitchen to wash my hands, so I tried the faucet on the cracked bathroom sink. After a split second, a rusty brown stream spewed out. Gross flecks of something stuck to the sides of the sink’s bowl. I twisted the faucet off, wondering if the color had something to do with the sink’s crack. Or if all the water was like that now, which would mean it was no longer safe to drink.

  Suddenly my throat felt extremely dry. I swallowed hard. Was there bottled water in the pantry somewhere? I hadn’t checked because, so far, we hadn’t needed it. Now we definitely would.

  I zipped up Andrea’s coat and prepared my sleeve-muffler to cover my face for the trip back to the porch. My feet didn’t want to move. I scanned the hallway, searching for remaining signs of the cozy, welcoming house the Matlocks’ had been only a few dozen hours before. A painting of an elderly woman—maybe their grandmother?—was still firmly affixed to the wall. Her eyes gazed sympathetically at me, and her half smile was reassuring. She was posed sitting in a chair, and I had this urge to climb into the painting, onto her blanket-clad lap. The woman in the portrait looked like someone who would offer a soft hug and a butterscotch candy warm from her pocket. Someone who would pat my upper back and say, soothingly, Don’t worry, darling, it’ll all work out. An adult.

  I didn’t want to go back to the porch, where it was so cold, damp, and exposed. But I had to. My eyes stung with tears, either from the fumes or the emotions threatening to break from my control. I coughed and sucked in more air, which only made me cough harder. My ribs now ached even when I wasn’t in the middle of a fit. My gaze fluttered down from the painting to the shattered pottery and unidentified stains on the runner, the balusters from the staircase still littering the floor. I could hear a loud dripping coming from above—rainwater? There could be a hole in the roof somewhere. Or a pipe could’ve burst.

  The noises I heard weren’t the normal settling sounds a house makes. It groaned like a wounded animal. Which actually made sense—a house is like a living thing, full of internal organs that keep it alive—plumbing and heating and insulation and electricity. All that essential stuff had been injured by the earthquake. The Matlocks’ house was in as much pain as we all were. But was it just sick—or was the house dying?

  We could no longer depend on it for shelter; inside was no safer than outside, even on the porch. In fact, that was probably more dangerous than being out in the open, where things (such as the ceiling fan) couldn’t collapse on us. Beth Kajawa had said to shelter in place, but this wasn’t a shelter any longer. It’s time to head for my house. My dad would have made sure that everything was totally up to code and earthquake-proof. Plus, I lived closer to Mr. Aranita’s house and the bridge—and the rest of civilization, across the inlet. We couldn’t wait at the Matlocks’ forever. Not with broken bones, and cuts, and asthma. Not with a gas leak and no heat and scarce food.

  But with Oscar’s leg, traveling anywhere by foot would be tricky. The medical guide had said it was important to keep the injured area stable. We also couldn’t head out in the middle of a downpour. Until that stopped, at least, we were stuck.

  Fixing my sleeve over my mouth and nose, I jogged back to the kids. While passing the couch, I glanced through the living room window that opens into the porch. Out there, the blanket fort actually looked like a tent, pitched in between the wicker furniture. It really is like we’re camping indoors. And then I knew what we could do, where we might be safer than inside.

  On the porch, I squatted to crawl underneath the blankets, which, when I pushed them aside, I discovered were soggy from the rain drizzling through the screens. My movement, or the light from outside the fort, caused Zoe to stir. She rolled onto her back, blinking her big brown eyes up at me.

  “My mom?”

  I shook my head sadly. “Not yet.”

  She sighed. “I knew it. If she were home, she’d be cuddled up in here with us.” Zoe turned her head to face Oscar, so I wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes, but her quivering bottom lip gave her away. I reached out a hand to squeeze her shoulder, through the layers of shirt, sweatshirt, and parka. She smiled at me and wiped her eye. No more tears rolled out. I wanted to tell her it was okay to cry, but if I sneaked those words past the lump in my throat, I’d probably start to cry too. It wa
s easier to keep my feelings as numb as my fingers felt.

  “So, the gas smell got stronger. I don’t think it’s a great idea for us to stay inside the house today. Or even here on the porch—it’s too close.” I had to pause for a breath. I was feeling light-headed again. I kind of hoped Zoe didn’t understand that I was worried about the house, and us, blowing up.

  “Where is there to go?” Zoe tugged the blanket up closer to her chin. It’s funny how the porch, which had first seemed so weird and unwelcoming during our midnight move, now was a place of comfort, which we were reluctant to leave. I decided to break the news about our relocation plans one step at a time. I’d tell her about moving to my house later.

  “Do you guys have a tent?”

  “Yeah!” Zoe’s eyes brightened. “Mom bought us one last summer. We went camping at Ohanapecosh, at Mount Rainier.”

  “That’s great.” I’d gone hiking there with my parents once. “Because we’re going camping now. For real this time—outside.”

  * * *

  Zoe and I found the tent in the jumble of the front-hall closet, buried beneath a badminton set. Neatly folded up in its original box, still with the instructions, to my relief. Tents don’t seem like particularly complicated things, but the time that Neha and I tried to pitch ours during our Girl Scout camping trip, we got all twisted up in the poles and netting, and without our troop leader’s patient help, I think we would have been sleeping under the stars.

  I lingered in that memory for a moment. Even though it had been difficult to get that tent set up, trying had been fun. Doing almost anything with Neha was fun—even the time she accidentally threw away her retainer at the yogurt shop and, because she’d already lost three of them, her mom made us sort through four bags of the slimy, yogurt-soaked trash to find it. We were wearing gloves, of course. It was disgusting, but we kept finding funnier and grosser stuff as we sifted, giggling nonstop. When Neha finally found her retainer, covered with goo and sprinkles, she was so excited that she jumped up and spilled half the contents of that trash bag on her sweatshirt. I laughed so hard I cried. That’s the beauty of best friendship. Even the moments when you’re elbow-deep in froyo trash, you find a way to have fun together.

  I wondered if Neha and Marley were together somewhere right now, the bonds of their friendship knotting even tighter in the midst of the rubble.

  And despite the familiar pang of jealousy that they might be together while I was alone—it made me happy, and relieved, to think that wherever she was, Neha had someone to help her through this awfulness. All the time I’d spent worrying that Neha’s friendship with Marley would eclipse ours suddenly seemed kind of unnecessary. There’s enough room in Neha’s big heart for tons of friends. I could share her, even if she was my best. All I wanted was for her to be okay.

  “Hannah?” Zoe shifted from one foot to the other. “We should get back to Oscar. I don’t like leaving him alone out there. Especially with the food.”

  I snorted. “You think he’s going to eat all that’s left?” Which wasn’t much.

  She shook her head, her eyes wide. “No. But what if something else does?”

  That snapped me back to attention. “Grab those raincoats”—I pointed to two still hanging on pegs and one crumpled on the closet floor—“and head back.”

  Tents are surprisingly heavy. While lugging everything back to the porch, I stopped to check the situation with the kitchen sink. Sure enough, that was spewing brown gunk too. A gallon jug of distilled water had survived the collapse of a pantry shelf, so I dragged that out to the porch along with the tent and the slickers. Zoe, I noticed, had been itching at her bandage while we were scavenging in the closet. Without clean water, we couldn’t wash her wound very well. I didn’t want to have to change the dressing often, so from then on, I’d have to do the heaviest carrying so the strain wouldn’t reopen her cut.

  Wheezing slightly, I dumped the tent and raincoats to the floor of the porch. A puddle had formed, slowly seeping closer to the blanket fort from the screen door. I hoped Oscar wasn’t soaked inside. My chest squeezed as I dove under the blanket to check on him. He was on his back, eyes closed, one hand stretched out to half-heartedly pet Jupiter in his box. Nothing had bothered him, or our sad stockpile of snacks.

  “Doing all right?” I asked.

  He shook his head. His chin quivered. “My leg really hurts today.”

  My chest squeezed tighter. “Time for more Tylenol, then.” What am I going to do once it’s gone? I’d only been giving him one chewable at a time, to stretch it out.

  We waited until the rain had slowed from torrents to a drizzle, and then Zoe and I zipped up our raincoats to lug the tent outside. “Oscar, it’s your job to make sure Jupiter is doing okay.”

  “I can help with the tent,” he said, sniffling. “I don’t want to stay on the porch by myself again.”

  I dropped to my knees next to him. “You have to stay here and keep your leg stable, Oscar. This’ll take just a few minutes. We’re only going to be in the yard, near the firepit. Zoe will shout out progress reports for you, okay? And if you need anything, holler.”

  Like he wanted to make sure he was included in this arrangement, Jupiter let out a few loud chirps. “Same goes for you, Jupiter.”

  I hated walking away from the house with those two still inside. Every step, I worried that something awful would happen, even though we were only feet apart. What if the ceiling fan did come loose? Oscar couldn’t dive out of the way. Or what if the gas leak made the house burst into… No. That worry, even if totally valid, was still unthinkable. At least until we were in the tent.

  Zoe, next to me, kept turning back to look at the house. “One of the upstairs windows is broken,” she said, pointing.

  I turned. She was right—the white curtains from whichever room the window belonged to fluttered out of the frame, like a sign of surrender. Fitting, as we were abandoning the house. It was so strange that we had no idea what it was like upstairs, how much damage had been done. Or in the front yard and beyond—I hadn’t so much as opened the front door to peek out; the windows in the kitchen and living room faced the backyard. For all I knew, the house was now perched on the edge of a chasm. Or there was a sand volcano the height of the second floor in the front yard. I squinted as I studied the back of the house. Was it my imagination, or was the roof sagging? I’d never noticed that the eaves were uneven before… All the better that we were moving out.

  “This is a good spot,” I said, motioning to a patch of grass slightly to the right of the firepit and far from the weird sand mounds, which had stopped geyser-ing at least. Nothing around could fall on us, because the trees all ringed the edges of the open yard. The closest structure was the fenced-in vegetable garden, and nothing in there stood taller than my chest, anyway.

  We cleared away the strewn branches and then I pulled out the tent instructions—a single piece of paper, but a huge one with about a dozen folds. The diagrams were the maddeningly vague kind, like on IKEA furniture instructions. I have a desk from there in my room, and it took my dad hours to put together, along with two dollars in quarters for the profanity jar Mom has in the kitchen…and Dad’s a trained architect. Making building instructions is his job.

  I took a deep breath, or what now passed as deep. The instruction sheet was damp from the rain and beginning to disintegrate in my hands. I let out a sigh. We can do this. But the diagrams made about as much sense to me as hieroglyphs. I tried to remember how my dad started a building project—organizing his materials. “Okay, Zoe, first we need to lay the tent out on the grass.”

  We spread it out and then yanked all the poles out of the box. I started to stick one in the tent’s loops, but Zoe stopped me. “No—the short ones go on the other side.” She handed me a different rod.

  I wiped the rain off my face. “Thanks. Actually—do you know how to put this thing up?”

&
nbsp; She shrugged. “Maybe.” She studied the instruction sheet, biting her lip in concentration. “I used to play with these engineering toys. I like to build stuff.” While she was talking, she’d already hooked in two more poles. Apparently, Zoe was some kind of engineering genius.

  “I’m going to follow your lead,” I said. “Tell me how to help.” I was really impressed by her skills, but watching her navigate the instructions so easily didn’t exactly make me feel better about my capabilities as the person in charge.

  Thanks to Zoe, the tent was up in about fifteen minutes. “My dad would be super impressed, and he builds for a living.” My stomach pinched as soon as I said it. If he hadn’t been building the Seaspray Resort, he’d have been in Seattle when the quake happened. Maybe he’d even have been at home on Pelling, and then he’d be here, with us. Safe. I blinked my eyes, willing myself not to cry.

  We grabbed the crumpled tent box and the sodden instructions and ran back to the porch. Relief flooded me as soon as I saw Oscar, leaning back on his elbows to watch as we burst through the door.

  “Everything cool in here?” I asked, scanning the space. Jupiter was still huddled in his pungent box. The ceiling fan hadn’t crashed onto anyone. The rain puddle was encroaching on the blanket fort but hadn’t hit quite yet. There wasn’t smoke or flames from the kitchen. The muscles in my back and shoulders relaxed a tiny bit.

  “Yeah. Except we’re hungry,” Oscar said. “And thirsty.” My shoulders tensed again immediately. I’d forgotten to give the kids breakfast.

  “We’ll eat in the tent. First, we’re going to move the fort out there.” I gathered the blankets into a wad in my arms and tucked the pillows on top, underneath my chin. “Hang tight while I take this outside. Zoe, can you pull together the books, notebook, flashlight, and radio?”