by Peg Kehret
The man stopped beside me. “An emergency shelter is being set up in an old school about ten miles west of here. I can give you a lift there,” he said.
“What about Snickers?”
“The dog?”
I nodded.
“You’ll have to leave him here. You can probably come back for him in a day or two.”
“I can’t leave him,” I said. “He would try to follow me. He’d get lost.”
“I can’t take him in the chopper,” he said. “I need to keep the space open for any injured people I find. We’re not equipped to rescue animals.”
“Then I’ll stay here,” I said.
“Don’t be foolish,” the man said. “I know you love your dog, but you need to get to the shelter where there’s food and people to help you. What if another twister comes through?”
I had not considered that possibility, but I realized it could happen. Tornadoes sometimes come in bunches. Even so, I shook my head. “Snickers is my best friend,” I said. “I can’t leave him behind.”
The man shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought I was making a huge mistake. “Suit yourself.”
“Could you tell the people at the shelter where we are?” I asked. “Maybe someone could drive here to get us. Maybe even a veterinarian would come.”
“I’ll tell them you’re here,” he said, “but don’t get your hopes up. In an emergency like this, most people are busy trying to find family and friends or helping those who were injured or left homeless. Destruction from this storm is widespread. A few miles west of here we saw three boxcars that had been lifted off the railroad tracks. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“There’s a boy, Randy, who needs help right away,” I said. “He’s about two miles that way.” I pointed. “A house came down on top of him. I tried to dig him out, but his legs are pinned by a sink that was too heavy for me. The town is destroyed; he’s the only person I found. I think his legs are broken.”
The man started back toward the helicopter.
“Wait!” I yelled, and he looked back. “I think there’s a broken propane line near Randy.”
“Thanks. We’ll check that out.” Just before he got to the place where he had to duck down and run through the wind caused by the chopper blades, he called back, “Are you sure you want to stay here?”
I waved, to signal he should go without me.
I stood beside Snickers and felt tears drip down my cheeks.
As the helicopter rose, I saw something fall from it and land in the dirt. I walked toward it, and found a bottle of water. My would-be rescuer had thrown down the one thing Snickers and I needed the most.
“Thank you!” I shouted as I held the bottle over my head. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I yelled it anyway. “Thanks for the water!”
The helicopter flew off, headed toward Randy.
I opened the bottle of water and took a drink. Then I cupped one hand and poured some water into it for Snickers. He lapped it quickly, wagging his tail. I thought about pouring some water on his wound, to clean it and try to keep it from getting infected, but I decided I should save the water for drinking. I didn’t know how long it would be before we got rescued.
For a while I scanned the sky, watching for the helicopter to go back the way it had come. I was sure that two adults would be able to lift the sink off Randy’s legs. An hour passed, and then two hours. By now, I thought, they should have carried him to the helicopter and flown him to a hospital, or at least to a waiting ambulance. Maybe the closest hospital was not this way. Maybe they had flown Randy in the opposite direction.
While I watched for the helicopter, I also kept alert for the possible sound of a vehicle coming my way. I fantasized that a minivan drove up and a woman who looked like Rita jumped out and said, “I’m a veterinarian. I’ve come to take you and your dog to my clinic.” It didn’t happen, though.
The sun turned a fiery golden red as it sank below the horizon, casting an orange glow on the scattering of clouds. The temperature dropped, and I was glad for the warmth of Snickers beside me.
My stomach grumbled. I wished I had eaten the cashews instead of saving them in my backpack. I tried not to think about food, but the more I tried not to think of food, the more images of food danced in my mind. Mac and cheese. A chocolate milk shake. Pizza. Even one of Rita’s healthy vegetable soup and salad dinners sounded good. I wondered if Snickers was visualizing a box of dog biscuits or a bowl of kibble or more of June’s stew. I took another drink of water and gave some more to Snickers, hoping to fill our empty stomachs with liquid.
Darkness descended. I lay on my side, with my knees bent. Snickers curled next to me. He fell asleep immediately and began snoring softly.
I wondered if I should wake him up now and then during the night, because of his head injury. Once when a girl I knew had fallen off her scooter and hit her head on the pavement, her parents had been instructed to wake her up every two hours all night long, to be sure she was sleeping and not unconscious.
While Snickers slept, I lay there with my mind racing. I was sure I’d get to the shelter the next day. If nobody came to rescue us, Snickers and I could walk there. But what should I do when I got to the shelter? People would ask where I lived. They would want to know who my parents or guardians are. I couldn’t give my real name.
I decided to say my name was Kaitlyn Smith. If asked, I’d say I had missed the bus and was walking when the tornado hit. That part was true. Although I was becoming an accomplished liar, I knew if I told too many untruths it would be hard to remember what I’d said and I would be more likely to be found out.
When I shifted position, Snickers opened his eyes and looked at me as if he wanted to be sure I was still there. Then he went back to sleep. Good. I wouldn’t need to wake him on purpose.
I stroked his back and found that petting him relaxed me. Soon my eyes closed, too.
Several times during the night, I woke up because I was stiff. Even cuddled next to Snickers, I couldn’t get comfortable and I longed for my bed at Rita’s house, with the purple bedspread and the soft patchwork quilt. Thinking back, I realized how many things I had liked about living with Rita—physical things like the quilt and the computer access, but also intangibles, such as Rita’s willingness to let me choose my own clothes and her sense of humor as she encouraged me to do homework. Rita had a curiosity about the world that made ordinary events more interesting. She carried binoculars in her car, in case she spotted an unusual bird. She always asked store clerks and waiters about their jobs. “You can learn a lot by listening to the people you meet every day,” Rita said.
Two days before I left, I had found her knitting like crazy, and I asked her what she was making. “A bagel,” she said.
I stared at her. “What?” I asked, thinking I had misunderstood.
“This morning I was toasting a bagel,” she said, “and I thought it was the perfect shape to be a bracelet, so I decided to knit a bagel bracelet.”
I thought she was crazy until I saw the finished product. The next day, she held up her arm and said, “I finished my bagel bracelet. How do you like it?”
It was a round knitted tube, about an inch in diameter, made of a soft light tan yarn. Rita had sewn a variety of funky old buttons around the outside rim. It was unlike any bracelet I’d ever seen, and I loved it.
“Cool,” I said. “Can you make one for me?”
“Sure. Go through the old buttons in my button jar and pick out which ones you want for decoration.”
I wished now that I hadn’t left before Rita had knit my bagel bracelet. It would have been perfect to remember her by. I wondered if she had knit a bracelet for me anyway, in case I came back. If Starr and I go to visit Rita, I’ll ask her to knit matching bagel bracelets for us.
Thinking about Rita made me sad, and it occurred to me that I was a little bit homesick. How could I be homesick for a place that wasn’t really my home? I told myself I only felt that way because I was hungry and
tired and uncomfortable.
Tomorrow I would push Rita out of my thoughts and get on with my quest to find Starr. I felt sure that she had longed for me all these years, just as I had yearned for her. Once we were reunited, I would truly be home.
12
The sound of a vehicle approaching woke me. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was growing light. I saw a pair of headlights coming toward me.
Snickers stood and shook, making his ears flap. I stood, too, and walked toward the road, waving at the lights.
A large black pickup truck, the kind with a backseat, pulled up next to me. The driver, a man in a baseball cap, leaned out the window. “Need a lift?” he asked. “There’s temporary housing and food available about ten miles up the road.”
“Is it okay to bring my dog?”
The man laughed. “They may not let him inside the building, but I don’t mind giving him a ride. Hop in.”
I hesitated briefly, wondering if I should ask him for identification. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of getting in a truck with a man I didn’t know. Then I saw that he wore a white smock over his shirt; the smock said AMERICAN RED CROSS VOLUNTEER in big red letters.
He opened the passenger door. Snickers scrambled in first and sat between me and the man as if he had ridden there a hundred times.
“My name’s Jake,” the man said.
“I’m Kaitlyn,” I replied, silently congratulating myself for having chosen the pseudonym ahead of time so that I could answer without hesitation. “My dog’s name is Snickers.”
“Where do you live?” he asked. “Should I drive you home instead of to the shelter?”
“I’m not from around here. I’m on my way to my sister’s house, but I missed the bus yesterday. Snickers and I were walking a while and got caught in the tornado.”
“You were outside?” he asked. “With no protection?”
“We sat under a tree to try to get out of the hail, and it ended up shielding us from the wind.”
He looked at me as if I were the eighth wonder of the world. “You are one lucky girl,” he said, “and your dog, too. Half the trees in the county were uprooted. The wind hit one hundred and fifteen miles an hour in some places. The next town east of here is gone, every building wiped out.”
“I know,” I said. “I saw it. I tried to dig out a boy who was buried in the rubble, but I couldn’t get everything off him. I told a man in a helicopter where the boy was.”
“That was you?” Jake said. “You’re the one who saved the boy from Alabama?”
“You know about Randy?”
“They airlifted him to the hospital and he couldn’t stop talking about a girl who he had been mean to, but she tried to help him anyway. The TV station is having a field day with the story. According to the reporters, you saved the kid’s life.”
I hoped that was true.
“They’re trying to locate you, for an interview.”
I immediately regretted saying anything about Randy. I certainly did not want a reporter interviewing me and broadcasting my picture.
“Please don’t tell anyone else it was me,” I said. “I don’t want a big fuss.”
Jake smiled his approval. “Well, that’s refreshing,” he said. “Most people mug shamelessly at a camera, trying to get on TV.”
“I’m shy,” I said. Then, hoping to change the subject, I asked, “Were there other survivors there besides Randy? I didn’t see any people, but I didn’t see any bodies, either.”
“Some folks weren’t home, and everyone else made it to the town’s underground storm cellar. The siren that was supposed to sound the warning malfunctioned, but people saw the hail and wind and realized what was happening in time to get to the shelter. When you live in tornado country, you learn to watch the skies and be cautious. We’re always supposed to stay in the shelter until the all clear siren sounds, but this time it never went off. They waited almost three hours before they finally tried to open the door, and then it was blocked shut by rubble.”
“So nobody was killed?” I asked, thinking about June and the old man at the gas station.
“Nope. The only serious injury was the boy with the broken legs and the crushed pelvis, and he’ll survive.”
A crushed pelvis, too. Poor Randy. At least he was alive and had not had to wait alone too long after I left him. I wondered if he had told Zooman and Hunker’s parents how the older boys had deserted him.
“Tornadoes are unpredictable,” Jake said. “They hop about at random, creating chaos in some places and completely missing other spots. The town of Alliance, where I live, didn’t even get the rain or hail.”
“Is there a veterinarian near here?” I asked. “Snickers got hit on the head and was knocked out.”
“He seems okay now.”
“I’d like to have him examined, just to be sure.”
“Maybe somebody at the school will give you a ride to a vet. I’d take you myself, but we were assigned territories to look for survivors and I need to stay in my area.”
Jake’s truck pulled up to an old brick school building. A banner draped over the door of what appeared to be the gymnasium said AMERICAN RED CROSS TEMPORARY SHELTER.
A big silver van, the kind where a window opens on the side for serving food, was parked in the yard. A car next to it had its trunk open and two women were unloading boxes of food and supplies.
“Are you hungry?” Jake asked.
“I’m starving. All I’ve had since breakfast yesterday morning is a candy bar and some water.”
“Wait here,” Jake said, and he jumped down from the truck and walked to the women who were unloading the boxes. A moment later he climbed back in the truck and handed me a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. “I hope you like ham and cheese,” he said.
“Right now I’d be willing to eat cauliflower,” I told him.
I unwrapped the sandwich, picked out the ham, and gave it to Snickers, who gulped it down without even chewing. I bit into the sandwich. “Yum,” I said. “Thank you.” I gave Snickers a couple of bites of bread and cheese, and ate the rest myself. No meal had ever tasted better.
As soon as I finished eating, Jake said, “I need to leave you here. I’m supposed to be out driving around, looking for survivors who need assistance.”
“Thanks for your help,” I told him. I got out of the truck, and Snickers jumped out, too. He followed me to the door of the school, and up the three concrete steps.
“Stay,” I told him, before I opened the door.
Snickers obediently sat down on the top step and watched me go inside.
Rows of cots formed lines in the center of the building. People slept on some of the cots. A few people sat on others, talking quietly. Chairs lined the periphery of the room. A woman sat on one of the chairs, playing peekaboo with a toddler. Two little boys chased each other between the rows of cots until their mothers made them stop.
A table stood just inside the door, with two women behind it. The table held a notebook computer, lined tablets, pens, and a first-aid kit.
One of the women smiled and said, “Hello. Do you need a temporary place to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get you registered on our Safe and Well Web site. Sign in here, please.” She pointed to a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers.
Stalling for time while I tried to figure out a reason to refuse, I said, “The what?”
“The Red Cross maintains a Safe and Well Web site. After a disaster, people can search for family members, as long as they know the phone number or a complete address. Once you’re registered, your parents will be able to find out that you survived.”
I almost said, “That isn’t necessary because I don’t have any parents,” but I caught myself. A statement like that would only call attention to me and probably bring Hiss to the scene. Instead, I gave my name as Kaitlyn Smith and made up a fake address and phone number. “I’ll enter your information on the Red Cross website,” she sa
id. She handed me a folded blanket and a pillow. “Pick out any empty cot you want and it will be your bed as long as you’re here.”
“I have my dog with me,” I said. “Is it okay to bring him in?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“He’ll stay on the floor by my cot. He won’t bother anyone.”
“I’m sorry. Animals are not allowed inside. Some people are allergic to them. He can be outside with you, as long as he’s leashed.”
“The leash was in my backpack, and it blew away in the tornado.”
“You can’t keep an unleashed dog on the premises,” she told me. “There’s too much risk that it would bite someone, or get in a fight with another animal.”
“Do you have something I could use for a leash? A piece of rope, maybe?”
She looked down at the table, as if expecting a coil of rope to miraculously appear in front of us. Then she shook her head.
“Sorry.”
“Thanks, anyway,” I said, handing back the pillow and blanket. I turned to open the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I can’t stay here without Snickers.”
“If you can find a way to leash your dog, you can try keeping him here. As long as he’s under control and nobody complains, I don’t see what it would hurt.” She smiled at me. “I have a dog myself,” she added.
“Thanks. I’ll look for something I can use as a leash.”
I didn’t want to leave the shelter. Snickers and I both needed a source of food, and some sleep. I’d slept little the night before and I felt a weariness deep in my bones. I knew Snickers needed rest, too, and I still hoped to find a veterinarian to examine the lump on his head. It made sense to stay here, at least for a day or so.
I asked the people who were distributing food if they had something I could use as a leash. “I can’t stay at the shelter unless I find a way to tie my dog,” I explained.
They looked around but found nothing suitable.
Then one of the women said, “You can have my belt, if you want it. That might work.” She unbuckled her belt and slid it free from the loops of her jeans. It was a woven belt, so the tongue of the buckle would pierce through at any spot. I looped it around Snickers’s neck and fastened it. The belt length that was left was a lot shorter than his real leash had been, but it worked to keep him beside me.