Karen's Hurricane Read online

  The Eye of the Storm

  By three in the afternoon, I could not believe that a storm could be so fierce for so long. I was sure our street must be flooded with water. Would our house wash away? I pictured the little house swirling like a leaf down a river of water, while Mommy and Andrew and I yelled for help from the windows. I shivered.

  And still the thunder boomed and the rain came down and the wind howled.

  All of a sudden, I heard a roaring in my ears. A new kind of roaring. My ears felt like they were ringing. “What is that?” I wondered out loud. Then I realized: It was silence. My ears were so used to hearing the storm that now they were surprised to be hearing nothing.

  There was no rain pelting our windows. There was no wind howling like an angry monster. There were no leaves and twigs clicking against the sides of our house. Listening hard, I could make out only the faint echo of thunder a long way off.

  “Mommy, Mommy!” I called, dashing downstairs. Andrew pattered after me. “The hurricane is over!”

  “I am afraid not,” Mommy said. “This is only the eye of the storm. Right in the middle of a hurricane is a small area of quiet. That is what you hear now. We are only halfway through Hurricane Karen.”

  “Halfway?” Andrew wailed. He collapsed on the couch and buried his face in a cushion.

  I felt like doing the same thing. But I stopped myself because I was trying to be a good, brave big sister. We were only halfway through the hurricane? I could not believe it.

  “Where is Seth?” Andrew howled. “I want Seth!” He burst into tears again.

  Good, brave big sister or not, I could not help myself. I burst into tears along with him. “I want Seth too! And I want to talk to Daddy and Nannie and Kristy!”

  For the second time that day, Mommy held us and comforted us. The three of us curled up on the couch together. (Rocky and Midgie were still upstairs under Mommy’s bed.)

  “Please do not worry about Seth,” said Mommy.

  “But you do not know where he is,” I pointed out.

  “True. But I am absolutely certain that he is safe. Seth is a very careful and thoughtful person. He would not take unnecessary risks. And he had plenty of time to get into a shelter before the storm became bad. Now come on,” she said, when we had finished snuffling. “Would you like to go out on the porch and see what Hurricane Karen has done to our front yard?”

  We stepped onto the porch and looked at the street. Actually, we could not see the street. It was covered with water. The water came halfway up our lawn. It looked as if we lived on a river. I saw a tire float by, and a long plank of wood. Shreds of paper, old soda cans, and other trash floated by too.

  “Look, there is a lawn chair,” said Andrew, pointing.

  “There is a bird feeder,” I said.

  Everywhere we looked, sticks and bits of leaves and grass floated by us. What a mess.

  “Wow,” I whispered. “How deep is the water?”

  “Look at the stop sign at the corner,” Mommy said. “The water is about a foot up the sign’s pole. I would guess that means that the water is about a foot and a half deep in the street.”

  “Gosh,” said Andrew.

  “Seth will not be able to drive his truck through this water, will he?” I asked.

  “No,” said Mommy. “He will have to wait for the water to go down before he can come home.”

  “How long will that take?” asked Andrew.

  “I am not sure.”

  Mommy was trying to sound calm, but I could tell she was worried too.

  We stared in wonder at the water for awhile. My nice familiar old neighborhood looked weird under a foot and a half of water.

  Finally Mommy said, “I am going inside to get the portable TV. I want to see if there is any news on the hurricane. I will be right back.” Since there was no electricity inside, there was more light to see by outside. Now I knew how the pioneers felt.

  In a minute Mommy returned, and she clicked on the TV. (It is a tiny battery-operated TV. The screen is not much bigger than a saltine cracker.)

  “This is Ken Handy, live from downtown Stoneybrook,” said a teeny-tiny reporter on the teeny-tiny TV. “I have received reports of flooding and minor wind damage to buildings. With me is Seth Engle, a volunteer worker who was helping prepare for the hurricane when the storm hit. Mr. Engle, what have you seen?”

  I squealed, and Mommy, Andrew, and I all peered closely at the screen. I gripped Mommy’s hand, and she squeezed back. I do not think she knew how hard she was squeezing.

  The screen showed a teeny-tiny Seth. He looked fine.

  “Well, Ken, I have been sitting out the storm in the fire station, and we have had no reports of — ” Seth began.

  But I never heard the rest of what he said. Mommy and Andrew and I were jumping up and down and yelling hooray. We were so happy to see that Seth was safe.

  We quieted down just in time to hear Seth say, “And I would like to say hello to my wife, Lisa, and to Karen and Andrew. I am safe, you guys, and I will be home when the storm is over.”

  “Yea!” the three of us shouted.

  “Thank you, Mr. Engle,” said the reporter. He turned to the camera. “This is Ken Handy, live from Stoneybrook. Ted?”

  Then the anchorman took over.

  Mommy, Andrew, and I hugged all over again. Seth was okay!

  Shadows on the Wall

  The eye of the hurricane lasted two hours. It was eerily calm all that time. Right before dinner the wind and rain started up again as suddenly as they had stopped earlier. Even though there was more than an hour of daylight left, when the clouds moved in, it became as dark as night. And without electricity, we had to burn candles to see inside the house.

  “I think this is romantic,” said Mommy cheerfully as we ate our dinner by candlelight.

  “It is cozy,” I agreed, being the brave big sister again. “I can hardly hear the wind outside.”

  “How can you not hear the wind?” Andrew sounded grumpy. “It sounds like the house is going to blow down.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich. Mommy put some more chips on my plate. “Pretend it is the Big Bad Wolf,” I said. “And we are the Three Little Pigs.”

  “And we are safe and snug inside our little brick house,” added Mommy.

  Andrew grinned. He yelled, “You cannot come in! Not by the hair on our chinny-chin-chins!” He looked better. Mommy and I smiled at each other.

  After dinner Mommy set up the flashlight on the living room table and shone it toward the wall. Then she used her hands to make shadow animals. She made a crocodile, a rabbit, a dog, a bird, a spider, and a camel (her head made the hump).

  Andrew and I tried it too. We could make most of them, though my camel looked more like a fat giraffe. (Andrew’s looked the same as his rabbit.)

  Then we read by candlelight for awhile. I felt like a pioneer girl again. The house was becoming very stuffy. We could not open the windows because of all the wind and rain. But the storm seemed to be dying down a bit.

  That night Andrew and I did not take baths. Our bathtub was full of water that we would need to use for washing dishes, and ourselves, if our running water got turned off. (It had not been, so far.) At bedtime Mommy tucked me in and kissed me good night. She put a flashlight next to my bed, in case I had to get up during the night to go to the bathroom.

  “You were very brave today, Karen,” said Mommy. “And you were a big help with Andrew.”

  “Was I?” I asked. I had really tried.

  Mommy nodded. “I am proud of you and Andrew, and of Seth,” she said.

  “I am proud of Seth too,” I said. “I am glad he is downtown helping other people, even if we do miss him. At least we know that he is okay.”

  “That is right,” Mommy said. “Seth will come home tomorrow, and the hurricane will be over. Now, good night, sweetheart.”

  “Good night, Mommy.”

  After Mommy left, I took the flashlight and went to my window that looks
out onto Nancy’s house next door. I aimed the flashlight toward her bedroom window and clicked it on. The beam of the flashlight showed the rain still coming down hard, even though the wind was not so fierce. I clicked the flashlight off. On again. Off. On. Off. This was the secret signal that we had agreed on. During the eye of the storm, I had called to Nancy from my porch. But she had not come out. I guessed her mommy and daddy wanted her to stay inside.

  I waited for a minute. Suddenly I saw a bright circle of light in Nancy’s window. She had turned on her flashlight. Then it went dark. It came on again. Then off. She was okay!

  I giggled, then flashed her back once. She flashed me back.

  We were saying hello.

  I wished that we had made up a code. We could have sent messages back and forth, like “How are you?” and “Fine. How are you?” and “What did you have for dinner?”

  But we could not say any of those things with no code. And suddenly I was feeling very tired. I had had a long and exciting day.

  I clicked my flashlight on and off twice quickly. I hoped Nancy would understand that I was saying good night.

  She flashed twice quickly back at me.

  She had understood.

  I made up my mind to have a code all ready for our next hurricane.

  Captain Kristy

  When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I noticed was — no howling wind! I looked out my window. There was a light drizzle. And there were branches and twigs and leaves all over the yard. And the street was still covered with water.

  But no wind, no heavy rain, no thunder and lightning. Hurricane Karen was over.

  For breakfast we ate untoasted bagels with lukewarm jam and lukewarm juice.

  “I am afraid we still have no electricity and no phone,” said Mommy. “We have about six inches of water in our cellar. And there is no school today.”

  “Cool!” said Andrew. “Can we put on our boots and explore the cellar?”

  “Oh, no,” said Mommy. “It is not safe. When Seth comes home, he will set up a small pump, to pump out the water.”

  “I was hoping Seth would be home when I got up,” I said.

  “I am sure he is still downtown, helping people clean up,” said Mommy. “And with all the water in the streets, he cannot drive home yet anyway. He will have to wait until the water goes down.”

  “When will that be?” asked Andrew.

  Mommy shrugged. “I am not sure. Stoneybrook has never been flooded before.”

  After breakfast Mommy said it was okay for me to go across the yard to Nancy’s house. I was not to go into the street, however, where the water was.

  I pulled on my boots and rain slicker, put on my rain hat (it is yellow with pink daisies), and went outside. The ground was squishy underneath my boots, and I had to step carefully to keep from tripping over fallen branches.

  I knocked on Nancy’s back door.

  “Karen!” Nancy said, flinging open the door. “Let me get my boots and I will come outside with you.” Pulling on her boots, she called out, “Did you think your hurricane was exciting? I thought it was scary.”

  As soon as she was out the door, we started asking questions and answering them at the same time: “Are your phone and lights working?” “Neither are ours!” “Do you have water in your cellar?” “So do we!” “The wind was so, so loud!” “It sure was!”

  I was gigundoly glad to see Nancy, and she was glad to see me too. We talked and talked and talked. We agreed that we would for sure have a flashlight code worked out in time for the next hurricane. (In fact, we started on it right then and there. We agreed on two quick flashes for “How are you?” and three quick flashes for “I am fine.”)

  It had stopped drizzling. We had wandered around to the front of Nancy’s house. The street was still full of water. But I thought maybe it had gone down a little. I saw a large branch float by, and it looked like an alligator. Nancy and I pretended we were princesses stranded on a desert island, surrounded by alligators.

  I shaded my eyes and peered into the distance. “Oh, no, Princess Nancy! I fear I do not see help!” (Princesses talk that way.) Then I squinted and pushed my glasses up on my nose. It looked like … was that a boat coming up our street?

  “What is that?” asked Nancy, pointing.

  “It is a rowboat!” I said excitedly. “Someone is rowing up our street!”

  “It looks like Mr. Engle!” said Nancy, amazed.

  “And … Kristy!” I shouted.

  It was true. My stepsister, Kristy, was rowing Seth up our street in a small rowboat.

  “Ahoy there, matey,” Kristy called, waving a paddle. The rowboat glided closer to our front lawn. It bumped a bit against our curb. It was the weirdest sight I had ever seen. “Captain Kristy requests permission to tie up at your dock. I have a passenger who misses his family very much.”

  I looked at Nancy. She looked at me. Our mouths were hanging open.

  “Permission granted, Captain Kristy!” I called to her.

  After the Storm

  “Hi, Karen! Hi, Nancy!” said Seth as he and Kristy came ashore onto our porch. “Boy, am I glad to be home!”

  I gave Seth a big hug. “I am glad you are home too!”

  Just then Mommy and Andrew came out of our house and saw Seth. They ran to him and threw their arms around him also. While we were standing there hugging, Nancy’s mommy called her back into her house.

  “ ’Bye, Karen,” said Nancy.

  “ ’Bye, Nancy. I will talk to you later.”

  My family finished up its hug, and Mommy said to Seth, “I see Kristy brought you home.”

  “That is right,” said Seth. “I spent all yesterday helping people downtown battle the wind and rain. The volunteer firemen gave me a bunk at the station for the night, though I got only a few hours’ sleep. I was helping with the cleanup this morning when I suddenly realized how exhausted I was. I decided to head for home even if I had to walk the whole way. I was wading up Hyslip Street when Kristy came along and offered me a lift.”

  “Where is your truck?” I asked.

  “I left it on the second floor of the parking garage downtown,” said Seth. “I am not sure when I will be able to drive it home. Still, at least it is safe. A lot of cars that were parked in the street have been flooded.”

  Seth sighed. I could see that he was worn out. “Well, I would like a hot shower and a warm bed now,” he said. He turned to Kristy. “Thank you very much for the ride, Captain.” He saluted her.

  “My pleasure,” said Kristy. “And now I think I will go back downtown.”

  Suddenly I was dying to see what Hurricane Karen had done to Stoneybrook. “Mommy, may I go with Kristy?” I asked.

  “Do you think it is safe?” Mommy asked Seth.

  “Yes,” said Seth. “The water is very calm, and it comes up only to her knees.”

  “All right, Karen, but be careful,” said Mommy.

  I climbed into the rowboat, and Kristy shoved off from shore.

  “Good-bye!” I called.

  “Bon voyage!” called Mommy.

  A Cruise Downtown

  “How is everyone at the big house?” I asked Kristy as she paddled down Forest Drive.

  “Fine,” Kristy said. “A big branch split off from the sycamore in the backyard, but that was the worst of the damage. I saw Hannie, and she told me to tell you she was fine too.”

  “Whew!” I said. I wiped imaginary sweat off my brow. “That is a relief. I was really worried about you guys.”

  “We were worried about you too,” said Kristy, patting my knee. I love my stepsister.

  Pretty soon we left Forest Drive and turned onto one street after another until at last we were on Essex Road, heading downtown. We passed by Thelma’s Café. Big sheets of plywood had been nailed over the windows, as if it had gone out of business. The plywood had done its job, though. Thelma’s did not look damaged by the hurricane.

  “Oh, no, Karen,” said Kristy suddenly. “Look
.” She pointed with her paddle at a store coming up on the left. It was Greetings, a card shop. From where we were, it looked as if half the roof of the shop had been blown off. Jutting out of the top of the store was a tangle of twisted metal with big black shingles hanging off of it. A couple of firefighters in hip boots waded around in front of Greetings, talking into walkie-talkies.

  “Can we do anything to help?” Kristy called to the firefighters.

  “I am afraid not,” one called back. “All we can do now is clean up.”

  Kristy steered the boat back to Rosedale Road and over to Spring Street, then up Main Street through downtown Stoneybrook. We saw many, many broken windows, lots of signs ripped off of buildings, and three or four more buildings with missing roofs. I thought how lucky our little house had been, and how cozy and safe Mommy and Andrew and I had been in the storm.

  All the cars that were parked downtown were sitting in water that came up to the tops of their tires. I wondered if they were ruined.

  According to another fireman, almost every business in town had water on the first floor.

  Kristy and I hardly said a word as we paddled around, looking over the damage. It seemed as if it would be months, years even, before things would look normal again. I could not believe this could have happened to Stoneybrook. But it had.

  I felt like crying.

  “I feel like crying,” I said to Kristy as we turned up Reilly Lane.

  “Me too, Karen,” said Kristy. “Me too.”

  After a few minutes, Kristy said, “I have seen enough. I will take you home now, okay?”

  I nodded. I was too upset to say anything.

  Kristy paddled me home without saying another word either.

  A Terrible Tragedy

  By Wednesday night most of the water had drained out of the street in front of the little house. Our street looked messy and yucky, though. I did not know how it would ever get clean again.

  All day Wednesday, we had listened to either the radio or the little TV. Three towns nearby had also suffered a lot of damage. On Thursday morning, the TV announcer said that most of the water from downtown was gone. But even after most of the water was gone, our town smelled swampy and stale and yucky.