Another Kind of Hurricane (3 page)

Henry's legs burned. Good. Pain seared his legs as he turned his bike pedals around and around and around.

Turn, burn. Turn, burn. Turn, burn.

Brae gave up trying to get Henry to leave the driveway and go for a real bike ride; instead, he just loped beside Henry's left leg. Up the long driveway and then back down, turning around and going up, turning around and going down.

At the top of the driveway, Henry stopped. Sweat dripped from his hair and stung his eyes. He didn't want to do it, but Henry couldn't keep from looking at Mount Mansfield. There was nowhere safe to look. The hulking mountain was everywhere. Even through stinging eyes, its edges were sharp, like a picture ripped out of a magazine and pasted against the sky. Henry put his hand in his jeans pocket. He hadn't taken them off since the funeral. Had slept in them. He pulled out the marble. Swirls of blue and green. Flecks of red and orange. He
raised it high above his head, hovering over Mount Mansfield like a perfect moon or perfect sun.

But the marble was nothing like perfect. Neither was the mountain. They were both confusing now. They were both dangerous.

Henry shoved the marble back in his pocket. He wiped the hair out of his eyes and pushed off on his bike. Brae let out a yelp.

“Shoot! Sorry, Brae,” Henry said. He put his foot on the ground. Brae rested his chin on Henry's knee. “I forgot you were there.” Brae stared at him. “I didn't mean to hurt you—”

I didn't mean to hurt you
.

Wayne came crashing into Henry's head like a bolt of lightning.

I didn't mean to hurt you
.

Wayne, Wayne, Wayne
.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut, but he couldn't keep the image from racing in. Wayne's backpack flying down the mountain in front of Henry. Wayne ahead of him in the race. Wayne had longer legs than Henry. Longer strides. Not fair. Henry never beat Wayne.

No, no, no—

Henry's eyes flew open. Brae leaned against the front wheel of his bike. Henry bent down to grip one of his ears. Behind
Brae, against the mountain, Henry saw two flashes of light. What was that? The clouds passing over the sun? Two boys running? Henry was losing his freaking mind. His eyes burned like his legs did. He closed them. He couldn't fight the memory.

—

Henry finally caught up to Wayne and grabbed at the carabiner hanging from Wayne's backpack. He couldn't quite reach, but Wayne felt him. He turned around, laughing. In that split second, Henry pushed past Wayne. His bare arm rubbed the rough trunk of a pine tree as he made a sharp turn on the trail
.

The sun climbed to its feet now, a faint blue light just beginning to spill down on the tree trunks and boulders and ferns. It was so cool the way the sunlight turned everything blue first and then filled in with the rest of the colors. Water on the ferns flashed, like lights on a runway. It was going to be fully sunrise before they were home—Henry knew it. And Mom was going to find out they had spent the night on the mountain, and she was going to be pissed
.

Brae jumped over a rock on the side of the trail and landed in front of Henry. He bounded ahead, the black parts of his fur getting lost in the half-light and his white spots reflecting the sun so that he looked like a colony of blue rabbits hopping down the trail. Henry heard a scraping sound behind him and then a grunt
.

“You okay, Wayne?” he shouted
.

“Yeah,” Wayne shouted back
.

“Good! I'm leaving you behiiiiiiiind—” Henry jumped from rock to rock to rock, and in those split seconds that he was suspended in the air, in those split seconds that the sun was rising higher and higher, and the world was getting brighter and more full of color, Henry felt like he was making the light
.

Henry landed on the trail and kept running. He couldn't hear Wayne's sneakers on the dirt anymore. He'd left him in the dust. Jeezum Crow! That never happened. Brae bounded back up the trail and, at the same time, Henry felt the dirt change to solid rock and then he was at the place where two rock faces met. A wide gap sat between the rocks. He and Brae reached the gap at the same time and they both jumped. Henry's body hung in the air while a surge flowed through him, something warm and fierce, and he felt like he owned the mountain and was a part of the mountain all at the same time
.

He landed and pitched forward. He was going to be a part of the mountain, all right. His face was going to be part of a large, hard rock. Shoot! His backpack flung up around his neck and he almost fell face-first, but he grabbed the trunk of a thin pine tree, regained his balance, and kept running
.

Maybe he would win the race after all! He'd love rubbing that in Wayne's face
.

Bump—

Something jammed him from behind, into the crease behind his knees, and he did fall, his palms smacking against the dirt
.

“What the heck, Brae—” Henry's head was bent down, and Brae pushed his long nose under his arm. Henry shoved him back with his elbow. His hands stung like crazy. Brae whined a low, throaty sound
.

“What?” Henry looked up
.

Brae wiggled out from under Henry's hands and raced back up the trail a few yards, then bounded back again, whining that same awful sound
.

Henry's body began to shake. It was Wayne. All of a sudden, he knew it. Something had happened to Wayne
.

Again and again, Brae ran up the trail and down again, but Henry was frozen. He was a part of the mountain, like a tree that had grown roots deep into the ground. Henry wasn't sure how many times Brae called for Henry to follow him before Henry yanked himself from the earth and, trembling, ran to the gap and jumped it again to find Wayne
.

—

Henry forced his eyes open. His body was doing it again. His arms and legs and hands and feet were frozen. He couldn't make them move. His bike clattered to the ground.

The bike pedal smashed down on his foot.

“Crap!” he yelled.

He yanked it out from under the pedal and kicked the bike. “Stupid bike,” he said. “Stupid mountain. Stupid, stupid, stupid marble.”

He jerked the marble from his pocket, ripping the seam, and threw it. The red and orange specks flashed in the sunlight. Like fire. Like magic. Like luck. Then it hit the ground and the magic was gone. What good was it, anyway? It hadn't protected Wayne. It hadn't saved his life.

And it couldn't save Henry anymore.

The marble was crap. It didn't have one speck of luck in it.

Not for him.

Not for Wayne.

Not anymore.

Zavion and Papa were joined by three other people. An older woman held hands with the man and woman on either side of her and kept her eyes closed. She hummed. Zavion could only barely hear her above the roar of the rain as she hummed a low, slow song. Zavion remembered Mama's funeral, and the long walk from the church to the cemetery. There had been a line of people walking then too, and someone had led the group in the same song. “This Little Light of Mine.” It had been Mama's favorite, but Zavion didn't sing it that day.

Up, not forward. Up, not forward. Up, not forward. Up, up, up
. Zavion chanted this in his head to the rhythm of the grandmama's song.

Up—Up—Up—

If only he could get to higher ground. Solid ground.

For four hours, they slogged through the black water and
pelting rain and tearing wind, and then Zavion saw a small boat paddled by a man in a uniform.

“Looks like a firefighter,” Papa said.

When the man got closer, Zavion could see a gun in a holster around his waist.

“Hallelujah,” said the man who was holding hands with the grandmama. “Can you get us out of this swamp?”

“Sorry,” said the firefighter. “I can't. I want to check to see who all's still stranded behind you.”

“You gotta help us,” said the woman holding the grandmama's other hand.

“I'm sorry,” he said again.

“Take my mama,” said the man. “At least take her.”

The old woman opened her eyes for the first time then. Zavion saw her look at the firefighter, smile a faint smile, and, humming all the while, close her eyes once again.

“Get yourselves out of here,” said the firefighter. “Who knows if the sky will open up again.”

Zavion couldn't imagine more water. That thick, oily taste stuck in his mouth.

“Get to the convention center,” said the firefighter.

“Which way?” asked Papa.

The firefighter pointed ahead. “Forward.”

No—

Up—

Up—Up—Up—

Zavion thought of Mama again. How she had promised to take him to her mountain. Grandmother Mountain.
Up
—
up
—
up—to the top
. To see the view. To see where Mama grew up. She had said they would go in the fall, when the monarch butterflies were there.

“Only we'll be migrating north, not south,” she'd said.

“I'm sorry,” the firefighter repeated. “I'm so sorry.” Then he paddled off in the direction of Zavion and Papa's house.

But there was no house.

Zavion felt in his pocket for the shingles. He laid them flat across both palms. Two shingles was all. But it felt as if he was holding his whole house. It had taken Zavion so long to figure out a way to restore balance after Mama died. And now—his whole house teetered there in his shaking, wet hands.

He closed his fingers around the shingles. He felt the hard, smooth slate. But he also felt wood and nails, his bedroom wall and paint too. Home. He felt home precariously balanced in the palms of his hands. Then he stuffed it all back into his pocket and began to walk again.