Storms like this one make me think of Nana. How she used to say the pines were dancing. Dancing instead of flailing, breaking, blowing over. Maybe onto our house. By house, I mean trailer. I’ve never had four real walls. Wood and plaster. Thick enough to hide our sounds. But my room does have a tiny window and outside it is a tree that has leaves that change colors.
My mom says she never had a window like I do so I’m lucky. That I should hush. No one wants to hear complaining. But she’s not here. She stays a town over so what does she know really. The woman in my head, the voice that tells me it’s alright or it will be. Well it ain’t her. And she knows it.
The wind sounds dangerous like a howling bear. Or what I imagine a howling crazed bear might sound like if he were recreated into the wind. The cable is out, or I’d check the news. Is it a tornado? Dad’s at work and he forgot to pay my cellphone bill so he can’t call. I try to remember what they tell us in school, cover your head, get down low. A ditch maybe.
It’s 6 o’clock. I think about staying in here and I think about leaving. I don’t have a car or bike. I look out the front door. The ferns on the porch are swinging on their plastic hooks. The rain is hitting sideways. If I run fast, I could make it to the highway. There is a ditch on either side. I close the screen and keep looking out. Each trailer is so close I could throw a rock to three right in front of me. The neighbors on the left side are kind of new. The boy goes to my school. His name is Matt. Boring and average. Nothing like him at all. He drives an old Jeep and works at the Piggly Wiggly bagging groceries. I can’t talk to him because his face is too perfect.
It sounds like a train is coming and I feel like I’ve been told before that means the tornado is close. I keep looking out the screen door. The lid of a trashcan blows off and some plastic Walmart bags go flying up into the air. Watching them lift higher and higher makes me feel dizzy. I think I need to look away, but I can’t. Would Nana see all this and still think the pines were dancing? All her things are still in her bedroom, Dad just put them in a box and closed the closet door.
I hear someone shouting over the roaring of the wind. I look around but can’t see anyone. I open the screen and peek out a bit further. It’s the neighbor, the one with the perfect upturned nose, the light green eyes.
“It’s getting really close. You need to get out of there.”
Like an idiot I glance over my shoulder like maybe he is talking to my kitchen counter and not me.
“To where?”
He runs out of the rain and onto my porch. Now he’s a few feet away and reaching for the screen door.
“Come on. You can’t stay in there. These things blow over and get crushed like a damn can. Anyone else inside?”
“No.” He grabs my hand and pulls me out. “Wait. Where we going?”
“Come on. We got to find a ditch.”
The rain stings my skin. It’s coming down hard. We hold hands as we run past a few more trailers. His hand is so much larger than mine and it’s warm. Soft. I don’t see anyone else. The highway is deserted. We jump down into the dirt and he pulls his jacket over the both of us. The wind is louder now, and I think this ditch might not keep us.
I want to look out but I’m facing the grass. I want to see if there are any clouds or funnels. I push back against him a bit and look up. The sky is dark, darker than I have ever seen. Trash is flying up over us.
“Oh my god, was that a piece of metal?”
“Just hold tight. Don’t look.”
I want to tell him that looking is all we got. If we die at least we saw something incredible before we left. His arms are tight around me, but I glance back up and see more random objects flying past. I think about that dream I had once, where a tornado was made of a long braid of hair. How I jumped onto it and held tight as it tore through downtown, hopping over roads and houses. Pieces of hair spinning around me.
It gets louder, and something slams down near where we are. We would look but we can’t unwrap ourselves. What if we float up and into the air too? Like those Walmart bags.
“It will be over soon.” He is so calm. This is the closest I have ever been to a boy. A few more things land near us. I can hear them thud into the dirt, but I’ve stopped wanting to look. I am shaking and I know he can feel it.
After a few minutes it gets quieter and I feel his arms relax a bit. But I wish he would keep holding me tight. Keep his body wrapped around me while all the things we know go flying up and into the dark sky.
