Stand Tall

by Joan Bauer

  “But he’ll be scared!”

  “They’ve got some tents. It’s the best we can do right now. We’ve got to get the people inside.”

  Lightning crashing, rain falling sideways.

  Bradley shaking like he’s going to explode.

  A volunteer fireman asked Tree if he wanted to leave Bradley with him—he’d get him to the shelter.

  “No. I’m taking him myself.” Tree looked pleadingly at his father, who was helping Grandpa inside.

  He gave the fireman Bradley’s leash. “Can you hold him just a minute?”

  Tree helped Dad get Grandpa into the gym.

  They got him settled. Dad took Tree aside. “I don’t think I’ve told you how much help you’ve been with Grandpa. . . . I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “Thanks, Dad. That means a lot.”

  More people were streaming in.

  People shouting if anyone had seen so-and-so as the lightning flashed outside and the thunder sounded like a nightmare. Tree looked up at Eleanor Roosevelt’s words carved below the basketball hoop:

  No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

  Grandpa was doing his best to help the people around him, like the little girl crying for her mother. Her father kept telling her that Mama was going to be coming through that door any minute, but the little girl kept crying anyway.

  “Well, darlin’,” said Grandpa. “What color hair does your mother have?”

  “Brown.” The child sniffed.

  “And what’s her name, other than Mommy?”

  Small voice. “Carol.”

  “I just happen to know a story about a mother with brown hair named Carol who got stuck in a flood, but she was so smart, she helped a dozen people to safety.”

  The little girl’s eyes were wide.

  “You want me to tell you that story?”

  “Yes!”

  “I’ve got to take Bradley over to the field, Dad.”

  “I want you right back.”

  Tree ran out the door; Bradley was cowering near the fireman’s feet.

  “Okay, boy, it’s okay.”

  Tree tugged on the leash. Bradley dug his heels in, wouldn’t move. Tree bent down to pick him up, saw Mr. Cosgrove walking fast, wearing a big slicker, carrying a flashlight.

  That’s when Tree got the idea—as clear and clean as taking apart a laser pen.

  “Mr. Cosgrove, could we keep some animals in the basement in those storage rooms?”

  Mr. Cosgrove stopped, looked at Bradley.

  He thought for a moment, then motioned Tree to the back door.

  “Thanks.” Tree picked up Bradley, carried seventy-four pounds of old, wet dog through the darkened hall.

  Mr. Cosgrove unlocked the storage room. “Put those newspapers on the floor and pray we don’t get caught.”

  Tree pictured the vet’s office with all those animal cages. If they had cages, they could have more animals in the basement. Tree looked around the big room. It had lots of tall steel file cabinets. He opened some file drawers—they were empty and deep—almost like cages. But he’d need a top so the animals could breathe and not get out.

  A loud siren blasted in the distance. Mr. Cosgrove and Tree ran upstairs.

  More people were pouring in.

  Dad walked over.

  “We need to stay together.”

  Tree told him about Bradley in the basement.

  “He’ll be all right, Tree, I—”

  A little boy let out a huge wail. “But they’ll drown! They can’t be outside. They can’t!”

  His father was holding a cage with two white rabbits.

  Tree whispered to Mr. Cosgrove, “They’ve already got a cage.”

  “Do you know what a pension is?” Mr. Cosgrove snapped.

  “Sort of.” Tree knew it involved money.

  “You know what this could do to my pension?”

  The little boy was crying hard.

  “Just the rabbits and the dog. No more.”

  Tree carried the rabbits downstairs, told Bradley he had two roommates. Told the rabbits, “This is the greatest guard dog in the universe.”

  The rabbits looked on, unconvinced, as Bradley slept.

  “Tree!” Mr. Cosgrove was holding McAllister, who looked like he’d been drowned nine times. “Some woman said this cat can’t stay on the field—it’s too sensitive.”

  McAllister shook, hissed.

  Tree: “I can make a cage for him if we have some chicken wire.”

  “I’ve got that.”

  Deep hissing.

  Mr. Cosgrove deposited wet, crabby cat in Tree’s arms.

  Bradley opened one eye.

  “No, Bradley.”

  Bradley rose, barking.

  “Bradley, no!”

  McAllister arched his back, big meow.

  “You guys have to get along.”

  But certain animal ways are bigger than floods.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “What are you doing?” Sully stood at the storage room door.

  “Saving animals.” Tree put newspaper in a file drawer, lowered McAllister in, covered the top with wire netting, attached it with screws.

  “He’s not too happy to be saved,” Sully observed as McAllister hissed.

  “That’s the last animal.” Mr. Cosgrove put the cat in another room.

  But more animals were coming.

  Tree was running ragged, making cages. He and Sully tried to keep Mr. Cosgrove calm.

  “These are just a couple of kittens, Mr. Cosgrove.”

  “Look what we’ve got here . . . a ferret.”

  And the big challenge . . .

  “How do you feel about farm animals?”

  Three chickens clucked in a cage. “They have arthritis,” Sully explained.

  News of the flood came sporadically. Radio signals went in and out. Tree was wondering about everything.

  Will the house survive?

  Will anyone be hurt?

  Where in the world is Sophie?

  He’d called her house endless times on Dad’s cell phone; no answer.

  Over and over they heard the warnings: Never stay in your car during a flood. It only takes two feet of water to carry you off.

  Amber Melloncroft and Sarah Kravetz shuddered in a corner, blankets over their shoulders.

  Tree remembered Grandpa saying how in Vietnam it didn’t matter how much money you had, how good you’d been on the football field, how smart you’d been in school.

  War is the great equalizer.

  Jeremy Liggins stood in the doorway, holding a cage. A policeman told him to bring it outside. Jeremy wailed, “Hamsters can’t be in the rain. They’re desert animals. They’ll die.”

  Tree walked over. “I might have a safe place for them.”

  “Where?”

  The policeman helped an old woman inside; Tree led Jeremy downstairs.

  Mr. Cosgrove stopped when he saw them. “No.”

  “Mr. Cosgrove, Liggins’s hamsters will die if they have to be out in the rain.”

  Mr. Cosgrove took a hard look at Jeremy. He’d heard him say plenty of mean things to Tree.

  “You can keep them down here, but only because Tree asked. I hope you appreciate a friend like him.”

  Jeremy looked down, nodded.

  “Mr. Cosgrove, you’re going to get a medal for being a hero.”

  “That won’t mean much on unemployment.”

  “This reminds me of Vietnam, Leo.” The Trash King huddled under a Red Cross blanket. “Those tropical storms, we’d never get dry. Everything smelled like jungle rot.”

  “I’ll take this over Nam any day.”

  “Me, too.” King’s wife, Betty, leaned against his shoulder. “You think there’ll be any junk left when we get home, babe?”

  “There’ll be junk in our lives till we’re dead.”

  Tree watched Grandpa massage his bad leg. King waved an unlit cigar. “A flood like
this makes you think. Maybe I should branch out. Get into something current, like hazardous waste.”

  “You’ve always been a trendsetter,” Betty observed.

  Tree’s dad came by. “I talked to your Mom in Philadelphia. She’s fine. She can’t get back yet because of the weather. She sends her love.” He smiled. “Her house will probably be okay. It’s on a hill. She’s worried enough for all of us.”

  He didn’t sound edgy at all when he said it.

  Dad’s house wasn’t on a hill. Tree wondered what that meant.

  “I told her how well you’ve been handling all this, how you’re helping out everywhere.” Dad grinned. “I told her I was so proud of you, I could bust.”

  Tree beamed. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Mayor Diner came in at this point, windblown and wet. She took her slicker off, looked at the horde of people in the gym.

  Walked to the free-throw line, smiled sadly.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. No one expected to be here tonight.”

  The people nodded, that’s for sure.

  “The weather bureau says we could get a lot more rain. That could wipe things out by the river. The sandbags haven’t held the way we’d hoped.”

  Worried looks.

  “It’s going to be a long night, folks. Whatever you’ve learned about getting through hard times, I hope you’ll share it with the people around you. I’ve seen so much today that’s encouraged me. The bravery of the rescue workers, neighbors helping each other get to safety. It’s easy at a time like this to remember all the things we’ve left behind, but what this town has—the most important part of it—is sitting right here in this place.

  “I don’t know why these things happen. But I’m asking you to hold on. We’ll keep you updated. We’ll keep praying. We’ll keep looking for it to be over.”

  Mayor Diner nodded at Inez, the ministry intern at Ripley Presbyterian Church. “Would you lead us in prayer?”

  Inez smiled weakly. This flood had her scared stiff. She’d rather have a braver person pray.

  But she took the hands of the little girl and the old man next to her; closed her eyes.

  “We feel scared, Lord—give us courage. We feel lost—stand beside us. We feel weak—give us strength.”

  Mrs. Clitter had just visited McAllister in the basement. She didn’t much like the makeshift cage, but she knew her cat was safe. She had thanked Mr. Cosgrove, gave him some of the homemade fudge that she kept frozen in blocks in her freezer. She’d grabbed pounds of it when the sirens first blared.

  You just never know when someone might appreciate something homemade.

  A squawk in the hall.

  Eli Slovik, completely drenched, was holding a large cage with Fred the parrot inside.

  “Back off, Buster,” Fred shouted to the policeman who was telling Eli he had to take Fred to the shelter.

  “He can’t get wet!” Eli screamed.

  “There are parrots in the jungle,” the policeman shouted. “It gets wet in the jungle!”

  Fudge extended, Mrs. Clitter stepped forward.

  The officer crumbled, took the bribe.

  Mr. Cosgrove ran by; Mrs. Clitter grabbed his arm tight. “Could we ask you to help just one more of God’s creatures?”

  Eli was praying Fred wouldn’t say “Back off, Buster.”

  “We’re full up.”

  “Not even for this beautiful, rare bird?”

  “No more.”

  Mr. Cosgrove looked at Fred, who looked back and said the words that would save him.

  “You’re a genius.”

  Mr. Cosgrove’s eyes went soft.

  “Now, isn’t that something?” Mrs. Clitter marveled.

  “You’re a genius.” Fred made sincere eye contact.

  Mr. Cosgrove, struck by the parrot’s depth, said, “The bird stays. Make sure he’s warm and dry.”

  “You’re a genius,” Fred repeated.

  “Get him some food. Whatever he wants.”

  Mr. Cosgrove ran down the stairs, feeling smarter than he had in years.

  One man sows, another reaps.

  They slept on mats brought by the Red Cross.

  They slept in corners wrapped in blankets they had brought from home.

  They slept and woke and wondered when it would be over.

  Sophie hadn’t shown up yet, and Tree was so worried about her, he couldn’t sleep.

  Cell-phone batteries were out.

  Phone lines were down.

  Grandpa rigged up a generator so they could watch TV news. The TV cameras captured the mostly flooded town.

  “A flood is like a war,” Grandpa observed sadly, “because it can take so much with it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The rain stopped Wednesday morning.

  The sun, bright and full, announced the new day.

  Streets were flooded, cars were overturned.

  They’d been in the shelter for two days—living in a time warp.

  We just want to get home, the people said.

  Home to what?

  That was the question.

  Grandpa, the Trash King, and Tree were working hard to make sure some of it would be positive.

  The sign.

  That’s the first thing people noticed. It made up for the smell, which was rank and persistent and hung over Ripley like foul gas.

  Mildew. Piles of yuck.

  It rose from the streets, infiltrated the nostrils.

  But the sign.

  Grandpa lugged parts of it from his workshop over the garage; wired it. The Trash King stood on the ladder and balanced it on the roof of Temple Beth Israel—a roof most people could see coming back from the middle school—it overlooked the park, too.

  Rabbi Toller turned on the generator.

  Tree held the ladder as King fixed the big sign in place.

  “Plug her in, Rabbi.”

  “Let there be light,” Rabbi Toller announced.

  Pow.

  WELCOME HOME, FOLKS

  WE’RE GOING TO MAKE IT

  People were honking their horns in their trucks, cars, and vans when they saw it.

  The Trash King, Tree, and Grandpa grinned as the photographer from the Ripley Herald took photo after photo of that sign.

  “Why’d you do it?” the reporter asked. “What made you think of it?”

  The old soldiers smiled. “We wanted to encourage the town,” Grandpa said. “Give people something good to come home to.”

  They didn’t mention the most important part.

  You’ve got to welcome people back when they’ve been through a war.

  Nobody understands that more than a Vietnam vet.

  The shock of loss was everywhere.

  A flooded-out house is a ghastly sight.

  Especially when it’s yours.

  They’d called the insurance company.

  Turned off the electricity.

  Tree, Dad, and Grandpa stood on the muck-covered hall carpet wearing white masks passed out by the Public Health Department.

  No one spoke.

  The couch was soaked and dirty, the stereo was turned upside down, lamps lay broken on the floor, tables upended.

  Brown watermarks three feet up on the first-floor walls. Lower kitchen cabinets opened, soaked cereal boxes, broken dishes, piles and piles of what could never be used again.

  Tree’s clothesline invention hung untouched from the ceiling, casting shadows.

  Tree stepped across the mushy rug. He could hardly stand the fumes.

  He’d lived in this house most of his life. And now this, too, was going to be a memory.

  Grandpa said, “We rebuild with what we’ve got left.”

  But there wasn’t anything left except the second floor.

  The basement windows had popped out.

  Five feet of murky water sat in the basement with dirty clothes, empty paint cans, basketballs, and footballs floating on the surface.

  Grandpa steadied himself, Old Ironsides.<
br />
  But Tree wasn’t built of such strong stuff.

  He couldn’t take any more.

  He leaned against the dining room wall and started to cry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Grandpa said.

  Tree sniffed. It’s hard to cry when you’ve got a white mask over your face.

  “I bet you’re thinking this whole house will have to be torn down.”

  Tree shrugged. He was, sort of.

  “I can see why you’d think that, having never built a house before.” Grandpa studied the wall. “See, floods leave clues. We can see how high the water went on the first floor. Everything above the waterline is okay. The mirrors, the hanging lights. We’ve got a whole second floor in mint condition. Now, inside the wall . . .” He put an arm on Tree’s shoulder to steady himself and kicked a hole in the wall with his good foot. He stuck his hand in, pushed past insulation. “We can see that the plumbing pipes still look solid. I’ll have to rewire where it got wet, but we haven’t lost the farm. Not by a long shot.”

  “We haven’t?”

  Grandpa handed Tree a hammer. “Ram that there.”

  Tree hit the wall, made a hole.

  “Rip it out.”

  Tree did.

  “Stick your hand in there until you feel the frame.”

  Tree pushed through the insulation. “I can feel it.”

  “Knock on it.”

  Tree rapped strong. It was solid.

  “We’re going to lug this mess out of here, strip this Sheetrock down to the frame, and build her back up again.”

  Tree sighed. “You make it sound so easy, Grandpa.”

  “It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be worth it.”

  They stayed in a hotel that night. Bradley, too.

  Tree was so tired and sore from cleaning up.

  Dad called Curtis and Larry at school. Both wanted to come home in a few days to help.

  They sure could use the extra hands.

  Then Tree called Sophie’s house and finally got an answer.

  He almost shouted for joy when he heard her voice.

  “I tried to call you, Tree, for the last three days, but I couldn’t get through. Aunt Peach got us a room at a motel. We were all shoved in there with cots and cats. It was torture. But the apartment’s fine. The flood didn’t touch us. I guess there’s something good about a fourth-floor walk-up.”