I wake up. There’s a little bit of rainwater puddled on the tarp, right over my lap. For half a second I’m embarrassed because it looks like I’ve wet my bed. Now I’m wide-awake, hearing the storm howling. I look over at Juan’s bed, where he’s awake too.
The rain has stopped. Maybe when we get up, the sun will be back and everything will be normal.
“Are you awake?” Juan asks.
I answer, “Yeah.”
Juan quickly asks, “Do you think it will rain again?”
I answer, “Maybe, but probably not so heavy and not for so long.”
The wind is still blowing hard, but without the rain it doesn’t feel as scary.
Juan says, “I’ll bet Víctor is mad at the rain.”
“Oh yeah,” I agree. “Víctor is probably telling the rain just what he’ll do to it if it starts falling down on us again.”
“Yeah,” Juan says. “Víctor will kill the rain if it keeps falling.”
I smile and answer, “He will, Juan. He’ll kick the rain’s butt!”
Juan loves to hear Víctor and me talk like this. He’s scared that he’ll get in trouble if he says these kinds of things, but I can always make him smile or giggle when I talk a little bit bad.
“I’ll bet Ruby’s sad and worried about us,” Juan says.
I answer, “I’m sure she misses you. But she’ll be home soon, and then she’ll give you a big hug.”
“No way,” Juan says. “Yuck!”
I smile. Juan wouldn’t want Víctor to see him enjoying a hug from Ruby. Víctor would call him Baby-J, a nickname Juan hates.
Juan’s quiet for a few moments. Then he asks, “They are coming back, huh?” His voice sounds very tiny. “They love us, even when we’re bad, so they will come home, right?”
Could Juan think that Dad and Víctor and Ruby are gone because of him, because of some bad thing he thinks he did or thought? Little kids are so weird.
I am quiet for a bit, trying to think how to make him understand.
“Juan,” I say, “the storm has kept them away. It’s not your fault. This storm has nothing to do with us, with how good or bad we are. Everybody is getting rained on, good guys and bad guys both. It’s not our fault. It’s nobody’s fault. Dad and Víctor and Ruby will be back when the storm stops. And it will go away someday.”
“Yes,” Juan says. I can hear the sleepiness in his voice, and sure enough, within a few minutes I hear his little snores again.
I lie in the darkness thinking about what I’ve just said to Juan. The storm will go away—if only I could believe this myself!
I glance over at Víctor’s clock again. 12:18.
Before I can fall back asleep, the rain comes back, but it’s not like the rain from earlier. It’s not so heavy, and the sound of it falling is almost nice, like rain is supposed to be. The winds have calmed down too. I feel safe for the first time all night. My hands are steady and my insides are calm. My breathing feels almost relaxed. Maybe the storm is over.
I start to think about Berti again. How stupid and selfish can I be? She’s just a dog, for crying out loud, and not much of a dog at that. But with the storm calmer now, I’m not as worried about Dad and Víctor and Ruby as I was earlier, so Berti comes back into my thoughts.
I remember when I first met her. She showed up in La Rupa about a year ago. I was out in the street by myself kicking a soccer ball, when suddenly this medium-sized tan dog came trotting right up to me. I saw her coming from way down the street. She never hesitated as she walked, with her head up and her eyes looking straight at me. She stopped about ten feet away from me and barked.
I said, “Hi.” She walked right over to our house and just sat there at the foot of our steps, looking back and forth between the house and me. Her ears stood up and she wagged her tail. It was almost like she felt that our house was her house, and like she was waiting for me to invite her in.
I went over and petted her on her head and back. She was muscular and had short hair. She smiled as I scratched her neck. After a while I went up the steps and walked into the house. The dog followed me as if she’d done it a million times before.
She hung around the house the rest of the day. I noticed that she had a black tongue. It was a little pink but mostly black. I worried that she had the plague or something, but when Dad came home, he explained that she was probably part Shar-Pei, a breed of dog from China, the kind you see in pictures with too much wrinkly skin.
“Shar-Peis have black tongues,” Dad said. “Yep, she must be part Shar-Pei and part shepherd or collie, which would be the part where her smarts come from.”
Everybody in the house oohed and aahed over the dog all night. She licked everybody’s hands and kept wagging her tail.
Dad said that when he was a boy, he had a great dog. “This new dog is so sweet and relaxed that she reminds me of Roberto,” he said. Dad started calling her Roberta, and pretty soon she became Berti.
At school the next day I looked up Shar-Pei in an encyclopedia. Under the part where they say what the breed is supposed to do, like German shepherds are good guard and search dogs, Jack Russell terriers are rat killers, collies herd, and Labradors hunt, Shar-Peis, I learned, have been bred over the centuries for … nothing. Under the category for Special Talents was just that one word: nothing. And sure enough, Berti has been pretty much true to her Shar-Pei bloodline: good at almost nothing except being sweet and happy and laid back.
So where are you tonight, Berti? Out in this storm? When are you coming home? Why did you run away?
I’ve always thought of Berti as my dog, partly because I found her and let her into the house that first day, and partly because I just want her to be mine. Víctor works with Dad every day, so he and Dad are best friends. Juan is the baby and gets most of Mom’s and everyone else’s attention all the time. My sisters aren’t into playing with a dog, so Berti should be mine. But the fact is that Berti is nice to everybody. Every kid in our house thinks that Berti likes him or her best. Whoever gives Berti a bite of a burrito or tortilla is definitely her favorite human at that moment.
Yet I’m the guy who has to take all the responsibility for her. I always have to feed her. I also have to clean up her messes in the yard, which is gross. This was the deal when my parents agreed to let us keep her.
I’m tired of thinking about this. Berti is gone now, but like Mom said, she’ll be home when she gets hungry. The heck with her. I don’t even care if she comes back or not.
Well, that’s not really true.
I finally fall asleep again.
I dream that I’m flying over Honduras, only it doesn’t look like Honduras. There are bright lights, like fireflies, only brighter. I soon recognize that the lights are coming from the little houses of La Rupa below me. Two wild parrots are flying next to me. One of them is so close that I can see his eye. It is bright and shiny and looks right back at me. It feels good to be so free.
Suddenly there is a tremendous explosion, like the world is cracking in two. All the lights below me go out, and I can’t tell if I am flying or falling in the darkness. The wild parrots disappear. I hear a strange, distant sound of crying and moaning. In the darkness, just waking up from my dream, I am confused. The earth quivers under my bed.
Juan cries out, “José!”
I jump out of bed and grab Juan into my arms.
The house seems to shake all around me.
Is it really shaking, or is it just my legs?
Is any of this real?
Before I can get my bearings, there is a huge THUMP! and now I know that it’s not just me. It’s like a bomb went off.
I stumble into the living room, still carrying Juan. Mom and the girls are here too. We have all managed to find one another in the dark.
Mom asks with panic in her voice, “What is it? Is anyone hurt?”
I answer, “Juan and I are okay.”
“I’m all right,” Ángela says, “but it’s like the world is breaking apart!”
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“I’m okay,” María says.
Mom says, her voice firm, “Nothing is breaking apart … we have to stay calm.”
I make my way to the window and look out. There is a river of mud surrounding the house and covering the street as far as I can see in the darkness.
I yell, “It’s a mudslide!”
“Oh God,” Mom says.
I stare out the window again, looking as hard as I can. “The mud isn’t moving anymore. It’s stopped!”
Mom says, “Everyone stay calm.” She shines a small flashlight on each of us. Juan, dressed in X Files underpants and a white T-shirt, reaches out to Mom, and she grabs him from me.
Now voices outside are calling out for help. They grow louder and louder.
“Is that Dad and Ruby?” Juan asks in a tiny voice.
“No,” I tell him. “It’s our friends—our neighbors.”
I hurry back to my room and pull on my pants and a T-shirt. I grab my jacket and slip into my Nike high-tops.
By the time I come out of my bedroom, Mom is standing at the front door with a larger flashlight. She hands it to me and says, “Be careful!”
I look into her eyes, and I can tell how scared she is. I’m sure that she wants to tell me not to go out, but we both know that I have to. It’s what Dad would do and what Víctor would do too. My hands shake and my stomach flip-flops. For a second I just stand there, hoping Mom will tell me I can’t go.
But she squeezes my hand and says, “Be careful, José!”
“I will, Mom. I promise!”
I open the door and step outside.
THREE
It’s just drizzling now, but it’s still dark as I get ready to move off our front porch. My flashlight is useless, a tiny dot of light that doesn’t even reach the houses across the street, much less farther away. I stand still for a moment and keep passing the light all around the town. I don’t see anything, but I hear people crying out. I move toward their voices.
I take two steps off our front porch and sink into the mud. I scream out, scared that it will suck me all the way down, but the mud comes up to only my knees. My heart pounds and I am frozen for a second.
I take some deep breaths before finally struggling to push through the mud again. I manage to move one foot and then the other, slow and hard, slogging as if I’m moving in slow motion.
I keep waving my flashlight so that the people calling can see and yell over to me and I can find them, but this stupid light is so weak! Where are all the houses? Where are … And now it hits me. The Ramírez house, which used to stand right next door to ours, is mostly gone.
I force myself to look into the darkness, squinting as hard as I can trying to find the other houses, but I can’t see anything. I don’t know what time it is, but it must be nearly sunrise, because as each second passes, I can see farther and farther down the street.
Oh my God!
It’s not just the Ramírez house that is gone; so are the Arroyo and Álvarez houses and the Larioses’ house and … All the houses are gone!
All I can see is a river of mud. Far on the other side of the village there is a sudden fire. Flames rise up for a few moments and then they fade away.
This can’t be real, can it?
If all the houses are gone, where are all the people?
Where are the people who were sleeping in those houses?
Where is everyone?
All the voices I heard calling for help a few moments ago are suddenly quiet. There’s a terrible silence.
But now I hear moans coming from where the Ramírez house used to be. I try to hurry there, but I move too slowly through the mud. The roof has been torn off their house and lies in the street, flattened out. The walls of the house are buried, and only the tops stick up. Mud is everywhere, brown, wet, and thick. It looks like the filthy fur of an animal.
Where are Mr. and Mrs. Ramírez?
Only a few days ago Vera Ramírez smiled at me and waved. I waved back. It was quiet that day, calm and relaxed, with only a warm breeze. Suddenly I see Mr. Ramírez. He is sticking up out of the ground. His hair is matted down with mud. His eyes dart around as he whips his head back and forth. I try to reach him, but I can barely move.
I look down and can’t see my feet. The mud covers my ankles. How many times have I kicked a soccer ball on this street, the street that is gone now. How many times have I run past the Ramírez house or the Álvarez house—or all the houses—heading home after school?
Mr. Ramírez’s cries jar me. At first, I can’t make out what he’s saying, but now I hear him more clearly.
“Vera!” he calls over and over again. For a crazy second an image pops into my head of Vera and my mom making tortillas or fried bread together.
“Vera!” Mr. Ramírez calls again.
I call back to him, “I don’t see her!”
“Vera?” he yells to me.
“No, Mr. Ramírez. It’s me, José Cruz.”
“Where is Vera?” he moans.
“I don’t see her,” I yell again, finally reaching him. I am close enough to grab his wrist. His skin is freezing cold, and his bony arm feels like it could snap in my hand.
I ask, “Can you move your legs? Are you hurt?”
“Don’t worry … about … me. Find Vera!” Mr. Ramírez gasps. His voice sounds raspy and weak, and while he tries to talk, he keeps stopping to get his breath.
I fight back tears and force myself to think of something to say. “I … I don’t know where she is, Mr. Ramírez. I … I don’t see her. Let me help you first. Then we can both look for her. I …” No more words will come.
But Mr. Ramírez understands and answers, “Yes. Good, José.” He looks up at my face as I get closer. His eyes are filled with tears.
I move behind him and reach under his arms and across his chest, locking my hands. His body feels so cold. Once I have him in a strong grip, I begin to tug him up. At first I sink in deeper, and I’m scared that the mud will swallow both of us. But in another few seconds Mr. Ramírez begins to break loose. Just as Mr. Ramírez is getting free, Carlos and Pablo Altunez come from where the street used to be. They fight their way through the mud toward me.
The sky is light now, and we can see everything, but there is nothing left to see.
In all of La Rupa, only two whole houses still stand—our place and, way across town, unbelievably, the Rodríguez family’s tiny shack, which the mud didn’t reach. These two places, the Rodríguezes’ and ours, are the farthest apart of all the houses in town. When the mudslide came down, it came right through the middle of La Rupa, wiping out everything between our two places. Parts of some houses still stand, but they lean at terrible angles, held up only by the mud, three and four and five feet deep, packed around them. All that’s left of most of the houses are broken rooftops lying on the ground.
Carlos and Pablo ask, “Can you help us? Our parents are buried. Help us, please!”
Pablo begins to cry.
“Vera is lost,” Mr. Ramírez says. “Vera! Vera!” he calls out.
Pablo, crying harder, begins to moan, “My God, My God!”
I stand helpless; if only my dad or brother were here. They’d know what to do. Suddenly I hear myself saying to Carlos and Pablo, “Go back to your house and dig! Hurry! Use a shovel if you can find one, or a stick, or your bare hands if you have to. Maybe your parents are still alive. Go and dig them out!”
Carlos and Pablo move back to where their home used to be. They go as fast as the mud lets them.
Mr. Ramírez begins to dig, using his bare hands, calling out, “Vera! Vera!” over and over.
“Let me help,” I say, pushing my hands into the mud and pulling out handful after handful. But after a few minutes I hear the groans and cries of other people again—other people who need help too. I leave, making my way toward the other voices. Mr. Ramírez doesn’t seem to even notice that I’m gone.
I move through La Rupa, toward the broken, leaning houses and past the r
ooftops lying on the mud. I don’t know which way to turn. Where is Víctor? Where’s my father? They’d know what to do. My eyes start to burn, but I hold back the tears. I take deep breaths and force myself along what used to be the main street of town but is now just an ugly river of mud. My legs and feet feel like they’re being scraped raw with sandpaper, but I have to keep moving. I have to try to help.
FOUR
Mr. Ramírez sits on a mud-splattered chair in front of where his house used to be. His mouth is twisted tight, and his eyes are dark and red. He looks sad and confused. I walk past him on my way back to my house, looking at him quickly but then looking away. Vera Ramírez lies on the ground next to where Mr. Ramírez sits. She is dead. I can’t bear to look.
I’m so tired that I can hardly stand up, much less walk.
After trying to help Mr. Ramírez and then the Cortez family, I went to all the other places where houses used to be. After hours and hours of digging, I am finally back home.
Mom hugs me and says, “Are you all right?”
Tears come to my eyes, so I look down at the floor. “Yeah.”
Mom asks, “How are the others? Who have you found?”
Still fighting back tears, I answer, “Thirty-two people are probably dead. Vera Ramírez, too … so thirty-three in all. Thirty-three of our …” My feelings overwhelm me and I can’t say any more. I stare at the floor.
Shocked, Mom says, “From our town of fifty-six, thirty-three are—”
I answer before I can stop myself, “Dead! They are all … dead. They …” I just can’t talk.
Hurricane Page 3