by Jane Kurtz
Mom smiled back at me over her glasses. “You’ll have cousins!”
Cousins. A line of kids popped into my brain. They looked like Dad. They stared at me with interest and a bit of awe. Maybe I could start an Oakwood chapter of the Safety Club.
“What kind of disasters do people prepare for in Kansas?” I asked. “Besides tornadoes. Because Jericho and I have that one down flat.”
“There’s my girl,” Dad said. “There ain’t no flies on Anna. Keep your eyes open and your game face on. Maybe you’ll see some clues.”
The clues were grass, cows, and one tree with fishbone branches.
At lunchtime we exited onto a small road where a picnic table sat in the middle of grass. The picnic was a disaster, though. Isabella kept saying no to all four food groups, and Midnight H. Cat still refused to get into her carrier. “She’ll be fine,” Mom said.
“But what about her litter box?”
“She’ll hold it until she feels better,” Dad said. “Let’s keep her out of the way of rattlesnakes.”
He was kidding, but I decided to finish my sandwich in the car.
The first hour after lunch Dad entertained Isabella with luckily-unluckily stories. Unluckily, a man fell out of an airplane. Luckily, there was a haystack right below him. Unluckily, the haystack had a pitchfork in it. Luckily, he missed the pitchfork. Unluckily, he missed the haystack. Dad filled up the car with what Mom and I call his rhinoceros laugh.
Just then I saw a wolf on a bluff staring down at our car. A clue? My stomach went bump-bump before I realized it was made of wood. “Are there any wolves in Kansas?” I asked.
“I hear there are feral hogs,” Mom said. “Domestic hogs gone wild and threatening crops and pets.”
Wow. Maybe kids in Kansas wouldn’t fool around in the Safety Club like the ex-members in Colorado had. I closed my eyes and imagined I was with Jericho in my perfect green bedroom.
When Isabella yelped, my eyes popped back open. Two horses were rippling up a hill toward clouds so dark the sky looked ready to crash down on them. The radio crackled. “We apologize for the interruption. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for the following—” A blast of static cut the voice off.
Shiverydee. When I was six, we watched The Wizard of Oz, and as the tornado swirled Dorothy and Toto into the sky, I practically had to staple my eyes open. Now Mom squeezed Dad’s arm. “Go for the ditch? Or stay in the car?”
“Maintain cool, everyone.” Dad pushed a radio button, and I heard a twanging guitar. He pushed another. “Hurry in, folks, and—”
“Maybe drive into a ditch in the car?” Mom asked.
I flipped open my Safety Notebook.
“It’s only a watch,” Dad said cheerfully. “Not a warning.”
“Micah Nickel!” Mom gave him one of her famous looks. Dad promptly took the next exit and parked in front of a café. The minute we got inside, rain started beating up the street outside. All the people—luckily—kept talking and clinking spoons.
“Guess I was being silly,” Mom said. After we got our food, she and Dad used the alphabet noodles in Isabella’s soup to make up words.
Not me. I was too busy listening to the people at the next table talk about a Chihuahua that got picked up last month by seventy-mile-an-hour winds. “Tossed her,” a man said. “They found that pup a mile away.”
“Yep.” The woman beside him stirred her coffee with a clink-clink. “Pet psychic. I hear that psychic guided them right to her.”
“Going to eat your hamburger?” Dad asked me.
Nope. If there was a tornado and the car lifted into the air and started twirling around, I was going to run outside so fast I would definitely see where Midnight H. Cat landed.
CHAPTER 5
Tornado Preparation Makes You Brave
Safety Tips for Tornadoes
1. Run, duck, and cover.
2. Curl into a ball.
3. Clasp your hands together behind your head to block flying stuff.
4. Get under a sturdy piece of furniture.
5. Stay away from windows because glass can fly at 320 miles per hour.
Seeing the car wheels stay on the pavement filled me with what Jericho called Gratitude Attitude. The waitress came over. “Not hungry?” She picked up my plate. “I have some nice cupcakes with pink frosting.”
“Anna doesn’t like pink,” Isabella told her.
I couldn’t even talk. Too full of Gratitude Attitude.
If you change your attitude, Jericho said, you can change the world. When the car was sailing down I-70 again, I bent over and tried stretching my mouth into a smile to see if Gratitude Attitude could change my cat’s world or at least coax her into her carrier.
“All right, fellow travelers,” Dad said. “That was interesting. But tornado watches mostly turn into nothing.”
“What about the ones that don’t?” Mom asked.
Dad laughed, even though Mom definitely wasn’t making a joke. He said most Kansas tornadoes touch down in prairie grass. “My mother lived for nineteen years on a farm near Oakwood and saw one only once.”
“Really?” I said. “She saw a tornado?”
“An aunt came to visit with her new baby,” Dad said. “The cousins were chasing each other in a pasture when Mom saw a black pencil line drop out of a cloud.”
“This,” I said, “is a terrible story.”
“No,” Dad said. “They were prepared. Everyone clattered downstairs into the basement. While they were sitting there, they realized they’d forgotten the baby.”
“They forgot the baby?” Mom gave him the famous look.
“Well, it hadn’t been around long,” Dad said. “It was fast asleep. My point is the tornado hopped right over the farm.”
But what if it hadn’t? I imagined that baby howling as it spun up and up.
“Ten kids,” Mom said. “What an experiment this is going to be.”
Dad grinned at her. “It’ll be interesting. Get ready to be related to half the population of Oakwood. A gaggle of Stucky aunts and uncles and cousins once and twice and three times removed. All of them watching us!”
“Why will they be watching us?” I asked.
“In a small church people sometimes judge a minister by his family,” Mom said. “We need to help Dad get off on the right foot.”
“That sounds kind of scary,” I said. “Scary is not interesting.”
“Bears are scary,” Isabella told me. “But not to you.”
I gave her a fist bump. Isabella was the official fan of the Safety Club.
“Spiders are scary,” Isabella said. “Why did God have to make spiders?”
“If we didn’t have spiders, bugs would take over the world.” Dad made a shivery noise. “We wouldn’t want mosquitoes everywhere, would we? Fate worse than death.”
“What about sharks?” Isabella asked.
Without sharks I guess fish would take over the world. That didn’t seem like a fate worse than death.
All the long afternoon, as we drove with one quick stop for supper, I wondered about things. Did the Oakwood fourth graders have a tiger salamander? Had they studied caterpillar legs and prolegs? Had they made disaster posters?
I also discussed earthquakes with Dad and reviewed my Safety Notebook.
Anna Nickel, Gold Ribbon Safety Citizen of the whole fourth grade, was going to be ready for anything.
CHAPTER 6
Grandma Didn’t Stick and I Won’t Either
We drove and drove—for seven hours and forty minutes. Isabella said, “Are we there?” about 740 times. My cat carrier bounced along empty because my cat stayed under the seat. “Good thing we never drove to Oakwood before,” I said. “People have been known to die in captivity, you know.”
Mom’s glasses glinted in the dusk. “If you ever get thrown into a prison of solid stone, you can survive by soaking rags in the water that seeps in.”
“Also, prisoners have been known to survive by keepin
g their minds hopeful.” That was Dad.
“Here’s something for your notebook,” Mom said. “If you get chained to a wall, push against your bonds and then relax. It keeps blood flowing to your fingers. And grasshoppers and beetles and termites are all good sources of protein. Avoid cockroaches and rats, though. Too much bacteria.”
Unsavory. “Why didn’t we ever come to Oakwood for vacation?” I asked.
Mom glanced at Dad.
“What?” I said.
Mom reached over and squeezed Dad’s shoulder.
“What?” I said.
Isabella smack-smacked her thumb. “Well,” Mom said, “in Dad’s family, people mostly stuck tight in Oakwood. His mom didn’t.”
Dad’s mom had become an angel so long ago. I imagined an unsticky angel bouncing from cloud to cloud. Dad rubbed his neck. “Mom used to say the only thing dumber than a turkey is the farmer who tries to raise it.”
The line of kids popped back into my brain—with farmer hats and straw sticking out of their mouths. “So I have a bunch of turkey-raising farmer cousins?”
Dad was quiet. I stared out where the low sun made the grass look like a fuzzy carpet and the oil pumps look like dark grasshoppers. “My mom sold her acres,” he said finally. “Her brothers and sisters gave up on farming then. Aunt Lydia hung on to the house and a few rocky, hilly acres.”
No farmer cousins. I felt strangely disappointed.
“I hear my cousin Caroline has quit being a cop to try to farm those old acres. Probably doomed for failure, though.” Dad pointed out the window. “These days Kansas has wind farms.”
I looked out at the giant white arms slowly turning. In my mind, someone named Cousin Caroline ran under them with a huge net, harvesting wind.
“Stinky,” Isabella said. Two seconds later we passed a truck with holes in the side. Through the holes I could see eyes and tails.
I imagined Oakwood fourth graders sitting around me at lunch. I could say, “Cows and turkeys? I saw a bear.” I tapped Mom’s shoulder. “Don’t you think the Oakwood school will be awfully small for me?”
“It will be exactly the right size for you,” Mom and Dad said in unison. They thought it was perfect that I would have four weeks in school to meet other kids before summer vacation.
“Stinky,” Isabella said again. I looked out at red flickering in the dusk. Dad said some farmer lit a fire on purpose to kill the weeds and because the ash serves as fertilizer. I held my nose and shivered.
Too much like the smell of wildfires last July.
“Getting close!” Dad took the next exit and let out a big cheer and instantly got stuck behind a tractor clogging up the road.
Mom unfolded the church’s letter about the house. “Watch for Cole Street.”
I squinted out the window. In a clearing next to the road was a wooden horse with its head hanging down and a cut-out wooden cowboy kneeling next to it.
The tractor turned onto a side road, and Dad sped up.
Ahead I got a quick glimpse of lights. Then the road dipped. “Welcome to Oakwood,” Mom said, pointing to a sign. “And look. We’re on Cole Street.”
We drove to the only house on Cole Street. I saw a tree with a branch stretching out toward the street. In Colorado we didn’t have any good climbing trees, which was a waste of good muscles since I could do the third most pull-ups of the kids in fourth grade.
Dad pulled into the driveway and stopped.
“Be careful,” I said. “Don’t let Midnight H. Cat escape.” I cracked the car door open. The porch light was on, and something in the yard buzzed loudly—too steady to be a rattlesnake, I hoped. I went around and helped Isabella out. She grabbed me tight around the neck. “Carry me.”
“No way. You’re huge.”
She uncurled her hand. “Want my lucky jelly bean?”
“Thanks.” I set her down and popped it into my mouth. “What makes it lucky?”
“I licked it,” she said.
When she wasn’t looking, I spit it into the grass. I probably needed some good luck here in Oakwood, Kansas, but not that much.
CHAPTER 7
Pink Stinks
The church’s house was definitely not a soddy. It was a two-story and made of wood. Mom came up beside me. “Hello to our temporary home.” She gave me a squeeze.
I got my backpack and coaxed and pulled Midnight H. Cat from under the seat. When I lifted her into the evening air, she squirmed to let me know I was holding her too tightly.
“Carry me,” Isabella told Dad.
Dad handed our sleeping bags to Mom and swung Isabella up. Lucky duck. Even though I knew better, my brain wanted to be walking toward my house. My skin. My perfect green room.
“The church is right down the street,” Dad said.
We climbed onto the porch. Mom dug the key out of Dad’s pocket and unlocked the door. I pushed it open and plopped my cat inside. She dashed forward. “Wait!” I shouted.
“She’ll be fine,” Dad told me.
“What if she’s not?
“She will be.”
Mom turned on a light. Big flowery couch. Living room chairs. I could smell a faint bad egg smell I knew from camping at hot springs was sulfur.
“We should get some sleep.” Mom’s short hair was sticking up, and she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Isabella’s almost out. Sure is hot in here.”
Isabella’s head had flopped on Dad’s shoulder. “Follow me,” he whispered.
I took two sleeping bags from Mom, and we all squeaked up the stairs. Another hall. “Ta-da.” Dad pushed open a door, and I saw the glow of a night-light. He cleared his throat.
I peeked in. Pink. “This better not be my room.”
Dad cleared his throat again. “Nice of the building and grounds committee to think of new paint,” he said.
“There are other bedrooms,” I said. “There have to be.”
“Maintain cool, Anna,” Dad whispered.
We crossed to a tiny bedroom with elephants on the wall in a night-light glow. Dad laid Isabella down on the small bed. Mom said, “Look, the bed’s made. How thoughtful.”
I opened the connecting door. Big bed. Big dresser. Mom and Dad’s room.
Suddenly I was too tired to maintain cool. “This is unjust,” I said. “Why didn’t that committee ask me what color I wanted my room to be? And why did they even bother to repaint when we’re only going to be here a little while?”
“Honey,” Mom said, “we’ve been in a car all day . . . .”
“And Aunt Dorcas Stucky, one of my mother’s sisters, is coming over early.” Dad put his arms around me, sleeping bags and all. “I hope she isn’t too old and weak to help with the unpacking. You two go to bed, and I’ll bring our things in.”
“Don’t accidentally let the cat out.” My voice was sandy in my throat. “She can be tricky.”
Mom kissed me. “Dad can outtrick any cat.”
“I’ll set up the litter box and put the carrier in the living room with its door open.” Dad shoulder-walked me to the pink room. “Maybe she’ll feel safer in her carrier.”
He kissed me good-night, took one of the sleeping bags, and squeaked back downstairs. I dropped the other sleeping bag in the corner and stood looking out the window, wishing it faced the big tree. My body felt like it was still in the car, rumbling along, and my brain was back in that café.
I had a stomach-looping feeling even the Safety Club hadn’t taught me enough to be prepared for Kansas.
CHAPTER 8
Even a Small Miracle Is a Good Miracle
I squinted out, trying to see the sky. What if? seemed more real in the dark. Did tornadoes ever come at night? Dad’s footsteps squeaked on the stairs. “Daddy,” Isabella called sleepily.
“What?”
“I think I see a spider.”
What happened to spiders in tornadoes? Did they whirl up and up, trying frantically to spin a web?
Dad walked down the hall to Isabella’s room.
I waited until he walked back. “Dad,” I called.
Dad made a kind of mfff sound, but he never really did get mad.
“What kind of safety warning system does Oakwood have?” I asked.
“A siren. We’d all hear it. Go to sleep, please.”
I sat on the bed like a stick with wide-open eyes, listening, the way Midnight listens when her ears go forward and the rest of her stays massively still. Was that a siren? Or just a car horn?
I got up and groped in my backpack until I found my Safety Notebook. Back on the bed, I squeezed it tightly.
Plan A, I thought. Plan B. Even those words made me feel better. Now where was my cat?
Dad was coming upstairs again. I quickly put my sleeping game face on. The door opened. I peeked at Dad lugging my suitcase in. I didn’t say anything, though. He would be proud if I could get to sleep.
When he was gone, I opened my eyes again and studied the shadows on the ceiling.
On the night when wildfires raced through the city and our house filled up with the college students from Dad’s church group, Jericho had been calm. She showed me her plan. She asked Dad if he would pray with them.
Dad was always being asked to pray. “Nothing special about a minister’s prayers,” he’d say. “All God’s children are equal pray-ers in the sight of God.” Still, he always did it. That made people like me a little out of practice.
But it was a good idea to get God on my team.
I closed my eyes. Dear God. I need my cat. Also please help Dad get the church over the hump quickly so we can go back to Colorado soon. Preferably by my birthday. I opened my eyes. I did realize my birthday was in five weeks. But still.
God could work miracles.
Should I have knelt and folded my hands? No. Jericho said God heard prayers anywhere and anytime. But she said it was wrong to expect God to do everything.
I closed my eyes again. P.S. I promise to do my part. Amen. Even Dad sometimes said “P.S.” But what was my part, exactly?
Don’t be evil and insincere. I knew that much.
