For most of that time, Jessi and Mal had been busily writing. Mal thought Jessi’s experience at Dalton would make a dramatic children’s book.
Personally, I become carsick if I look at a page of anything in a moving vehicle. So I was feeling pretty restless as we walked into the Romney house.
“You picked the coolest day of the summer!” Mr. Romney said. “I was hoping we’d barbecue outside, but we’ll just have to settle for in here.”
Settle? As we sat around the living room, playing with Isabella, Mr. Romney brought in enough munchies to feed a houseful of Claudias. Lunch was chicken-fried steak, thick cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, potato salad, and about a dozen other courses.
We were in pig heaven. David Michael’s plate was piled so high you could barely see him. Andrew was so excited he started eating with his hands. (Jessi, Mallory, and I were much more civilized. Ahem.) Karen could not stop giggling about the name “chicken-fried steak.” She said it made her picture a live chicken frying a T-bone at the stove.
What a feast. I was full halfway through. Mr. and Mrs. Romney were sitting across from me, happily chatting away, with Isabella between them.
I sat back and gazed out the window. The sky looked so interesting now. Sort of greenish. The clouds had flattened into a dark, narrow band.
Picking up my spoon, I noticed my arm hairs were standing up. I smoothed them down.
“Are you cold, Abby?” Mrs. Brewer asked.
Now my scalp was feeling prickly, too. I laughed. “No. But it’s so weird. My hair feels funny.”
Mr. Romney cut himself off in the middle of a sentence and cast a glance toward me. Then he turned around to look out the window. “Excuse me,” he muttered.
He hurried into the living room. From my angle, I could see him flick on the TV. An old movie lit up the screen. Across the bottom, in large white letters, were the words TORNADO WATCH UPGRADED TO A WARNING.
“Tornado?” I blurted out.
We all practically jumped out of our seats.
Now Mr. and Mrs. Romney were standing at the window, looking at the band of clouds. “It sure looks like it,’ Mr. Romney murmured. “Well, Watson, old buddy, we Oklahomans sure know how to welcome out-of-towners, huh?”
“This is no time to joke,” Mrs. Romney said, running to lift Isabella from her high chair. “A warning is very serious. Let’s take shelter.”
Andrew’s little face crumpled. “Are we going to get blowed away?”
“Just like Dorothy — dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-deeeeee-dee!” David Michael sang, in his best attempt at Miss Gulch’s theme from The Wizard of Oz.
“Do you have a cellar?” Karen asked.
“No,” Mr. Romney said, quickly clearing the table. “We’ll have to use the bathroom. Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Mrs. Brewer lifted Andrew off his seat. “We’re using the bathroom together?” he asked.
“Not that kind of using the bathroom!” Karen exclaimed. “We have to hide from the twister!”
“WAAAAAAHHHHHH!” cried Isabella.
“WAAAAAAHHHHHH!” cried Andrew.
Into the bathroom everyone ran. Except me. I was staring out the window. At the greenish cloud cover.
It was now like a thick, dark blanket across the sky. Four pointy, twitching funnels were growing downward from it, as if four giant, gray puppies were sitting above the clouds and their waggly tails were poking through.
One of the ones in the middle was growing longer and longer. I could hear a noise now, a low rumble like an approaching freight train.
“Abigail!” shouted Mrs. Brewer’s voice from inside.
“Come on!” That was Mr. Romney. He took me by the elbow and firmly guided me away from the window. Under his left arm were two large pillows from the living room sofa. In his hand was a portable radio. “You’re in the worst place! If it hits — or comes close — the windows might blow inward!”
We raced toward the bathroom. “What’s that noise?” I shouted.
“The twister!”
“You’re kidding!”
Mr. Romney didn’t answer. But he had a definite not-kidding look on his face.
I was about to ask him about the pillows. But I heard a fit of hysterical giggling from inside the bathroom.
Mr. Romney pulled open the door. The bathroom was huge. Watson was sitting on the closed toilet with Karen in his lap. David Michael, Jessi, and Mallory were cross-legged on the floor, howling with laughter.
Andrew and Isabella were in the bathtub. Mrs. Romney and Mrs. Brewer were busily stuffing pillows, cloth diapers, and fluffy towels all around them.
“Here are two more pillows,” said Mr. Romney. “I opened up a couple of windows.”
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“To equalize the air pressure inside and out,” Mrs. Romney replied.
“Weeeeeee!” Andrew squealed, tossing a rubber ducky in the air.
“Geeee!” burbled Isabella, who was strapped into a small baby seat.
“What is going on here?” I asked.
“Since we don’t have a basement, the bathroom’s the safest place in the house,” Mr. Romney explained. “The metal plumbing strengthens the walls. The tub and the pillows protect the young ones.”
RRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM!
David Michael stopped laughing. His face paled. “That’s the tornado?”
Mr. Romney nodded gravely.
“Tornadoes can pick up cars and animals and sometimes houses,” Karen announced. “They can blow a piece of straw clear through the trunk of a tree, like an arrow.”
“Is that true?” David Michael asked.
“Well …” Mr. Romney sighed uneasily. “Yes. More or less. If it’s severe.”
No one was laughing anymore.
David Michael’s eyes were watering. “Mommy?” he said in a tiny, fragile voice.
Mrs. Brewer sat next to him and he slipped into her lap.
Mr. Romney flicked on the radio.
“… Cool, springlike air has combined with high winds to create the updrafts,” crackled an announcer’s voice. “We have several unconfirmed funnel sightings, and one F1 twister has been confirmed. If you are outside in the affected area, head indoors or to the nearest hidey-hole?—”
“Hidey-hole?” Watson said.
“Underground shelter,” Mr. Romney explained.
“What do we do now?” Jessi asked.
Mr. and Mrs. Romney exchanged a glance.
“Nothing much we can do,” Mrs. Romney replied softly, her hand holding Isabella’s seat. “Nothing except sit tight and hope.”
“What are you writing?” Mary Anne whispered.
I flicked off my flashlight. “Nothing. Just the journal.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! howled the coyote.
“He’s coming closer,” I said.
“If we feed him, do you think he’ll quiet down?” asked Dawn.
I gulped. “Feed him? Who’s going to be first course?”
“I think coyotes are vegetarians,” Dawn remarked.
“Too bad we didn’t bring some seitan in a doggy bag from the Mall of America,” I said.
“Claudia, will you please be quiet?” Stacey groaned from her bunk.
I gritted my teeth.
Those were the first words Stacey had said to me all day.
Our lives were in danger. We might be attacked by a pack of nonvegetarian wolves any minute. More than ever in our lives, we needed to band together. And all Stacey could do was scold me about interrupting her beauty sleep?
Grrrr. I was not going to give her the dignity of an answer.
For about the millionth time, I looked out the window in the direction Mr. Schafer had gone. In the dim light of a nearly full moon, I could make out the dark ribbon of road that wound between the surrounding rocks.
“I wish it were pitch-black out there,” I remarked. “The moonlight makes all these crater things look alive.”
“Maybe we slipped into a ti
me warp,” Dawn said, “and we’re back in the prehistoric days. Maybe that’s why Dad can’t find us. He went into the present or something….”
“Dad?” called Jeff groggily.
“Sssshhh,” Dawn said. “Go back to sleep.”
Jeff sat bolt upright. “It’s not a dream, is it?”
“SSSSSHHHH!” Dawn repeated.
“Why are you shushing? Nobody can hear us!” I said.
“Listen!” Dawn insisted.
I shut my mouth. In the distance I heard a faint hissing noise. Rattlesnake, I figured. Terrific. Just what we needed.
But as the sound grew louder, it became much more familiar.
“Is that a car?” That was Kristy, finally stirring from her sleep.
It was a car. I could see it now, headlight beams cutting through the darkness, vanishing and reappearing around the rock formations.
“He did it!” I shouted, pushing the door open.
“Claudia, shut it!” Kristy said. “You don’t know that’s him!”
RRRRRRRRRRRR!
The siren nearly made me jump through the roof.
A police car pulled up alongside the RV. The rear door flew open.
“Anybody home?” a familiar voice called out.
“Dad!” Dawn and Jeff screamed. They were out the RV door in a second.
Now Stacey was finally awake. We all stepped out of the RV, hugging ourselves against the cold.
Mr. Schafer must have asked, “Are you okay?” about a hundred times. He was trying not to look worried, but even in the dark I could see he was.
Boy, were we relieved. We could not stop chattering and asking questions. As we talked, two police officers went around to the trunk of their squad car, pulled out huge plastic containers of gasoline, and began filling the RV gas tanks.
“Sorry that took so long,” Mr. Schafer said. “We lost our way there, and then all the stations were closed, and we had to find — oh, never mind. I’ll tell you all about it in the next town. I’m taking everybody out for a late dinner!”
“Yyyyyyesss!” Jeff shouted. “I’m starving!”
The officers guided us through miles and miles of badlands. We finally arrived at a town called Wall.
As we cruised down Main Street, we passed a long, flat building with signs that read WALL DRUG STORE/CAFE/SHOPS. Farther on I spotted a couple of antique stores and art galleries. All of them were closed, but the police led us to a family restaurant that was still serving.
I have never eaten so well in my life. But I knew exactly where we had to go the next morning.
* * *
Guess what? The Wall Drug Store is world-famous. And it should be. It’s sort of a cool, old-fashioned Wild West mall, without chain stores. We ate a fabulous breakfast there and browsed afterward.
But the place I liked best was an antique shop up the road. I wandered over there by myself and found a collection of dusty old paintings in the back.
Some of them were ugly — horses painted on velvet and stuff like that. But other paintings were much nicer, and I came across a few exquisite charcoal sketches.
I almost passed up the best one because someone had put it in a horrible, fancy gold frame.
But the sketch caught my eye. It was a skull with horns, a bull or longhorn or antelope. Whoever drew it must have been a fan of one of my favorite artists, Georgia O’Keeffe. Her paintings of skulls are famous. The pencil strokes, the angles, the perspectives were very much like hers. I’ve tried to imitate them, too, but this artist had done a better job. It wasn’t the real thing, but I liked it. Despite the frame.
“How much is this?” I asked the owner.
He gave a quick glance and said, “I’ll let you have it for two bucks. Frame’s pretty valuable.”
I dug my hands into my pockets and came up with a dollar and some change. “Maybe I can take it without the frame?” I suggested.
The owner smiled. “Aw, I wouldn’t do that to you. Just give me one dollar. It’s been sitting around here forever. It might as well find a home.”
“Thanks!” I gave him the dollar and carried my new treasure outside. I looked around for a Dumpster or something, where I could ditch the frame.
“There you are!” Stacey was halfway down the block, marching toward me with a big scowl. “We have been looking all over for you! We’re supposed to go to that mammoth bone place. I knew you’d be out here collecting junk!”
“It’s not?—”
“Will you come on now, before Mr. Schafer has a heart attack?” Stacey spun around and stalked away, toward the Wall Drug Store. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “And don’t think you’re going to fit that hideous monstrosity in the RV, either!”
I nearly threw it at her.
“There she is! The Wicked Witch!” David Michael exclaimed, pointing toward the frosted bathroom window. “She flew by on her broom!”
Andrew looked horrified. “She did?”
“Yup. And a cow and a house and a white RV and?—”
“Da-a-a-ad!” Andrew pushed away pillows and tried to climb out of the bathtub.
“David Michael, you’re scaring your brother!” Mrs. Brewer scolded.
“I was just trying to cheer him up?—”
The room suddenly shuddered. We all fell silent.
I heard a thump and a crash upstairs.
Mr. Romney cringed. “I didn’t like that lamp anyway.”
CRRRRACK!
That was from outside. Isabella started screaming. I grabbed Abby’s hand on my right, Mallory’s on my left. The wind seemed to be pounding on the bathroom walls.
“Are we going to be lifted into the air?” Karen asked.
“No,” said Mr. Romney’s voice. (I hope not, said his face.)
I thought of all the tornado damage I’d seen on news reports. The flattened homes, the tossed cars, the desperate people. The images had always seemed so far away. I wondered if my family was watching the news right now, knowing I was here, worrying, wondering….
What a way to go. In a twister. After all those generations. Surviving the plantation. Moving North …
“Jessi?” Abby said. “Could you stop squeezing so hard?”
I loosened my grip. Abby and I exchanged a tense smile.
That was when I began hearing the rain. It was batting loudly against the house.
But the freight train noise was becoming softer. And the wind was no longer screeching.
“We have reports of property damage in Lester,” droned the radio, “where one funnel has taken a sudden easterly course toward Buckland….”
“East?” David Michael blanched. “Isn’t that where Stoneybrook is?”
“Ssshhh!” Watson put his finger to his mouth, listening intently.
“… still working to confirm other sightings. Conditions remain highly unstable. Stay indoors and listen to this station for further information.”
We had to stay in the bathroom another half hour or so before we could leave.
When the tornado warning was finally lifted, Mr. Romney raced out of the bathroom. Abby, Mallory, David Michael, Karen, and I followed him through the house and out the front door.
“Oh my lord …” Abby said with a gasp.
At the end of the block, draped over a tree, was a roof.
Yes, a roof. Or at least the shingles from it, still stuck together but now twisted by the tree branches.
Next door, a smaller tree had toppled onto the lawn. “That was the cracking noise, huh?” I said.
Mr. Romney nodded. “Thank goodness it was only an F1.”
“What does that mean?” Karen asked.
“That’s one on a scale of zero to five,” Mr. Romney explained. “One is classified as weak.”
“That was weak?” Mallory said. “What’s F5 like?”
Mr. Romney chuckled. “You don’t want to know.”
* * *
We had no more twisters that afternoon. But we could not stop talking about them. All through
our ice-cream sundae dessert, Karen kept thinking she saw funnel clouds outside.
We were in a great mood as we left. Practically silly with relief.
“‘Bye!” we all yelled.
“Gaaaaaah,” said Isabella.
“We’ll miss you, Isabella!” Mallory cried.
“Thank you, buddy,” Watson said.
“Don’t be strangers,” Mr. Romney replied. “And don’t worry, Ten Gallon is just outside Tornado Alley!”
Tornado Alley, by the way, is the region where twisters are most likely to hit. Ten Gallon, Texas, was our next stop. The home of the Walkin’ Tall Rodeo.
The moment we took off, David Michael was chattering about it nonstop. “When they pick a kid out of the stands, I’m going to jump on that bronco!” he declared. “Yippee-ai-o-ki-ay!”
“How do you know they will pick a kid from the stands?” Karen asked.
David Michael ignored the question. “Ride ’em, cowboy! Pow! Pow!”
We were all exhausted when we pulled into an RV park just outside Ten Gallon, but David Michael didn’t fall asleep until after midnight.
We were awakened by a “YAHOOOOO!” the next morning (courtesy of you-know-who).
“It is not ‘yahoo,’ David Michael,” Karen grumbled. “Out West they say ‘yee-hah.’”
“YEEEEE-HAAHHHHH!”
After breakfast in a local diner, we headed straight for the rodeo.
We had to park at least a quarter mile away. Vendors were selling ten-gallon hats by the side of the road, and of course, we each bought one. David Michael yahooed and yee-hahed and yippeed his way to the gate.
Outside the rodeo was a kind of midway, full of Wild West-themed booths and a mechanical horse. But we went past it and into the stands.
We found some sitting space near the top. As we settled in, an older man next to us nudged his family over a bit.
“Thanks,” Watson said.
“This is my first rodeo!” David Michael exclaimed. “Yee-hah! Where are the broncos and bulls?”
The old man chuckled and pointed across the ring. “Calf roping’s the first event. See the calf in that chute?”
The “chute” was more like a tiny cage. Inside it was a cute little brown-and-white calf. It was mooing pathetically and looking very nervous. Nearby, in a gated wooden pen, a man in cowboy garb was saddling up a horse.