Carefully, I lifted my head and looked around. The dust storm howled above, but down here it was less fierce. I could see the outline of something several feet away. I struggled to my hands and knees and crawled toward it. Every part of me stung something awful. My ankle burned where I’d been scraped by the sharp thing. I kept crawling.
“Martin!”
He was crumpled in a heap next to his bike. I reached for his shoulder and squeezed it. He moaned. When his head came up, I let out a breath in relief.
We crouched together while the wind and sand flew by. I spat out the grit in my mouth. Closed my eyes, scratched and raw. My nerves tingled, and my heart beat a loud rhythmic base in my ears. I tried singing in my head to pretend I wasn’t here; to pretend the screaming dread I felt wasn’t real. I rubbed at my nose, still throbbing from my fall. My helmet probably saved it from being bashed in.
Finally, the storm began to weaken. The wind stopped shrieking as abruptly as it had started. Martin and I broke apart and looked around, blinking. My ears rang in the sudden silence. We were in a deep, narrow gorge. Dry sand and dust settled over everything in a thick coating.
Martin and I struggled to our feet. My head hurt. My skin stung. I was bleeding from my ankle and nose and from cuts on my hands. My eyes felt swollen. Martin had a fat lip and red, swollen eyes. He ripped off his helmet and threw it on the ground. The wide-brimmed hat he wore underneath was curled up at the front.
I reached down in a bit of a daze to pluck out three cactus spines stuck through my sock into my skin. “Yow!”
My yell startled Martin into action. “My bike!” he cried, kneeling beside his broken bike. “I’m so dead,” he said. “Dad just got me this.”
The front wheel was mangled and bent backward. I felt a moment of sympathy for him, since I’d seen his dad get angry. Then I stumbled to my own bike to assess the damage. Front fork angled down, front wheel sharply bent, handlebars shoved back.
“Is your GPS okay?” I asked.
“It’s gone!” Martin began searching in the dirt. “Oh, no. I’m really dead now.”
I peered around. “Where are we?” I looked up at the steep walls on either side of us. As tall as the clay-tiled roof of my house back home. We were in a snaking ravine that looked like something out of Star Wars.
“We’re in an arroyo,” Martin said.
Of course. This was what happened in a desert when rain fell hard and gouged out a path. That’s why there were roots sticking out of the walls as if a giant bulldozer had been through here. But the rain that created this had long since dried up. Everything was dirt-dry and barren, covered in dust. The high walls were steep on both sides.
“Come on,” Martin said, trying to claw his way up the bank. “We have to get up top. I can’t tell where we are down here.” He grasped roots, slipped, and fell back.
We both tried to climb but quickly discovered the bank was too steep and too high, with loose rocks and unstable sand. Looking up at the dark clouds in the sky, I recalled what I’d read in Martin’s book in the van.
“Hey! We were just in a dust storm.”
“Well, duh. You think?”
I glared at him. “We can’t be down here! Don’t dust storms travel in front of thunderstorms? That storm might’ve dumped rain somewhere else! Even if it was ten miles away, the runoff will race down a gut like this arroyo. This is the worst place to be after a storm! We need to get to high ground.”
Martin glanced around, alarmed. I could see he knew I was right.
“We have to go. Now, now, now. Have to get out of here,” Martin said in a panicked voice.
“Wait.” I reached for my bike to see if there was anything I could save. My helmet lay next to it and looked like it was cracked. Useless. I didn’t want to leave my bike here, but with the tire like this, I couldn’t even push it. And we had no time. Less than no time. We had to get out of here right now.
We had only two choices. Since we couldn’t climb out, we had to follow one of the directions the arroyo led. I looked to my left and then to my right. In this twisty corridor, I could see only as far as the next bend. Martin started running to our left.
I hesitated. “How do you know which way to go?”
“This feels right!” Martin was almost around the corner. With a last look back, I raced after him.
We sprinted along the arroyo, skirting rocks and heaps of dirt. I felt like any minute we’d hear the roar of a giant wave coming at us like a demon at our heels.
Trickling water is how it would start, and then more and more until a rush of rainwater would sweep us away. We’d have nowhere to go. We’d drown in a raging river, trapped in this arroyo.
Calm down, I told myself. That’s not going to happen.
My feet pounded on the dirt. My back tingled with the anticipation of rushing water slamming into it. I strained to listen for the sound of a flood surging behind us.
The arroyo went on and on, twisting this way and that. We raced to each bend, hoping we’d see a way out, but the high walls continued looming over us. It felt like we’d been trapped down here for hours. I glanced at the sky again. The sight of the storm clouds ignited fresh panic in me, and I bolted forward. My lips were still gritty as I panted in the heat.
“Here!” Martin yelled up ahead. He’d finally found a place in the wall where it had collapsed, creating a foothold we could climb.
We scrambled up the loose dirt. Sharp things poked my fingers as I grabbed hold. Finally, I pulled myself up over the rim and out of danger. I peered down at where we’d just been trapped, sighing a big relieved breath. Martin and I brushed ourselves off and glanced at each other, then turned to see where we were.
Distant, unfamiliar mountains surrounded us. Dirt with gravelly patches between the creosote bushes stretched out to the horizon. Everything was flat and empty, save for a hawk flying low to the ground.
“Where are we?” Martin asked quietly.
Dread crashed through me. Even though we could see around us now, we had no way to tell which direction to go.
Chapter Six
“Where are we?” Martin asked again, louder.
When our eyes met, I could see my own fear reflecting back.
“Help!” I yelled. Maybe Mrs. Sloan and Mr. Lee were out looking for us in the van. I wished I’d grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler. “We’re here!”
All I could hear were a few birds in the nearby bushes. I tried to swallow; my throat felt like sandpaper. Grit from the dust storm was still in my mouth, coating my tongue.
“I think the van is that way,” Martin said, pointing straight ahead.
“No, it feels like this way,” I said, pointing to the left.
No matter which way we looked, there were no landmarks other than the mountains all around us. Where was the van? Which way should we go? Everything looked and felt the same. Shrub brush and gravel, grass the color of straw, and flat ridges. No sense of direction. Just heat so heavy, it felt like it was grinding me into the earth.
I could feel the panic clawing through my mind. At least the sun was hidden behind the clouds that hung darkly in the distance.
As I thought this, the sun broke free and beat down on my bare head. I shielded my eyes, wishing I’d brought my helmet with me even if it was cracked, just to cover my head. Ye Ye, my grandfather, had helped me pick it out at the mall. Now I really regretted leaving it in the arroyo.
Still, the worst thing? We had no water.
“What are we going to do?” Martin yelled. He was breathing fast.
“We have to stay calm, no matter what,” I said, searching around. “The book said ‘panic kills.’”
“What?” Martin’s fists clenched.
I turned to him, and something shiny beyond him caught my eye: a glint of sun reflecting off the blades of a windmill.
“Look!” I said, pointing. “Windmills pump water. That’s the most important thing right now. We need a gallon of water per person per day in the deser
t.”
“How do you know? Where did you hear that?”
“From your book! Don’t you remember? You read it too.” My memory had always been sharp. My brain took pictures like a phone, and I could scroll through mental photos of things I’d read or seen. It was helpful, but also frustrating when others couldn’t remember the same.
My words made Martin angrier. “Well, why didn’t you bring any water, then, if you’re so smart?”
“We wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t snooped in Mr. Lee’s things!” I reminded him. “Let’s just head to the windmill. Once we find some water, we can make a plan for what we’re going to do.”
As we walked, I tried licking my lips. My mouth felt pasty.
“The main thing about being in the desert is conserving water,” I said. “We have to protect the water that’s already inside us. No more running. We need to stop sweating.”
“How’re we going to do that?” Martin demanded. “It’s a bazillion degrees out here. And you’re the one who said we had to get out of the arroyo fast.”
“I know. At least you still have your hat,” I said, eyeing his wide-brimmed hat. Just seeing it made my cheeks and nose burn hotter.
The sun baked my brains. My head pounded and my face felt stiff, caked in dried sweat over the dust.
Martin glanced at me. “Where’s your hat? You need one.”
“If I could make one out of a cactus, I’d be all set.” I sat down on a boulder to empty gravel out of my shoe. I inspected my ankle that had the cactus spines in it. All at once, all my scrapes and cuts seemed to throb. My nose stung from the fall into the arroyo. I rubbed at a cut on my palm as a whimper escaped me.
Martin bent toward me. I showed him the gash.
Martin made a tsking noise and straightened up. “It doesn’t look that bad! Quit whining, and come on.”
I stood, wiping my nose. “I’m not whining! I’ve got cuts all over me, and they could get infected!” I was close to tears, which made me angry. I didn’t want to cry in front of Martin. I didn’t want him to think I was a baby. “Why do you hate me?”
Martin shook his head. “I’m thirsty and sweating. We need to stop talking.” He stalked ahead.
For a while, neither of us spoke. The only sound was our crunching footsteps and some clicking from an insect in the brush around us.
I wanted my mom. I wanted her to fuss over my hand. She’d draw a happy face on a Band-Aid and stick it over the cut.
Martin slowed, then stopped walking. He glanced at me again and then took off his blue striped shirt.
“What are you doing?” I said. “We need to keep the sun off us as much as possible.” We both had on short-sleeved shirts, which I knew weren’t as good as long sleeves out here. But at least we both had on long pants.
Martin ignored me and peeled off his T-shirt next.
“Here.” He shoved the T-shirt at me. It was the same tan color as the ground surrounding us. “You can cover your head at least.” He put his striped shirt back on and buttoned it up to his neck.
“Thank you,” I managed to say. I wrapped the shirt over my head, even though it smelled like boy. It helped. I bent to tuck my pants into my socks. My running shoes wouldn’t keep snakes from biting me, but I could try to keep out the sand. Grit rubbed between my toes and in my heels. It got in everywhere.
My eyes still burned from the dust storm. The bright sun glaring off the earth around us made them feel even worse. I wished I had sunglasses. The shirt I wore on my head partially shaded my eyes, but not as well as the brim on Martin’s hat. Still, I could see him squinting painfully. The sun was too intense. Glancing at the sky, I searched for the clouds and hoped they’d drift closer. Maybe they would bring rain. Or they could break up or move farther away.
We walked for what felt like miles. I tried to ignore how thirsty I was. Martin was right. To stop our saliva from evaporating, we needed to keep our mouths closed. Mine felt so parched, my tongue hurt. Why didn’t I bring water? Why did we leave the group at all?
All I knew was that the windmill was our only hope.
The windmill didn’t look that far when I first saw it. My raging thirst was all I could think about. That and how hot I was. In the city, I could always go into an air-conditioned store, or ride in a car with the air blasting me in the face. Out here, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide in this big wide open. Miles of hot.
By the time we stumbled over the last ridge and peered down at the windmill, I felt dizzy and weak. I could hardly collect spit in my mouth to swallow.
At last we would have water. Then we’d be able to think. Be able to come up with a plan for what we were going to do.
We staggered toward the windmill and reached for the oval tank where the water collected. When we bent over the galvanized steel sides, we both gasped.
The tank was dry.
Chapter Seven
“We’re dead,” Martin said. “There’s no water here. We’re going to die of thirst.”
“Let’s calm down and think about this.”
“This is your fault.” He turned and jabbed a finger at me. “ ‘Follow the windmill,’ you said. ‘There’ll be water there,’ you said. With you around, it’s a wonder we’re even alive.”
His words hung in the air. They made everything seem worse. He was right. We actually could die out here. My heart fluttered just thinking about the trouble we were in.
“Well, it was in your book,” I said. “Why are you acting like I’m the only one who read it?”
Martin pretended he didn’t hear me. He studied the lever on the side of the metal frame before yanking at it. “This is supposed to unlock the blades.” He peered up at the windmill blades and pointed with renewed interest. “I see another lever up by the gear box. This one must be broken. I’ll climb up and start it.”
Martin grabbed a rung on the frame and pulled himself up. When he reached the top, he did something that made the wind vane spring out. The blades caught the hot breeze and began to turn. A rhythmic clanking came from the pole as it moved up and down in the center.
“Yay!” I cheered.
“Is there water?” he called down.
I watched the tank with a hope so sharp it hurt. “No,” I said. “It’s pumping dust.”
Martin descended in a huff, not watching his footing. He missed a step and fell into the palo verde bush growing next to the frame.
“Stupid ladder!” He struggled up out of the bush. When he stood, I gaped at him. He was covered in prickly-looking balls. They stuck to his shirt, his pants, the skin on his arms. He looked like a hedgehog.
“Cholla cactus! It got me!” He hopped around in a panic. “Get them out!”
“Stand still; let me see.”
He brushed at the balls frantically, which made them stick to his hands. “Augh! Help! Get them off.” He rubbed his hands against the windmill frame, and the balls dislodged and dropped.
I struggled not to laugh at his flailing. “How can I help when you’re dancing around?”
He held out his prickly hands. “Don’t touch them. They’ll stick into you, too.”
I spied two flat rocks on the ground. “We can use these. Show me your arm.”
Martin stood still long enough for me to check the cactus balls on his arm. The spines were embedded in his skin. He had three balls stuck in his bare skin, and four more through his shirt and pants.
“Careful, careful,” Martin said.
I lined the rocks on either side of one cactus ball on his arm like a giant tweezer. In a quick motion, I flicked it off.
“OW!”
The ball just rolled down Martin’s arm and embedded again. I flicked it harder.
“AUGH!”
It flew to the ground, leaving behind welling dots of blood. “Got it!” I said, and before he could move again, I flicked the next one.
“Yowch! Wait! Give me some warning!” Martin clutched his arm and inspected the wounds. A few cactus spines were still
in his hands. He grasped one and yanked.
“Ah!” he yelled with each spine that he ripped out. Then he took a deep breath. “It feels like my skin is on fire. But keep going.”
I continued flicking off the cactus. Martin screamed and bled. I was so not going anywhere near a cactus after this.
I inspected Martin’s back. “Only a few more balls left.” As soon as I said it, I was reminded of a couple Christmases ago when Martin and I had to wrestle my cat.
Momo had jumped into a box filled with tiny Styrofoam balls. The expression of shock on Momo’s face was enough to send us into hysterics, even though he didn’t like to be laughed at. With the pink Styrofoam balls clinging to his long black hair, he completely lost his cool. He dashed around wildly trying to shake them off. The whole time, his convulsing matched the beat of an oldies song Dad had on the stereo, “Great Balls of Fire.”
“Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire,” I sang now under my breath.
Martin muffled a laugh, which made me start to giggle.
“At least they’re not pink,” Martin said.
Then we were laughing like old times. But when I flicked the last cactus ball out of Martin’s back, his laughter turned to tears.
The last time I’d seen Martin cry was when we dared each other to bike down Suicide Hill with no hands. I’d walked our bikes back after he crashed and ran home crying.
It scared me that he cried now. I needed something to look at besides him. Peering closer at one of the rocks in my hand, I noticed it was shaped like a spearhead. I turned it over in my hands, and the edge nicked me like a knife. “Hey, this is a Clovis point.”
“A what?”
“You know, the Clovis people in history? The first settlers? This is an ancient tool over thirteen thousand years old, and it’s still sharp! How cool is that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your book! It was in the book you were reading about New Mexico.”
Dust Storm! Page 2