Lucky Strike

by Bobbie Pyron

  “It’s going to take a miracle for Paradise Beach to survive a direct hit,” the voice on the radio declared.

  The mayor whimpered from under the table.

  “Did you hear that?” Mrs. Belk cried. “He said only a miracle will save us now.”

  Everyone turned to the miracle boy, the boy who had been struck by a bolt of lightning on his eleventh birthday on a clear and cloudless day. And had survived.

  But Nate was gone.

  While the adults had squabbled and squawked, fussed and fought, Nate had made his way over to the Beam twins, playing jacks in the corner.

  “Ruthie,” he said, “where’s Gen?”

  Ruth tossed the ball and scooped up a handful of jacks. “She’s worried about that turtle nest we found the other day. She went out looking for you.”

  “That’s right,” Rebecca agreed. “It’s the only one found so far, and I discovered it.”

  Ruth nodded. “She didn’t see you when we got here, so she snuck out when Mama and Daddy were talking to Rabbi Levine. She made us promise not to tell.”

  For a split second, Nate froze, then dashed out the front doors, into the maelstrom. Except for blowing plastic bags and other garbage, nothing stirred on the street.

  He grabbed his bike out of the back of the truck and threw his leg over his bicycle seat. “Oh, Gen, why the heck are you out looking for me?” As if she were right there beside him, he heard her simply say, Because weirdos and losers stick together through thick and through thin.

  Just as he was about to push off, he heard a voice behind him say, “Where the heck are you going, Sparky?”

  Ricky Sands.

  “I gotta go find Gen,” he said.

  “You’re crazier than she is if you’re going out in this storm,” Ricky said. “Didn’t you hear in there? A hurricane is bearing down on us.”

  Nate squinted at the boy through the blowing wind and rain. Oh, but his head hurt so very badly, and his stomach felt like it was full of lively fish, and every flash of lightning turned his bones to jelly. It would be so easy to get off the bicycle and go back into the safety of the building and the comfort of his grandpa.

  He looked at the building and at the boy standing there, now soaked to the bone, holding out a hand in something like friendship.

  He squared his shoulders and set his feet upon the pedals. “I can’t, Ricky,” he said. “Gen needs those turtles, and I need Gen.”

  Now he pedaled out into the wild heart of the storm. The wind blew so hard and the rain lashed so mightily, Nate couldn’t tell where he began and the storm ended. Palm trees were bent nearly doubled over. Mr. Billy’s plastic chair blew across the street and busted out the window of Jean’s Drugstore. A power line snapped and sparked.

  “Please,” he pleaded to whatever powers were afoot that night, “just let me find Gen.”

  Genesis Beam pushed with all her might against the wind, sometimes stopping to cling to a tree during a particularly strong gust. Finally, through sheets of rain, she saw the sign for the Sweet Magnolia RV and Trailer Park. Except the wind had blown out most of the letters. Now it read ET MAG V ARK. “Holy Einstein,” she said.

  She made her way to Nate and his grandpa’s trailer. She figured the chances of them still being there were about a million to one (more or less), but she hadn’t seen them at the town hall, and Nate was the only one who understood about the turtles.

  Tossing a prayer heavenward, she said, “Please let them be there.” But as soon as she saw the door to their trailer standing wide open to the storm, she knew this prayer had not been answered.

  “Dang it.” Poor Gen stood utterly exhausted and soaked to the bone. Moon-white petals from the sweet magnolia tree flew and swirled around her like angel wings.

  Suddenly, the wind stopped and the clouds parted. She looked up to see the moon peering down upon her. Gen knew in her Gen mind that the eye of the storm was passing over, that it was purely a meteorological phenomenon. But just for that minute, she looked up into the face of the moon — a blue moon at that — and allowed herself to be captured in wonderment.

  A wind chime tinkled. She blinked. “The turtles!” She spied a large bait bucket underneath the trailer and grabbed it. She dashed from the empty trailer park to the beach. If she could just get to the nest of eggs before the eye passed and the winds came back, she might be able to save them.

  Nate raced to the trailer park along the crushed oyster shell road until he skidded to a stop in front of his trailer. The door stood open. Chairs had blown off the porch. He raced into the trailer, calling for his friend, hoping she’d taken refuge there.

  He checked all four of the trailer’s rooms, including his own room. No Gen. “Dang and double dang,” he cursed as the wind began to moan. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed.

  He rubbed his throbbing head and willed his churning, roiling stomach to behave. He double-checked that he had the rabbit’s foot in his pocket and slipped the framed photograph of his parents inside his shirt. With one last look at his room — a room he suddenly realized he loved — he raced back out into the storm.

  “I’ve got to get to the eggs!” Gen cried into the newly energized wind. A bolt of lightning flashed directly overhead. A gust of wind pushed her down onto the wet sand.

  Genesis Beam, not only the smartest girl in Franklin County, but also the most stubborn too, crouched on hands and knees, sobbing. “I can’t. I just can’t do this by myself.”

  A bolt of lightning streaked past and struck the mast of a beached sailboat twenty feet away at the foot of her and Nate’s sand dune. Gen’s hair stood on end. Her feet tingled.

  She shook with fright and squeezed her eyes shut. How did he survive being struck — even indirectly — by such a force? she wondered.

  “But he did,” she shouted to the wind. She pulled herself to her feet, grabbed the bucket, and set off for the nest of eggs.

  Nate stood atop the tallest dune in Paradise Beach scouring the shoreline for his friend. Twice the wind blew him to the sand, but he pulled himself back up. Spunk up, Sparky, he said to himself. Spunk up.

  But then the lightning came, all around. It flashed to the side of him, to the back of him, and then right out front, as if taking the measure of the boy. Like a hound dog looking for its long-lost master.

  “Oh good Lord,” he moaned, and dropped to his knees. “I can’t,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t do this.”

  The storm had returned with a vengeance. Froth-capped waves reared and pounded the beach with a violence he had rarely witnessed. Thunder roared overhead with lightning right on its heels. The wind shrieked.

  “Nate! Nate!”

  Or was it the wind? He looked in the direction of the voice. A particularly showy flash of lightning lit the beach like daylight.

  And there, right there, Nate saw Gen clinging to the beached sailboat. Waves moved in higher and higher toward her.

  “Oh good gravy,” he whimpered. “She can’t swim. Gen!” Nate cried. “Hold on, I’m coming!” He flew down the sand dune to the girl. A gust of wind pushed so hard at his back, he would later swear his feet didn’t touch the ground at all.

  Nate squinted through the stinging rain at Gen, clutching a bucket full of wet sand and white turtle eggs with one hand and the mast of the boat with the other, water swirling around her legs. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “We’ve got to get away from that metal mast.”

  Lightning streaked and splintered overhead.

  “I know that,” she said. “Metal is a natural conductor of electricity.” She held the bucket out to her friend. “But look,” she said, rain slashing her face. “I saved the eggs.”

  Nate took the bucket and grabbed her hand tight in his. “You’re the best friend a turtle could ever have,” he said. He tightened his grip on Gen’s hand. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Then came a loud pop and bright flash of light, and a deafening clap of thunder shook the earth. Nate f
elt an all-too-familiar hand grab him (none too gently, again) by the arm, twirl him up, and fling him away from Gen.

  The last things Genesis Magnolia Beam remembered were the feel of Nate’s hand gripping hers and the brightest flash of light she’d ever seen engulfing them.

  Then she felt herself rising, rising above the wet sand, as if someone were pulling her up and up with a thousand strings fine as spider’s silk. The strings pulled her free of her chest, free of her stomach, arms, legs, and finally free of her skin, with a soap-bubble pop!

  Suddenly, a hundred million tiny lights danced around her. She remembered Nate saying, “It was like every lightning bug in the United States was around me,” after he’d come home from the hospital.

  He was exactly right, she thought. She started to feel ashamed of how she’d ridiculed Nate when he told her that. But then the lights tickled her arms and back and legs like her cats at home, all rubbing up against her at once. It filled her with a peace and joy she’d never before felt.

  For once, Gen’s mind did not want to find the logical explanation for what she was experiencing. She did not care if it was the result of neurological misfiring in her brain, or if it was truly the result of magic. She just wanted it to go on forever and ever, and sing hallelujah.

  The first thing Nate was aware of was something warm and thick stroking his cheek over and over and over. The second thing he was aware of was a smell like rotten fish and seaweed pushing against his face on hot breath.

  He opened his eyes. The mayor of Paradise Beach licked his face and wagged his whole body with joy.

  He threw his arms around the dog’s neck and pulled himself upright. To his astonishment, the wind had stopped. Rain no longer lashed the beach, the Gulf was calm as a cat, and the full blue moon shone bright. “Jiminy Christmas,” he whispered. “The hurricane’s gone.” He looked into the grizzled face of the old dog. “How could that be?”

  Before the mayor could answer, Nate heard someone cry, “Nate! Gen! Where the heck are you?”

  Gen.

  Nate staggered to his feet. Every inch of his body was on fire, especially his chest. He looked down at his empty hand. “Gen?”

  The bluish light of the once-in-a-blue-moon moon revealed a sickening sight: Gen, the smartest girl in Franklin County and maybe even in all of Florida, Gen, his best and steadfast friend, lay crumpled on the sand, smoke rising from her wet clothes.

  “Gen!” he cried. He pulled his legs beneath him and ran, stumbled, and lurched to the broken body of his friend. He turned her over. “Gen,” he sobbed.

  Her eyes — eyes that were now unaccountably silver — stared with a mixture of astonishment and fear and joy into the Great Mysterious.

  Nate knew exactly where she was, for hadn’t he himself been there just weeks before? He gathered his friend, his very best friend on God’s green earth, into his arms and shook her. “Come back, Gen,” he sobbed. “Please come back. You brought me back, remember?”

  He laid her out flat on the wet sand. Just like she had done for him, he tipped her head back and pinched her nose closed. Then he blew in her mouth once, twice, three times. He pushed on her chest over and over. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Pump, pump, pump. “Come on, Gen,” he pleaded. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Pump, pump, pump.

  Nate heard a wailing in the distance. Was he crying for Gen or were his ears ringing? And then he saw flashing red lights.

  “Please, Gen,” he said with a tear-filled voice. “Come back.”

  Chum Bailey flopped down next to him in the wet sand. “Lord Almighty, Nate,” he said. “The whole town’s been looking for you!”

  “Gen,” Nate whimpered.

  Chum’s gaze fell on Gen, sprawled like a wet rag doll in the sand. “Oh good Lord,” he whispered.

  Then Chum Bailey, the biggest boy in fifth grade, scooped Gen up as if she weighed nothing and took off at a dead run for the ambulance.

  The mayor woofed.

  Nate tried to stand but his knees wouldn’t hold him. He fell back onto the sand, his head cradled softly as if by a pair of warm hands.

  He dragged his heavy eyes open and looked up into the most wonderful face he had ever seen. A face bright with the luminescence that rode the waves at night; a smile as eternal as a dolphin’s smile; eyes as old and wise as a loggerhead turtle’s.

  He tried to reach his hand up to the face. “Grandpa?”

  A hand warm and strong came to rest on his cheek. “Hush now, Nathaniel, everything’s going to be fine … just fine.”

  “But Gen,” he said as the energy drained from his body. “What about Gen?”

  Nate thought he heard his grandpa say something from very far away. He heard the mayor bark: “Roof! Roof! A-roooo!”

  “Gen,” he whispered.

  As the last twinkling light in his body faded, Nate heard the sound of a hundred turtle flippers rowing toward Paradise Beach.

  Nate woke to the sound of a mockingbird singing hallelujah in the magnolia tree. He heard Miss Trundle calling, “Here, Fluffy, here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Mama’s got something good for you to eat.” He heard little Jimmy Nguyen call with excitement, “Look what I found!” And he heard the growl and whine of a chain saw not far away.

  He propped himself up on one elbow and looked around his tiny bedroom — his bedroom, not a hospital room. He looked at his hands. No bandages. He wiggled his toes. Everything worked just fine.

  And then he heard his grandpa cussing up a storm in the kitchen. “You worthless old thing. Why can’t you make just one piece of toast without burning it?”

  Nate sat bolt upright. He could hear! Even though he’d been struck by lightning again, he could hear!

  He could hear the mockingbird and Miss Trundle and Jimmy Nguyen and every word his grandpa said.

  “Grandpa!” he hollered.

  Grandpa threw the door open and rushed to Nate’s bed. He took the boy’s hand and said, “Welcome back, son.” His grandpa grinned a grin wide and bright as the Gulf of Mexico. “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep until Christmas.” He smoothed Nate’s hair away from his forehead.

  He looked from his grandpa’s face to the window of his bedroom. “But how did I get here?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  He shook his head, and instantly regretted it.

  “Chum Bailey found y’all down on the beach. He told me where you were, and I carried you up to the ambulance. Pretty much everybody in town was down at the beach by then, including Dr. Silverstein. He checked you over real good. Seems the metal frame of that photograph you had under your shirt somehow protected you from the lightning. Talk about lucky. You didn’t need to go to the hospital, so they just took Gen.”

  Gen. Nate’s heart stuttered. “What about her?” he croaked. He remembered her lifeless body and her silvered eyes staring with longing and wonder.

  Grandpa shook his head and wiped at his eyes.

  Nate felt his entire world fall away. “Is she … is she dead, Grandpa?” Tears spilled down his cheeks.

  Grandpa clasped Nate’s hand in his. “No, son, she’s not dead. The doctors say the CPR you gave her most likely saved her life.”

  The world realigned itself. Nate let out a sigh of relief.

  “But she wasn’t as lucky as you. She took a direct hit from that lightning bolt,” Grandpa said, not looking at the hopeful eyes of the boy.

  “Yeah, but she’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” After all, except for some burns and briefly losing his hearing and all, he’d been fine. Sort of.

  Grandpa swallowed, hard. “She’s in a coma, Nate.” He wiped at his eyes again. “When they first got her over to the hospital, the doctors put her in a coma to help her brain heal. But now they’re trying to bring her around, and she won’t wake up.”

  Nate pushed the covers aside and did his level best to leap out of bed. His legs buckled beneath him. Grandpa swept him back into bed.

  “I got to get to the hospital, Grandpa,” he plead
ed. “Maybe my touch can heal her like it did with the Bay Leaf and your truck and the toaster, and …” His voice trailed off as Grandpa pushed him back against the pillows.

  “What you got to do is rest,” Grandpa said as he fussed with the blankets. “Besides, the hurricane carried that truck off somewhere — and good riddance too, if you ask me — and the toaster is burning up the toast again.”

  Nate had a million more questions to ask, but first he had to convince Grandpa to take him over to the hospital in Panama City.

  If only he could keep his eyes open …

  When next Nate awoke, it was to the most wonderful smell. It was not the smell of burnt toast or fried baloney. He swung his legs over the bed and gingerly stood. His whole body ached, but this time, his legs held firm.

  Carefully, he followed his nose down the hallway. Miss Trundle bustled around the tiny kitchen, creating culinary wonders.

  Nate’s stomach rumbled.

  Miss Trundle spun around. “Oh! You’re awake!” she said with delight. Then she frowned and clapped her hands. “You get yourself on that couch, young man. You shouldn’t be up.”

  Nate curled up on the couch and watched her slide a skillet of buttermilk corn bread from the oven. “Mmm …” Nate said, drinking in the smell. “That’s what smells so good.”

  She smiled. She took two plates from the cupboard. “And we’ve got a pot of my prize-winning seafood gumbo too.” She ladled soup into bowls and buttered the corn bread.

  Nate snapped the TV trays together. His mouth watered from the wonder of Miss Trundle’s gumbo and corn bread in his house.

  They ate in silence. Finally, after his belly felt like it was about to pop, Nate pushed his bowl aside. “Miss Trundle,” he said, “I got to get over to the hospital to see Gen.”

  She sighed. “That poor, poor child.” She shook her head, her curls bouncing. “The doctors don’t know why she won’t wake up. Her heart and everything seem fine, as far as they can tell. They said that, because of lack of oxygen, her brain might be a bit scatter-wonky, but” — she leaned in to Nate confidentially — “just between you and me, I’ve always thought that child was a bit, well, strange.”