Earthquake Shock

by Marlane Kennedy

  For Jenne Abramowitz and Lauren Tarshis, my two fairy godsisters for the Disaster Strikes series. You each shook up my world as an author and I am forever grateful!

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MORE ABOUT EARTHQUAKES

  TEASER

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  COPYRIGHT

  Ten-year-old Joey Flores stood on top of the ramp. He took a deep breath, adjusted the strap to his helmet, and motioned to his friend Kevin Chen to begin filming.

  He pushed off on his skateboard, and when he’d gained enough speed, ollied up onto the foot-high railing. He slid sideways on the rail, down the entire length of the ramp, then popped off the end, knees bent, landing with a satisfying clatter and pumping his fist in the air. “Did you catch that?” he yelled to Kevin. Joey had gotten the skateboard for his last birthday, and even though he spent all his free time at the skate park, with its half-pipes, railings, ramps, and jumps, this was the first time he’d actually landed this trick without falling.

  Kevin grinned and gave a thumbs-up, while Joey’s other friend Fiona Rollins slapped him on the back as she skated past him on her board.

  It was the perfect moment.

  Until …

  “Woo-hoo, way to go, honey!”

  Joey’s mother waved at him from the grassy area at the edge of the park. In front of her, his baby sister, Allie, sat in her stroller, chewing and drooling on a rubbery teething ring.

  “Yes, way to go, honnnn-ney,” Dylan Jones whispered, sneering at Joey as he skated by.

  Dylan lived in the same apartment complex as Joey and had a habit of giving him a hard time ever since … well … ever since Joey could remember. Dylan’s mother was good friends with Joey’s mother, which meant that even though Dylan was two years older than Joey, their moms often forced them to spend time together. When they were little, Dylan would take Joey’s toys from him. Then as Dylan grew older he learned to tease. He wasn’t really a bully; he was more like an annoying big brother, as hard to ignore as a pesky giant mosquito. Right now Joey was trying his best to pretend he didn’t hear Dylan, but, man, was he steamed!

  Joey also tried his best to avoid eye contact with his mother. The skate park was only about a fifteen-minute walk from his house. All the other neighborhood kids could hang out without some worried adult hovering over them. Unfortunately, Joey’s mom thought he was too young to be left at the park unattended. It was totally embarrassing.

  But a beautiful afternoon awaited him, so instead of getting upset with his overprotective mom, Joey focused on the fact that it was 4:30 on a Friday. The school week was over, and he was at his favorite place in the world: the skate park. Plus the sun was shining, the sky was blue, it wasn’t too warm or too cold — just the perfect spring day in his neighborhood, located on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles.

  Now that he’d mastered the foot-high rail, it was time to move on and try some new tricks. He was on a hot streak, he could feel it. Maybe he would even try to drop in off the half-pipe!

  Joey skated over to it and found Fiona was already curving her board up and down the rounded sides. She flew up and held her board still for a moment on the top edge, then glided back down effortlessly.

  Kevin was filming her every movement with his handheld cam. Kevin wanted to be a filmmaker when he grew up. He saw the world through a lens, and capturing the action at the skate park was good practice. He would take home what he shot and upload it onto his computer. Then he’d edit it, put it to music, and add special effects.

  Joey was impressed that Kevin could make even him look good. Joey hadn’t been skateboarding that long, but his friend made him look almost like a pro.

  He had a long way to go to be as good as Fiona, though. Even without Kevin’s fancy editing, she was amazing. She had been skateboarding since she was four. Her dad used to be a competitive skateboarder, so she got an early start. Now her dad was a graphic designer and artist. But every once in a while he would stop by the park and wow everyone. He could even do a flip off the half-pipe! He was really cool … for a dad.

  Joey’s dad was an accountant. It had to be the most boring job in the world. He was a nice guy and all, but he dressed, well, like a dad. Fiona’s dad sort of looked like a rock star.

  Fiona finally came to a stop, and Joey tried to gather his courage. He’d never gone down the half-pipe from the top edge before, but he felt like today would be the day. So he flipped his board up and caught it, then started walking toward the stairs that lead to the top.

  But he was stopped cold in his tracks.

  “Joey, sweetie,” his mother yelled. “We need to go! I forgot to bring an extra diaper, and Allie needs to be changed!”

  The park was suddenly silent, and it felt like every single eye was on him. Then some boy laughed, and soon lots of kids joined in. Joey just wanted to melt into the ground and disappear.

  But his embarrassment quickly became aggravation. Skateboard in hand, he ran over to where his mom stood. “We just got here,” he complained. “You said we could stay for an hour.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. I thought there were extra diapers in the diaper bag, but there aren’t. And now your little sister really stinks.”

  Joey eyed his sister and tried not to breathe in too deeply. The whole situation stunk in more ways than one.

  His sister looked up at him, grinned, and wrinkled her nose.

  “Look at her. She doesn’t mind,” Joey said. “She’s not crying or anything.”

  “I am not going to have her sit in a dirty diaper while you skate,” his mom said, her voice firm.

  “Then just go home. Let me skate for another half hour. I can walk home after I’m done.”

  His mother sighed. “I’ve been over this with you before. You are not old enough to be on your own here. Maybe in a few years, but not now.”

  Dylan came rattling over on his skateboard, jumping off as it hit the grassy area. “I can walk Joey home,” he offered.

  Mrs. Flores hesitated. She cocked an eyebrow and looked at Dylan uncertainly.

  “I have to be home in time for dinner anyway, so I’ll have him back by five thirty,” Dylan said.

  “Well … if you’ll be leaving that soon … I guess it will be fine.” Her expression relaxed a bit and she smiled. “Kids your age often babysit, don’t they?”

  Joey rolled his eyes. How could his mom think he needed to be babysat? And by Dylan of all people! But if it meant he could skate longer, he wasn’t about to complain.

  “Thanks, Dylan.” Mrs. Flores pushed the stroller toward the sidewalk and called over her shoulder. “Be careful, Joey. And don’t try any new tricks, okay?”

  “Okay,” Joey said. But he’d already decided that as soon as she was out of sight, he’d make a beeline for the top of the half-pipe.

  As he walked back toward the concrete skating area, Dylan said in a sickening singsong voice, “Be careful Joey-Woey. You might get a boo-boo. And Mommy won’t be here to make it all better.” He laughed and his voice became deep. “And I ain’t about to kiss no scraped knee!”

  Minutes later, Joey was poised on the edge of the half-pipe. Most of his board dangled in the air, his left foot was planted on the back to steady him. Kevin had his camcorder pointed at him, ready to capture his first-time plunge in all its glory.

  Joey was nervous. It was a loooooong way down.

  “
Chicken!” Dylan called out. “Bawk, bawk, bawk. You don’t have the guts!”

  All at once, Joey stomped on the front of his board, setting the inevitable ride in motion.

  Whoa! He had never gone this fast before. He sped toward the bottom of the half-pipe, but suddenly fell off the board sideways. His board reached the bottom without him, and he trailed, careening feet-first, as if flying down a playground slide.

  Dylan was laughing his head off. “What was that?”

  Fiona shot Dylan a look. “Like I’ve never seen you do that,” she said. “That was an excellent first try,” she told Joey. “You got more than halfway down!”

  Despite the failure, Joey felt a surge of excitement as he leapt to his feet. He had wanted to try dropping down the half-pipe since he first got his board, and he finally had. It wasn’t nearly as scary as he’d thought it would be.

  And by the time Dylan was supposed to walk him home, Joey had finally made it all the way down and sailed up the other side without falling.

  Joey couldn’t wait the day or two it would take for Kevin to do his video magic. Kevin had filmed his successful glide along the ramp rail and his half-pipe plunge and also some really cool tricks Fiona did, so they wanted to watch the rough video at Joey’s right away.

  Joey’s mom thought he was too young for a cell phone, so he’d borrowed Kevin’s to ask her if it was okay, and his mom had invited both his friends to stay for Friday night pizza. She’d invited Dylan, too, but when Joey mentioned it, Dylan snickered. “Like I would want to hang out with a bunch of little kids. Get real.”

  As the group skated along a stretch of sidewalk, Dylan continued to give Joey a hard time. That was probably why he volunteered to walk him home, Joey figured.

  “Did you know when Joey was five he got sick at his birthday party and threw up on his birthday cake? He blew out the candles and then blew chunks.” Dylan laughed, amused at his own joke.

  Kevin noticed Joey’s perturbed scowl and quickly changed the subject. “It would be neat to film you doing a kickflip along the sidewalk,” he told Dylan. “I could put together a clip with a slow-motion effect to see the board turning and rotating in the air.”

  Dylan thought that was a great idea. He liked showing off. The two lagged behind for a moment to set things up, while Fiona and Joey zipped ahead toward a large concrete overpass. Their neighborhood lay on the other side of the highway, past the grassy hillside planted with flowers. Next came a cluster of tidy bungalow houses, and beyond that, the apartment complex where Joey and Dylan lived.

  The sidewalk continued underneath the arched tunnel, and soon Joey and Fiona were in the shade it provided as cars hummed overhead. It was the beginning of rush hour and a steady line of cars drove on the road alongside them, the noise echoing under the highway.

  All at once, Joey heard an earsplitting boom. A jolt knocked him forward and he stumbled off his board. He glanced over at Fiona. She was still on her board, but she looked as if she’d felt the jolt, too. Had a car run into the wall behind them? As he turned to look, the sidewalk shifted under his feet. He tried to keep his balance, but the sidewalk began to roll like a fun-house floor. Joey heard an awful rumbling and the sound of cracking concrete, and suddenly he knew exactly what was happening.

  It was an earthquake. Joey had lived through several minor ones, but this one felt different. They had to get out from underneath the highway.

  Fiona had jumped off her board now, but she stood paralyzed. Joey grabbed her arm, yanking her. “You have to run,” he shouted. “Now!”

  Her voice trembled. “I d-don’t know if I c-can.”

  “You have to!” Joey yelled as he dragged her forward.

  But it was nearly impossible to run with the ground rising and falling every which way. They both fell several times and had to keep dragging each other back up as small chunks of concrete and dust rained down from above.

  The sun, oblivious to the earthquake, was cheerfully beating down only a few feet away. “Just a little farther,” Joey screamed at Fiona. They lurched forward, holding hands. Crashing concrete columns chased them, like some awful monster ready to swallow them whole. “Ow!” Something hard and heavy slammed into Joey’s shoulder. But they couldn’t afford to stop moving.

  Finally the ground quieted long enough for Joey and Fiona to reach the patch of sunlight they’d seen. But before they could get much farther, the ground pitched violently again and they were surrounded by a deafening explosion — the sickening sound of total collapse.

  Fiona tripped, bringing Joey down with her. He fell so hard the air was knocked out of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. The ground jerked in fits under his body, while the thunderous groans and shrieks of the highway overpass tumbling down grew quieter. The ground gave one last exhausted shudder. Joey lay still, trying to get his deflated lungs to fill with air.

  After what seemed to be an eternity he sucked in a breath and sat up. It took him a moment to realize he was okay. His knees were scraped and bleeding. His shoulder throbbed. He tenderly touched where it had been struck. Whatever had pelted him had left one heck of a bruise. He looked over at Fiona. She lay in a limp heap on the ground, surrounded by small pieces of rubble and a fine coating of dust. Her eyes were wide open and she had a shocked look on her face.

  “Fiona?” he said. He gently touched her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t respond.

  For a terrible moment Joey thought Fiona was dead. But then she blinked and coughed. She slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. “I’m okay … I think.” She touched her forehead where a large purple goose egg was forming. “I must look terrible,” she said.

  Silly with relief, Joey felt like laughing. Fiona had been through an earthquake, had a huge knot in the middle of her forehead, and she was worried about how she looked!

  But his spirits quickly sank as the scope of what had just happened dawned on him.

  There were cracks not only in the sidewalk, but in the road that lay in front of them. In fact, a huge one split the pavement just yards away from where he’d fallen. It was at least a foot or two deep. Large chunks of the sidewalk and road jutted upright in the air. The cars that had zipped by moments earlier were now tossed about, their drivers and passengers shaken and stunned. Joey could see a house up ahead in partial collapse. Windows shattered. Walls crumbling.

  Slowly, Joey and Fiona turned, looking in the direction they had just come from. Only a few feet away the rubble was thick and deep with enormous concrete slabs rising at odd angles — a small mountain before them. Three cars had fallen when the overpass collapsed. One lay on its side, crumpled by the impact. Another rested nose down, the hood hidden by debris. The third, miraculously undamaged, sat at the very top of the heap of concrete, balanced on a fairly level portion of road that had fallen in one piece.

  But what lay underneath? Joey and Fiona had left their skateboards behind. His skateboard was his prized possession, but now thinking about what else might be buried, it didn’t seem all that important.

  How could the world change so drastically in such a short time? One moment everything was normal and the next …

  All at once, his thoughts flashed to his friends. A sick feeling invaded the pit of his stomach. Kevin! Dylan! What had happened to them?

  Joey looked at Fiona. By the panicked look in her eyes, he knew she was thinking the same thing. “How far behind were they?” she asked.

  Joey shrugged. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t really paying attention, but they had to have been close.”

  His thoughts turned to his mother and Allie. They would have been home at the time the earthquake struck. Their apartment was on the third floor of the complex. What if the building had collapsed just like the overpass?

  A wave of shame overtook Joey. How could he have been so embarrassed to have them around earlier? If only they were safe, he thought, he wouldn’t care if they watched over him at the skate park until he was thirty!

>   And his father had probably been on his way home from work when the earthquake struck. It was a long drive. How many overpasses were between here and his dad’s office? He had no idea.

  It didn’t matter that his father was a boring accountant. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t cool, with long hair and ripped jeans. He was the best father in the world. Joey ached to be home on a normal day, to see his dad in his business suit and tie, coming through the door of the apartment as always, scooping up Allie, kissing his mom, and giving him a hug or ruffling his hair.

  Fiona must have been having similar thoughts. She was crying, but managed to force out a few words. “What do we do now?”

  By this time drivers were getting out of their cars. And people from damaged houses were streaming outside, filling the area. Some were walking around like expressionless zombies, but others were springing into action, helping those with obvious injuries. Two brave men and a courageous woman climbed the concrete heap toward the crumpled cars stuck in the jumbled remains of the overpass to check for injured passengers.

  Even if his family needed help, they were too far away for him to do anything for them right now. But Kevin and Dylan — they had to be nearby. And no one else would know where to look for them.

  “We need to find the guys,” Joey said.

  Fiona stared at the carnage of twisted steel-rod support beams and shuddered. Her hand flew to her mouth, as if she were trying to stuff her emotions back inside herself. She took a jagged breath, collected herself, and nodded.

  It might be impossible to locate Kevin and Dylan, but Joey knew they had to try.

  “Let’s go.” Fiona immediately began to climb the jumbled heap of concrete, making a beeline to the other side.

  As he watched her try to find footing on the pile of jagged debris, something occurred to Joey. “Fiona, wait! What if there’s an aftershock? Don’t climb that thing — it could crumble. It’ll be safer to go around.” He pointed at the grassy hillside, where colorful yellow and red flowers stood up straight, undamaged and beautiful. There had been nothing above to fall and crush them. Only the bright blue sky.