Audacious August Author: Post 6!!!

Hey everyone!! Here is post number 6!  Sorry I haven't been posting as often, school has just started and things have gotten busy.  I will try to post as much as I can on the weekends, however.  Thanks for sticking with me!

Sunday

Chapter Five

            A loud, resounding knock bellowed through the house, almost as if it was empty.  Nana, however, was on her reclined armchair in front of the cracked TV, weeping over a soap opera, a plate of lunch beside her.  A half-eaten, wheat BLT sat on the blue plate, next to a pile of yellow crumbs from her potato chips.  Her glass of iced tea sat on the side table next to her.

            I, on the other hand, was cleaning up the kitchen, doing my laundry, and trying to get Nana’s dinosaur computer to load my history homework resource website.  When I heard the knock, I gave an open patch of counter one last swipe, threw the rest of my laundry from the washer into the dryer, and kicked the hard drive of the computer.  Then I hurried to the door and found Alice and Charles awaiting me.

            Alice was wearing a baby blue dress with tank top straps and a pair of navy blue flats.  Her ringlet hair was tied back in a blue bow, a few ringlets spilling over her shoulders.

            Charles was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a plaid shirt.  He looked happy to see me.

            “Ready to go?  We were thinking a movie,”  Alice piped up, smiling.  I looked back at Nana who hadn’t heard the knock and then back at my friends.  Nana had said not to hang out with Charles…but what if I was hanging out with Alice and Charles just happened to come along?  I tossed the dish towel on the couch and darted to my room.  I shoved my feet into their sneakers, grabbed a wool jacket, and dug through my wallets to come up with a few dollar bills.

            “Bye Nana,”  I said, kissing her on the cheek.  “Going out with Alice.”  Nana barely looked up at me, but limply waved and refocused her attention on the split screen.

Walking down the street, the refreshing afternoon air flooded my senses and the happiness of being able to have some me time got all up in my head.

            “I’m so glad you could finally come,”  Alice chattered on, bouncing next to me and Charles.

            “Where should we go?”  Charles asked.

            “We could go to the theater for a movie or we could get a bite to eat,”  Alice suggested.

            “I just ate,”  Charles commented.

            “Hey!  Let’s go to that club Ms. Callick was seen at last week,”  Alice joked.

            “Club?!  Ms. Callick was at a club?!”  I responded.  Ms. Callick was our science teacher, uptight and boring.

            “Yeah!  It was so funny because…”

I slipped into the house around five o’clock in the afternoon, full of sweets, a good movie on my mind, and zero dollars in my pocket.  I had had a good afternoon, if I could just get through Nana, all would be good.

            I kicked off my shoes and slid out of my jacket as I tip toed to my bedroom.  Putting away my things, I smoothed down my hair and walked into the kitchen, but Nana wasn’t there.  I poked my head towards the back screen door and slyly looked through the mesh material on the door.  There was Nana again, but she wasn’t just standing looking at her garden.  Nana was on her knees by her broken down, unkempt vegetable garden, with a rusty hand shovel clutched in her hand.  Nana was in black sweat pants and a long white pajama top.  A yellow headband swooped up her head, catching beads of sweat that dripped.

            I watched in amazement as I saw Nana working.  She was excavating a hole and it looked like by the huge pile of dirt to the side, she had been doing so for a while.  Many little holes were dug in rows all around her garden, but it looked like with every new hole she dug, another hole started to fill up.

            I stepped out slowly, closing the door behind me.  I could see Nana breathing hard, obviously tired.  Quickly, I returned to the house and filled a tall glass with ice cold water.  I carefully brought it back outside and approached Nana.

            “Nana?”  I piped up, holding the glass.  Nana whirled around, flinging dirt as she went.  Dodging the flying dirt, I smiled at Nana.

            “Hell,”  Nana gruffly growled.

            “It looks good out here,”  I commented, setting down the glass of water to help Nana up on her feet.

            “Don’t you dare,”  Nana snapped.  “Don’t you lie for me.  This looks like hell and you god damn know it.”  Nana chucking the reddish brown shovel in the vegetable garden and jugging the water.

            “Nana, really!”  I said, laughing.  Nana glared at me as she drank her water, but I could tell her eyes loosening up and lighting up.

            “The holes…”  I started.  “They look…dug.”  I snorted before I began laughing with no end.  Nana put down her glass and crinkled her nose at me.  Her lips formed a tight smile and she snickered to herself a little, then looked at her work, and laughed a lot.  And we just stood there, laughing and looking at the pathetic yard we were in.

            “Do you want to fix it up?”  I asked soberly.

            “Tammy, there’s no way.  This yard is what it is.  I tried, but look at me…”

            “But, I could help you, Nana—“ I tried, hoping this would motivate Nana to get back up and going.  Nana waved me away though.

            “No, Tammy,”  she said firmly.  “It’s a lost hope.  Go on in.”

            “Nana, I really think—“

            “Hell, Tammy!”  Nana snapped.  “Go inside, we aren’t fixing up any yard or doing any…any home improvement.  You damn well know I’m not capable of anything these days.”  Something had struck her.  I opened my mouth to say something but Nana gave me a pointed look and held up her wrinkled hand.  She pointed to the screen door.  I turned and went inside, hearing Nana’s slow, heavy footsteps behind me.

            “Where were you this afternoon?”  Nana asked gruffly, a bit of a distance behind me.

            “…with Alice.  I told you, remember?”  I replied, wincing at the thought of the conversation.  Not with the religion and marriage talk again.

            “I remember,”  Nana growled, noisily shutting the screen door. I could hear her panting.  The walk must have been hard for her.

            “Nana, do want some water?”  I questioned, turning around to see the exhausted Nana.  Usually, Nana would stand right by the door, not all the way by the vegetable garden.  The walk was longer than Nana was use to.

            It was then did I realize how much of a jam Nana was in.  She was deteriorating, but her life wasn’t.  Life was moving and changing too fast for Nana to catch up and then, Nana was left behind without a rope to grab hold to.

            I would help her.  I would help Nana to catch up with her fast-moving life.  Teach her to cook, fix up her garden, get her a membership to the Rec Center gym, take yoga classes with her, teach her to paint, register classes for her at the nearby senior home, and maybe even set up an online dating profile for her.  Nana would be so much happier if she could do things and be with people beside herself and me.  I knew it.  I mean, who wouldn’t want all that anyway?  It wouldn’t be that hard, anyway.  If Nana wanted it enough, which she would, Nana would be renewed in no time.

            I started to tell Nana my idea, when her own words cut at mine.

            “I told you, you couldn’t be with Charles anymore,”  Nana stated adamantly, looking me fiercely in the eyes.

            “I said I was with Alice…”  I half-told-the-truth.

            “But you were with Charles, as well,”  Nana responded, hobbling over to the living room.

            “How did you know?  You weren’t even facing the door,”  I protested.

            “Tammy, I know you would more likely lie to me about who you were hanging out with than tell someone you couldn’t hang out with them anymore,”  Nana said, placing herself in the center of the sofa by the cracked TV.

            “So you understand.  You understand that I can’t just break off a friendship with someone that I’ve had since elementary school because of…religion,”  I returned, happy where the conversation was going.

            “I understand, but I still don’t approve or agree,”  Nana said, reaching for the remote.  “Damn, I wish the tornado hadn’t cracked the television.”  I bit my lips and hid my face in case they would give me away.  Nana had never asked about the TV, so why would I tell her I kicked it and broke it?  I might as well just avoid another argument, right?

            “Why don’t you like Christian people?”  I pressed, meshing my mouth.

            “I never said I don’t like Christian people,”  Nana replied calmly, flipping through the channels.

            “Then why won’t you let me hang out with Charles?”  I snapped.

            “Hanging out with boys of different religions is dangerous to family conflict,”  Nana responded.

            “That’s ridiculous!”  I snorted, baffled.

            “I would know, Tammy.  Pop was Christian before we got married and…you know what?  I don’t need to explain to you, Tammy.  What I say, goes,”  Nana replied firmly.

            “You aren’t Ma,”  I replied, quietly, hoping she wouldn’t hear.

            “Excuse me?”  With no avail.

            “You aren’t Ma or Pa,”  I replied, suddenly getting angry.  Why couldn’t I hang out with who I wanted?  Times were different than when Nana was dating.  I could do what I wanted!

            “Nana,”  I began, “Charles is my friend.  He has been for years and he’s always been there for me.  He takes vocal lessons just like me, we have things in common.  We probably won’t get married, in most minds that know us as friends, would think of the possible idea as twisted and almost wrong, actually.  Charles and Alice and I are all friends, therefore, Nana….” I took a deep breath, awaiting the wrath that would follow my comment.

            “What’s that, Tammy?”  Nana asked, mocking me.

            “You can’t tell me what to do.”  I shut my eyes closed and sucked in a giant breath that stopped up my nose for a little.  When I didn’t hear a noise, I opened one eye and squinted at Nana.  She was looking at and fingering the remote.  She looked soundlessly mad.

            “Nana?”  I asked after a few good moments had passed.

            “I took you in, Tammy.  You had no where else to go,”  Nana replied softly with punch to the end of her words.

            “I had no choice,”  I said.  “I don’t want to be here, anyway.”  Nana’s head snapped up and she looked at me closely, no anger tinted in her eyes.  Curiosity, it seemed.

            “You don’t?”  Nana asked incredulously.

            “No,”  I began once more, seeing that I had her in my grip.  “You have kept me from a lot of things these last month or so.  I’m falling behind in painting class because I haven’t finished paintings.  Why?  Because I’m running around doing your tireless errands day and night.  Then, I don’t practice any of my voice assignments because you can’t hear the TV when I do.  So, you know where I sing?  While I’m walking to get you Bacon Pockets,”  I spat.  I realized what I had said.  The anger that I felt that had been kept in me for a while, whether it was because I had no parents or if it was because Nana kept me slaving around for her all the time, or even a combination of both, I didn’t know.  But I knew it felt good to let it out.

            It seemed that all ideas about helping and advancing Nana through life had slipped from my mind.  She obviously didn’t welcome new ideas or changes well.  Nana was rooted in the past.  She could stay there for all I cared.

            “Well,”  Nana choked, stretching her neck and looking at the remote.  “I, uh…didn’t think living with me would be such a burden, but maybe…that’s why I…um…don’t get out much.”  Suddenly feelings of regret which I knew I would eventually have flooded my brain and body.

            “Nana, I didn’t mean—“      

            “No,”   Nana interrupted, pumping up the TV volume.  “You’re right, honey.  I need to be less high-maintenance.”

            “Nana…I’m sorry—“

            “Don’t you need to catch up on your paintings?”  Nana cut me off again, turning towards the window.  I sighed, feeling awful.  I turned and went to my room.

            In my room, I sat at my desk, my head down on the top.  Out of nowhere then, the world seemed to collapse.  The once in a while feeling of claustrophobia grabbed my throat and my head began to throb.  I didn’t know why, all I knew was that it hurt and I felt dizzy.  I yanked my head up, punched the books to my right to the floor, and relished the moment where the sound of their slamming drop echoed through my room.  I hoped Nana heard it.  I hoped Ma and Pa heard it.  I hoped Tornado Kylie heard it loud and clear.

            “Nana, let me help you with those peas,”  I said, coming up behind Nana and taking the hot bowl of cooked peas from her mitted hands.

            “Don’t patronize me, Tammy,”  Nana barked, grabbing the peas back from me and sliding them onto the wooden table.

            “I wasn’t,”  I protested, catching a few of the lingering peas that tumbled out of the bowl.  “You looked like you needed help.”  Nana didn’t say anything, but sat down at her usual spot at the table and dished some food from the selection sitting at the table.

            While I was in my room, lamenting and agonizing, Nana had been out in the kitchen for a whole hour, heating up a Mara Cassider dinner pouch and a bag of peas.  In the whole hour it had taken her to do that, the table wasn’t set, and the packages were not even thrown out.  When I came out of my room to make dinner and saw that Nana was already attempting to do so, I began to quiz her.  How long did it take?  What are you making?  How could you read the directions without glasses?  And Nana had answers.  An hour.  Peas and packaged chicken and rice.  I guessed on the directions.

            The dinner was silent and awkward.  We hadn’t said anything to each other for the whole day after our impasse.

            “I have painting class on Tuesday, Nana,”  I tried, hoping something could be resolved.  I was angry, but maddening silence bothered me more than anything.

            “Fine.”  She didn’t look at me, she stabbed the still half-frozen peas with her unwashed fork.

            “What are you going to do tomorrow?”  I tried again.

            “I don’t know.”  Nana’s words were clipped and curt.

            “Can we talk about something, Nana?”  I persisted, almost begging that time.

            “About?”

            “I don’t know!”  I whined.  “We always talk at dinner.  It’s weird.”

            “Why don’t you tell that to your unfinished paintings and tired feet from working for me all the time.”

            “Nana, it came out wrong,”  I said.  “I’m not over Ma and Pa yet, you know, and…my anger and sadness comes out in all different ways.  This time, out on you.  I’m sorry,”  I explained.

            “You’re lying,”  Nana accused me, looking up from her plate.  Her beady black eyes narrowed in on my face.  “This was completely different, a whole different issue.  You may not see Charles.  He is Christian, you are Jewish.  Getting involved with religious men who don’t share your same beliefs can cause you to be…oh, I don’t know!  Disowned?  Left nothing?  Neglected?”  I listened in amazement at Nana’s rant.  She was talking from her heart now, from her own experience.

            “But, I‘m not religious myself,”  I said.

            “But he is!  And that is all that matters.  If you get involved with Charles, I will not disown you, but what if Charles’ family disowns him?  You will be the cause and, believe me child, you do not want that on your shoulders.”  I could hear Nana’s heavy, panting breaths.

            “Did something like that happen to you and Pop?”  I quietly asked.  I stared down at my plate, hoping for an answer and not an outburst.

            “That isn’t your business,”  Nana snapped softly.

            “Why isn’t it?”  I asked, finding myself urging and yearning to know.

            “It just isn’t.  Do the dishes, won’t you?”  Nana replied.  “Don’t go shopping tomorrow, by the way.  I got my home delivery grocery truck to start coming here again.”

            Sighing, I said, “Nana, I don’t mind shopping for you.”

            “Doesn’t matter, I’ve already reordered for it.  That way tomorrow, you can catch up on your paintings for class on Tuesday.  If the dishes aren’t too much to ask of you right now, would you just do them?”  Nana responded, getting up from the table and heading towards the hall.

            “You aren’t going to watch TV?”  I questioned, cleaning up my dish and Nana’s.

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ABC 123,

                Maddie :)

Audacious August Author: Post 3!!!

Post 4!!!

After the initial shock was over and we needed a few more moments to regroup, Charles and I wandered around the flattened patio, picking up parts of objects that had been spit out by the tornado as it rolled along.  We found half of car tire, what looked like part of a Lazy Susan, a couple of pieces of straight lumber, rope, green glass from beer bottles, clear glass from windows, and a piece of a metal fender.

            “Do you know what this is?”  Charles called from across the grounds.  He was bent down, peering at the floor.

            I walked up to him and looked down at the debris Charles had found.  A misshapen, squishy piece of something, lay flat on the ground in front of us.  It was pale, slightly pink and pretty tiny.  The edges were lumpy, tints of red outlining the ends.

            “Food?”  I suggested.

            “Doesn’t look edible,”  Charles said and flipped it over.  It looked almost identical on the other side. 

            “What does it feel like?”  I asked, crouching down further to get a better look at it.

            “Like…like…”  Suddenly Charles’s face went hazy, his eyes glazed over a little, and his cheeks flushed white.  He looked sick.

            “Charles?”  I asked, helping him to stand up.  I put my hand on his back, looking at him closely. 

            “It felt like….skin,”  he said.  My hand dropped from his back and my stomach started to churn.  I glanced at the object again, but quickly looked away again.  I walked away.  I walked past the flesh and hurried towards the end of the patio, hoping I’d be able to navigate through the second mess of debris. 

            “Tammy!”  Charles’s shaky voice called after me.  “Where are you going?”

            “I have to see if my family is okay!”  I called back, not looking back.  I heard Charles’s feet running after me as I stepped over broken down and caved in walls, ceilings, and doors.  Parts of desks and particles of whiteboards caught my glance as I climbed through and out the shambles which was my school.  I could sense Charles on my heels.

            “I’ll come with you,”  Charles said, climbing over a block of fallen ceiling, avoiding a flickering light fixture.  I didn’t answer, but kept moving.  I knew I was heading in the right direction, towards the front of the school where I could head to my parent’s work and see if they were safe in the building’s cellar.

            Railings, gates, rocks, and trees were toppled over each other, some broken straight down the middle.  The front gate I saw had been tossed back to the first hall of classrooms, completely crushing my sixth grade science teacher’s room.  Close to the front, Charles still following, no thoughts on my mind, I heard the beginning of several footsteps.  The rest of the school had gotten out of the school cellar.  I could not be kept in school, I had to make sure Ma and Pa were all right.  I hoped Pa’s prediction of the tornado’s destiny had changed earlier than mine had, ensuring that him and Ma had gotten in the work cellar, safe and sound.

            Both Ma and Pa worked at a book publishing company, Ma as a secretary, Pa as an accountant.  They walked to work together, they walked home together.  They even worked on the same floor.  They were the Pen Pal Inc. couple.  I knew that Ma and Pa would be sure to meet up before going down to the cellar, making sure the other was okay.  So, I knew it had to be all or nothing.

   

Out of the school, past all the fallen in classrooms and random straights of lumber, Charles and I had another shock coming seeing the other part of the town.  Trees were making home on tireless cars, homes had gone from two story estates to a stair there, a window pane there, the roads were crumpled in, an uneven surface for no one to walk on.

            “Charles,”  I breathed, seeing the horror of my hometown reveal itself before my eyes.  Charles had his sick to his stomach look to him again.

            “My parents would be at our church today…”  Charles said, thinking to himself.

            “Should we meet up later after we go see our parents?”  I asked, my mouth twitching as I tried to think about something other than the catastrophe in front, behind, and all around me.

            “Okay,”  Charles barely replied and so we walked down Main Street where the Farmer’s Market usually was and then departed, me going right, Charles going left.  I hurried along once I left Charles, eager to see if my parents were okay.  I hopped over and around boulders of stuff, blockades of people’s furniture, belongings, and memories.  My shoes cracked a sorts of lumber as I sped along as fast I could.  The streets were deserted, so the crackling of wood echoed in the silence of Luck Mark City, a silence rarely heard.

            Past the center hub by Main Street, down Peppercorn Road, and to the right of the desolate intersection of Main Street and Mustard Avenue, I walked.  My parent’s work was farther from the center of Luck Mark City than most buildings, it was near my school.  Both my school and my parent’s work stood just outside the hub of Luck Mark City.

            Finally I approached Ma and Pa’s workplace, crumbled and crushed.  It was funny that I was able to get to what was left of Pen Pal Inc. with all the road signs gone, my good sense of direction that I had since I was little really came through for me then.

            Shards and shards of glass from the big windows of Pen Pal Inc. spilled out in front of me, coating over rocks and iron wrought gating.  I knew where the cellar was, I had been to my parent’s work before where I explored and scoured the place of all it’s places thoroughly.  The cellar was to the left side of the building by the dumpster.  I had never been inside, but I expected it to be big, spacious, and stocked with safety items.  The big head boss, Joshua Marlinson, was all about safety, being prepared, and organizing his office so dust could not be found within the slightest nook or cranny. 

            I found the door leading to the cellar, it was firmly shut and still in tact.  I got down on my knees, pulled on the door, but couldn’t get it open.  The workers must have still been in there.  I pounded on the cellar door, calling out for Ma and Pa.  As I waited for anyone, I looked around me.  A green road sign bent itself around a toppled over trees, the sign twisted like a lollipop.

            Then I heard the trap door to the cellar unlatch from the inside and the door was thrown upward, very nearly missing my chin.  I stood up, stepped back, and brushed off my dirt-caked knees.  I peered inside the cellar to see Joshua Marlinson on the ladder leading up to the door looking right back at me.

            “Hi there, Tammy,”  Joshua said.  He looked and sounded tired, old and worn out.

            “Are my parents there, Joshua?  I’ve got to see them.  Are they down there?  Are they okay?”  I pressed for answers, trying to get a look of who was down there.  The cellar certainly was spacious and big, like I thought.  It was also packed with safety items.  I saw barrels of salted beans, packages of wool blankets, boxes of wide-tooth combs, piles of feather-spilling pillows, stacks of hard bound books, a basket of freshly picked oranges, apples, and limes, and lastly jugs of freshly stored water, all of which were lining the wood and steel walls.

            Heads poked up, trying to see who I was.  I recognized and personally knew each and every person down there that I could see:  Carly Court, the head editor, Mason Driver, the new intern to Carly, Sheila Setar, the secretary that worked with Ma, Hannah Wrolen, a supplement editor, Terri Toms, the head publisher without a secretary, Todd Childs, the janitor, and many more heads stuffed in the back of the cellar that I couldn’t quite make out.

            “Where’s Ma and Pa?”  I asked, when I didn’t see them right away and Joshua wasn’t answering my questions.

            “Tammy…”  Joshua started, his small eyes watching my forehead.

            “What is it Joshua?  Where’s my Ma and Pa?”  I continued, refusing to look at the intent Joshua.

            “They didn’t come into the cellar, Tammy,”  Joshua told me quietly.  My head felt kind of funny when he said that.  My heart started beating very quickly and I felt my cheeks grow red like when I had to speak in front of the class and said something dumb.

            “But, they’re here somewhere, right?”  I asked, knowing it was hopeless.  They had to be somewhere, right?  Alive, right?

            “We closed the door right after they went up, Tammy.  They weren’t close enough to be saved.”  I turned around and walked away from the cellar.  Joshua called after me, wanting to know where I was going.  I ignored him, hoping he wouldn’t hold it against me later.

            I kept walking past the lollipop sign, past the shredded windows, and went to find my Nana on Coriander Avenue.  I had to walk for a while from Pen Pal Inc. to get to Nana’s house, but I didn’t mind because I needed time to myself.

            Ma and Pa were gone.

            Gone up with tornado, the thing we had no fear of the evening before.  I couldn’t think of anything but what wasn’t there.  No Ma, no Pa.  They literally weren’t there.  There bodies weren’t there.  And I didn’t know where to look.  The tornado could have still been spinning them across town after town.  At light speed, they’d be hurled round and round, hit against parts of trees and buildings and houses.  Tires, planks, ovens, trunks, and fenders could be beating the dead horses.  I didn’t know where they were and I didn’t feel like caring.  It was too much of a thought.  It was an overwhelming, claustrophobic thought, crowding everything else in my brain out through my ears.  Maybe that was why my ears started to ache.

            I could feel tears swelling from the under part of my eyes.  My shoulders started to shake and that awful lumpy feeling in my throat started to push it’s way up.  Cold, cold tears wiggled down my cheeks, against the grooves of my nostrils, and finally dripped off my chin.  They were non stop, eternal, and freezing.  I had cold tears.  Didn’t everyone have hot ones?  Why were mine cold?

            As I walked to Nana’s, I thought of how without Ma, I wouldn’t get oil and vinegar brisket, no homemade scented laundry detergent, no late night snacks of popcorn and caramel.  Without Pa, I wouldn’t have anyone to laugh with over the weather, there would be no cradling with a nice, heavy book read to me, no long walks in the evening just before sun went down with conversations of Pa’s childhood on the farm.  I would be alone.  Would I be homeless?  Who would I live with? ….

Nana.

I would most likely live with Nana.  Unless Nana hadn’t gotten in her cellar in time.  Or unless, Ma and Pa’s will said otherwise.  Would I have to go down to Alabama or Georgia and live with my aunt or uncle, enthralling myself with a new school, a new neighborhood, and new friends?  Would I not see Charles again?  What about my vocal teacher, Marcia?  Would I not take singing lessons anymore?  Where was I headed?

            By the time I had successfully strangled my brain with the tormenting thoughts of no family, no friends, and no home, I had reached Coriander Avenue.  The block was barely beat up, a few cracked windows, tossed to the side cars.  The tornado had been fast, but narrow.  On Nana and my house’s side of town, the tornado barely brushed us, blowing up a few things here and there.  Even my school didn’t get the worst of it.  Charles and I were lucky no to be swallowed up, seeing that we weren’t even underground.  Pen Pal Inc. was probably one of the few buildings in Luck Mark City that got a good, hard beating from it.

            Coming up to Nana’s ugly blue and modest house, I went around back, forcing my through the rigged chain link fence to find the cellar.  The underground cellar was in the backyard on the side of the house.  When I got there, the white cellar doors were shut firmly, the latch not moving a centimeter.  Just like most of the workers of Pen Pal Inc., Nana was safe and sound in her cellar.

            I bent down to pound on another cellar.  Then, did I realize I was still crying.  I saw the drips rain down on the dirty cellar doors.  It was funny to cry when you didn’t know it, funny to cry without a thought in your mind.  But, if I didn’t have any thoughts, why was I crying?

            “Is it gone?!”  a shrill voice shrieked from underneath the cellar doors.  The voice bounced around the neighborhood, the only tone being out.  Every other citizen of Luck Mark City was too afraid to come out just yet, the usual bustling town was desolate, quiet, eerie.

            “Nana!”  I yelled, my voice trembling.  “It’s me!  It’s gone!  Ma and Pa aren’t here!  They’re dead!”  It didn’t take long for the cellar doors to open up fiercely.  Nana’s big head come up through the opening, already soaked with tears.

            “What the hell do you mean?”  she barked, glaring at me.  Her tears looked warmer than mine, gray instead of clear.

            “Joshua from Pen Pal Inc. said they didn’t come into the cellar,”  I tried to explain, but my voice couldn’t keep steady.

            “Speak, Tammy!”  Nana snapped at me, heaving as she climbed out of the cellar from her breaking wooden ladder.

            “They’re dead, Nana.  They didn’t get in the cellar, they got sucked up,”  I repeated, choking on some of the tears that fell into my mouth.

            “You have dirt on you and you’re neck is bleeding,”  Nana said, pressing her rough thumb to my throat.  “You got into the cellar, didn’t you?”

            “Well, no….Charles and I didn’t get a chance to.  We went into the basement instead,”  I replied, wishing Nana would stop fingering my neck.  Her fingers were chaffing and hard against my whipped neck.

            “You didn’t?”  Nana questioned, not seeming to want an answer.  Her hands dropped from my neck and she let out a sigh.

            “Nana?”

            “Are you sure they aren’t anywhere?”  Nana asked me, kicking shut her cellar doors.

            “Joshua saw them go up,”  I said, suddenly getting an overwhelmed feeling of grief.  Nana remained quiet, she seemed speechless, even at a loss for thought.  She walked toward her house, hurling a broken potted plant with her foot.  Following her, I felt my knees grow weak, tired, and hopeless.  Why didn’t Nana say anything?

            “My house looks fine,”  Nana commented, trudging up the cement block steps to her back door.  “I suppose your is, too.”

            “I haven’t…I haven’t….”  I couldn’t speak.

            “Get inside,”  Nana growled, opening the sliding screen door.

            “Nana, aren’t you sad?”  I dared to inquire as I stepped inside the house.

            “I don’t want to talk about this, Tammy.  Go to your room,”  Nana ordered, slamming the door shut.

            “My room?”  I asked, confused.  I didn’t live with Nana…yet.

            “Did you have trouble hearing?”  Nana barked.  “Your room.”  When she saw my continued blank face, her lips crinkled and her eyebrows narrowed.

            “The guest room is now you room,”  Nana snapped pointing past the messy living room and down the hallway.

            “Nana…don’t you think we should try looking for—“     

            “Tammy!”  Nana belted.  “Your Ma and Pa are gone!  You said so yourself, sucked up, swallowed down, taken away!  They aren’t coming back, they’re dead!  This town has been hit hard and fast.  Luck Mark City is ruined!”  Nana fell down on her newspaper covered sofa and leaned back against a few throw pillows.  Nana’s tears fell fast then, her shoulders shaking like an earthquake.  She hid her face in her weak hands, her elbows resting on her knees.

            Nana was right, though.  Ma and Pa were gone, and even though Nana’s house hadn’t been hit too hard, Luck Mark City just wasn’t the same.  A tornado like the one that had just came hadn’t been seen in Luck Mark City for years.

            I sat next to Nana and put my fingers to my quivering lips.  They trembled, catching my tears as they shivered.

Thanks for reading!

ABC 123,

               Maddie :)

Audacious August Author: Post 2!!

Hi everyone!
  Here is post 2!! I hope you liked post 1!!!

The Tornado

Chapter Two

At school the next day, I found Charles so we could have lunch together and then walk to our science class which we both had right after our lunch period.  We sat in one of our teacher’s classrooms, where the school was permitting us to eat due to the “tornado weather.”  Suddenly, Charles asked my about Nana.

            “My Nana?”  I asked.  “What about her?”

            “I’ve handed her things at her house before and she just doesn’t seem to really like anyone.  I’ve given her fliers that she’s thrown at me and other times we went around, my dad handed her fliers instead.  When he gave her something, she ripped it to pieces in front of him.  I wanted to skip her house the next times, but my dad insisted that with a few more words of encouragement, God would accept her.  However, I am the one he makes go up to the house.”

            I laughed and bunched up my plastic bag that had my sandwich crumbs in it.

            “Nana’s like that, but I would skip her next time.  I mean, we’re Jewish.  She probably doesn’t want paper in her house that’s not of her religion,” I said, swallowing the last of my sandwich.

            “I wish I could.  So…I’m guessing you think this whole tornado talk is whack,”    Charles remarked before taking a sip of his orange soda from the cafeteria.

            “Of course I do.  This isn’t tornado weather, me and my dad know it for a fact,”  I replied, using my sleeve as my napkin.

            “Are you sure you know it, Tammy?  I mean, are you sure you aren’t just saying that because you love everything?  I mean, every time a girl says something bad about a bug in class, you immediately raise your hand to say something good that that bug does for us.  Admit it, you love everything, even this tornado weather.”

            “Charles, you know this isn’t tornado weather.”

            “Tammy, knock, knock, open the door!  We’ve been learning about tornado weather since kindergarten and next year, the high school will probably shove the information down our throats again.  This weather is tornado weather; the wind is rough and it hasn’t stopped raining for a minute today.  I mean, some parents are even mad that the school’s making us be here.”

            “We’ll talk when there’s actually a tornado,”  I replied.  Ever since I was little, my dad and I were able to notice changes in weather and if they were good ones or bad ones.  We were always right too.  If a storm went by and our gut feeling was that it wouldn’t damage a thing in the city, the next day the newspapers would report back that not a thing was damaged.  It was just how it worked and we were always accurate.  Charles was right in that I loved a lot of things—well, everything—but when it came to weather, I wouldn’t say tornado weather wasn’t tornado weather if it was just because I didn’t want to hurt it’s feelings.  I wasn’t that extreme.

            “Fine, we’ll talk when there’s actually a tornado.  Anyway, why—“  Charles replied, but another voice overtook his.

            “Oh my goodness!”  a girl’s voice from across the room shrieked.  Everyone turned.  “Look at the sky!  Look at the sky!”  The teacher rushed to the window along with some other students.

            The girl yelled, “The sky is green and black!  The colors of a tornado!”

            “Everyone calm down!”  the teacher shouted over everyone’s screaming and chattering.  I continued sitting with Charles who I could tell was getting nervous.

            “Do you want to look at the sky, Charles?  Do you think a little bit of green in the sky will cause a tornado?”  I asked condescendingly.

            “Tammy, this could be serious.  Why don’t you just give in?”  Charles got up to look out the window.  “Tammy!”  Charles called.  “It’s really green.”

            Suddenly, small debris began to shower down with the eternal rain which got everyone really riled up.  Charles came back to me and told me to get up.

            “No.”

            “Tammy, what if this is real?  I mean, never-ending rain, harsh wind, green sky, and falling stuff?  How is that not a sign of a tornado?”

            “I know when there’s a tornado, Charles.  I just know and this isn’t one,”  I replied, shrugging it off, and remaining in my seat.

            “Everyone to the school  cellar!”  the teacher yelled and ushered all the kids out of the room.

            “Tammy, please!”  Charles begged me, looking from the exiting stampede of kids back to me.

            “Charles, trust me.  This isn’t a tornado that will damage anyone or anything in Luck Mark City,”  I replied, sitting back in my chair to show my ease.

            “So you admit a tornado is coming though,”  Charles asked, his eyes wide and his hands tugging at his sweatshirt anxiously.

            “Everyone out!” the teacher shouted

            “Well…it might hit us, or it might skip over Luck Mark City and go onto the rest of Kansas City.  Since we’re such a small town, the tornado could just bounce right over us.”  I said, bouncing my fingers on my desk as a demonstration.

            “I’m out, Tammy!  Please move!”  Charles screamed, edging toward the door.

            “Kids, get out!”  the teacher repeated at the door.  Everyone else was out of the classroom and it was just me, Charles, and the screaming teacher.

            “Tammy!”  Charles hollered at me as the teacher grabbed Charles’ wrist and dragged him to the door.

            All of a sudden, my gut feeling did a flip-flop.  The tornado was starting to feel like a real bad one.  Increasingly I began to feel worse and worse about the weather situation.  Why had my bad gut predictions been so late?  I bolted out of my seat, grabbed Charles, and yelled, “Out!  Out!  Out!”  The two of us darted down the halls which were completely empty since all the students had already reached the school cellar and turned toward the gym.  In the center of the floor of the basketball gym was the trapdoor, leading to the cellar.  Reaching the door, the teacher right behind us, I yanked at it handle, but the others had already locked it down.  Charles and I banged ferociously on its surface, but the rumbling and roaring of the churning tornado made it impossibly to differentiate the sounds.

            “No!”  I yelled, continuously banging at the cellar door.  There was no way it would open.  The teacher stood there, panic in her eyes.

            “What do we do?!”  Charles shouted at the teacher, but all she did was faint, the thud of her head hitting the floor echoing throughout the gym.

            “Tammy!”  Charles yelled over the thundering of the tornado, coming nearer and nearer.  “What are the chances of the tornado bouncing over us?”

            “Not at all!”  I screamed and grabbed Charles’ wrist once more.  I led him to the sixth grade hall where I had been over two years ago and found my old English teacher’s classroom.  The door was locked, so Charles and I rammed into it at full speed, crashing through it and falling over.  No time to groan about the bruising, Charles and I jolted up and ran to the door on the other side of the room where a door rested, leading to a storage basement.  The sound of the tornado could not have been louder.  It was collecting dust and houses and trees and life as it passed through.  As I yanked open the door to the storage room, I caught a glance of the outside.

            Whirring dust and dirt was literally one foot from the school’s window.  I pushed Charles ahead of me, closed the door behind us, and we raced as fast as we could down the flight of stairs that led us to the basement.  The basement was not as far down, below ground as the cellar, but it was better than being on ground level.  We ducked under the center tables, far from the windows, and held our breath.  As if it were all in slow motion, I watched as the windows gave in, showering glass all over the room, letting in loads of dirt and bits and parts of picked up objects.  Picket fence tops sliced through the air, flinging across the room and hitting the back wall with a tremendous thump.  What looked like outside benches and window panes flew round and round the room, dirt caking the surface of every item in the basement.

            Thinking the assault was over, was just when the spinning started.  My head felt heavy, dizzy, nauseous.  The dirt moved so fast I couldn’t feel my thumbs.  I couldn’t even get a good look at Charles, dirt was everywhere and we were moving too fast around in a circle to make out what anything was.  Finally, I felt like I was dropping, falling.  The spinning stopped and my head had an immediate release of tension.  Dirt slowly removed itself from my line of vision and blinking like there was no tomorrow, I tried to see if Charles was next to me.  I saw the faint twitch of human skin and breathed.  At least Charles was there.  Landing on the other side of the basement, back first, I grunted with the impact.  I heard Charles moan when he hit the floor, as well.

            We hadn’t been that high in the tornado eye since we weren’t knocked unconscious, but I still wasn’t feeling my tops.  I needed a few moments to align the world with my interior and get the feeling back into my body before I could get up, let alone look over to Charles.

            Dozens of minutes passed, me and Charles just lying there, side by side, hoping that our backs would start feeling normal again.  When the numbness from my forehead to my back to my toes ceased and the cricks in my back unknotted themselves slowly but surely, I flopped my lazy head to the side, opening my eyes to get a good look at Charles.  His head was flopped towards me, too, his eyes barely open, but his mouth in a twitchy smile.

            “Are you okay?”  Charles breathed, his mouth moving at a centimeter apart at most.

            “Fine,”  I replied, wiggling my fingers and toes to make sure they still worked.  I bent my elbows and knees and pulled myself up from the ground.  My ankles didn’t feel so great, not quite broken, but more than sprained.  I rolled my neck, and swayed my back.  When all was well, I got to my feet, taking a moment to gather my alignment.  I helped Charles up who seemed generally fine.

            The basement, however, was in ruins.  All the windows were shattered, each chair and table, broken into bits.  Massive rocks clogged up the back wall, the white walls now a nice tan color.  The chairs and tables, completely crushed, a nice gaping hole cut out of the left wall where we were taken up and thrown back into.

Charles and I looked at each other.

            “It took us in,”  I commented, brushing chipped ceiling paint from my shoulder.  Charles stepped over the piles of table legs, chair backs, cracked window glass, and blinds pieces to look out another hole that use to be a window.  I followed him best I could, watching my feet.

            “It’s a fast one,”  Charles remarked, poking his head out the hole.  The brown, spinning monster was spiraling away, down into the distance.  It would be some  other person’s doom soon.  And I felt bad for them.  The wind settled a little, the sky still green as emeralds and dark as the night.  It didn’t look as bad as it did the moment my gut started feeling out of place, but it definitely didn’t seem finished.  The tornado was finished with Luck Mark City, though.  And hopefully, no one was hurt.  Hopefully, our teacher was all right, too.

            “Do you think everyone’s getting out?”  I asked, wanting to see what the rest of the damage looked like.  I started for the stair case, cautiously looking up the steps to see if we’d be able to get through to the classroom door.  Debris barely scattered the red steps, but not enough to block our path.  Charles and I headed up the stairs, taking them slow and steady.

            Tornados were always a rush of adrenaline empowered shock, but that one hit harder than usual.  More debris rained down, everything seemed weighted down, heavy and achy.

            “Charles, I can’t get this door open,”  I said, pushing with all my might on the classroom door, my head twisting the knob hard.  I winced at the pressure I was putting on my ankles.  Panic in his eyes, Charles moved me aside to try himself.  He pushed and pressed, kicking and banging with all his strength.

            “There’s too much…stuff,”  Charles panted, giving up on the door.

            “We can go out the hole, I guess,”  I suggested and seeing that we weren’t going to get out through the classroom door, Charles and I headed back down the staircase and to the window hole.

            “Be careful,”  Charles said softly, stepping outside, the crunch of glass echoing in the distance.  All the damage.  So much damage.  Why had my gut not seen that earlier?  What had happened?  What had gone wrong?  What had been different?

            “Where you do think everyone is?”  I asked, wondering if Charles would bother to answer that time.

            “I bet they aren’t out of the cellar yet,”  Charles responded, pushing through a tangle of trees that usually stood outside the basement, but were now a twisted, deteriorating mess of jungle.  The leaves and stems were still a deep, gorgeous green, the petals of flowers, no matter how torn up, still vibrantly red and pink and white.  Nature was still beautiful, no matter what form it took.  I still loved it no matter how shattered.

            “Should we go find them?”  Charles asked, following behind me.  We pushed our way through the mess of brush and shrubs, warning each other of roots and branches ahead.

            “I guess, but—oh no,”  I said, once I had emerged from the pile of greenery.  Charles came up beside me and we both stood silent.  We were standing where the patio for lunch usually was, but instead what we stood to see was surreal.  A wasteland of nothingness lay out in front of us, only bits and pieces of little things filled tiny parts of the empty space.  The tornado was long gone then, done with Luck Mark City, finished with it, but it definitely had left it’s mark.

            The next day, the news stations would give it a name, count the number of deaths and injuries.  They would report how many houses had been demolished, how many cars, and how many people were missing.  They would interview those how had seen it up close, those who had been twisted up inside it, and finally the scientists who would say how big it had been and since what year a tornado like that had been.  It would be known all over the country, possibly the world.  Money would be sent, crews would come in, and things would start to be rebuilt.  Charles and I and our families would be shoved into shelter homes somewhere far away if our houses hadn’t been destroyed, if our houses hadn’t been spiraled around like our school.

            “Where are the lunch benches?”  Charles questioned, shifting from foot to foot.

            “Ate up by the…tornado,” I answered, shocked.  Luck Mark City had had tornados before, they had been big, too, but none had been like that one.  None had taken down our school, left us without any lunch tables.  None of them had left our city looking like a vacant lot.  All the past tornados had been thrilling, exciting.  Some small ones were even fun to play chicken with, see how close it could get to you before you had to go in the cellar.  One tornado was so little, my dad and I put on swimming goggles and bicycle helmets, stood outside, and hugged each other, waiting to be picked up by the tornado.  I remember squealing when the twister picked us up, spiraling us a little before throwing us back down and prancing off to another city.

            Tornados had always been an Earth game, never a natural disaster.

There it is!!  Day 2!! I really like writing this story!

ABC 123,

               Maddie