Runaway Twin (9 page)

I ran toward the tree.

Paw prints circled the base of the tree, and my hopes soared, even though I knew they could have been made before the tornado hit.

“Snickers!” I yelled again. “Here I am! Snickers!”

I heard him before I saw him—a soft whimper coming from a patch of corn that was still standing.

“Snickers!” I called, and then he emerged, walking slowly toward me as if it hurt him to move.

I ran to him, and threw my arms around him. Relief flooded through me as he licked my cheek.

I had told Randy I'd find help for him, but it was clear that Snickers was in no condition to travel and I couldn't leave him alone again.

Knowing I was as likely to find help by waiting here for it to arrive as I was by walking any farther with an injured dog, I decided to stay with Snickers until we were rescued, and then I'd direct the rescuers to Randy. Maybe he'd be found first. Search teams would look in the remains of a town before they'd hunt in a cornfield. I should have told him where I would be so that he could send help my direction if he got found before I did.

I sat on the ground, and Snickers lay beside me. The wound on his head had formed a scab, and there was a lump the size of an egg. I didn't touch it. I wished I still had my backpack so that I could give Snickers a drink of water and a dog biscuit. All I could offer him were words of comfort.

“Someone will find us,” I told him. “There are probably people searching already, looking for survivors of the tornado. They'll find us before long. They'll help us.”

I knew that I spoke the truth, and my heart filled with gratitude for these strangers who would come to our aid. There may be mean people like Zooman and Hunker in the world, but there are also good people who leave their comfortable homes and rush to help in times of trouble.

I stroked Snickers's fur. He put his head on my leg, closed his eyes, and sighed.

We sat like that for about an hour before I heard the helicopter. I stood and looked up, shielding my eyes from the sun. The helicopter approached from the west, flying low. It appeared to be following the road that Snickers and I had walked on. I could see two people inside it.

I waved my arms over my head, trying to signal the pilot and his passenger. The helicopter passed to my left, then circled back over me. I waved again, and watched as it hovered over the road and then slowly landed. Snickers began to pant again, afraid of the noise, and I held tight to his collar. The chopper blades sent swirls of dust into the air. A man jumped down and ran toward me.

“Are you okay?” he called.

“I'm not hurt,” I yelled, “but my dog needs a veterinarian. He got hit on the head with a branch during the tornado.”

The man stopped beside me. “An emergency shelter is being set up in an old school about ten miles west of here. I can give you a lift there,” he said.

“What about Snickers?”

“The dog?”

I nodded.

“You'll have to leave him here. You can probably come back for him in a day or two.”

“I can't leave him,” I said. “He would try to follow me. He'd get lost.”

“I can't take him in the chopper,” he said. “I need to keep the space open for any injured people I find. We're not equipped to rescue animals.”

“Then I'll stay here,” I said.

“Don't be foolish,” the man said. “I know you love your dog, but you need to get to the shelter where there's food and people to help you. What if another twister comes through?”

I had not considered that possibility, but I realized it could happen. Tornadoes sometimes come in bunches. Even so, I shook my head. “Snickers is my best friend,” I said. “I can't leave him behind.”

The man shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought I was making a huge mistake. “Suit yourself.”

“Could you tell the people at the shelter where we are?” I asked. “Maybe someone could drive here to get us. Maybe even a veterinarian would come.”

“I'll tell them you're here,” he said, “but don't get your hopes up. In an emergency like this, most people are busy trying to find family and friends or helping those who were injured or left homeless. Destruction from this storm is widespread. A few miles west of here we saw three boxcars that had been lifted off the railroad tracks. You're lucky to be alive.”

“There's a boy, Randy, who needs help right away,” I said. “He's about two miles that way.” I pointed. “A house came down on top of him. I tried to dig him out, but his legs are pinned by a sink that was too heavy for me. The town is destroyed; he's the only person I found. I think his legs are broken.”

The man started back toward the helicopter.

“Wait!” I yelled, and he looked back. “I think there's a broken propane line near Randy.”

“Thanks. We'll check that out.” Just before he got to the place where he had to duck down and run through the wind caused by the chopper blades, he called back, “Are you sure you want to stay here?”

I waved, to signal he should go without me.

I stood beside Snickers and felt tears drip down my cheeks.

As the helicopter rose, I saw something fall from it and land in the dirt. I walked toward it, and found a bottle of water. My would-be rescuer had thrown down the one thing Snickers and I needed the most.

“Thank you!” I shouted as I held the bottle over my head. I knew he couldn't hear me, but I yelled it anyway. “Thanks for the water!”

The helicopter flew off, headed toward Randy.

I opened the bottle of water and took a drink. Then I cupped one hand and poured some water into it for Snickers. He lapped it quickly, wagging his tail. I thought about pouring some water on his wound, to clean it and try to keep it from getting infected, but I decided I should save the water for drinking. I didn't know how long it would be before we got rescued.

For a while I scanned the sky, watching for the helicopter to go back the way it had come. I was sure that two adults would be able to lift the sink off Randy's legs. An hour passed, and then two hours. By now, I thought, they should have carried him to the helicopter and flown him to a hospital, or at least to a waiting ambulance. Maybe the closest hospital was not this way. Maybe they had flown Randy in the opposite direction.

While I watched for the helicopter, I also kept alert for the possible sound of a vehicle coming my way. I fantasized that a minivan drove up and a woman who looked like Rita jumped out and said, “I'm a veterinarian. I've come to take you and your dog to my clinic.” It didn't happen, though.

The sun turned a fiery golden red as it sank below the horizon, casting an orange glow on the scattering of clouds. The temperature dropped, and I was glad for the warmth of Snickers beside me.

My stomach grumbled. I wished I had eaten the cashews instead of saving them in my backpack. I tried not to think about food, but the more I tried not to think of food, the more images of food danced in my mind. Mac and cheese. A chocolate milk shake. Pizza. Even one of Rita's healthy vegetable soup and salad dinners sounded good. I wondered if Snickers was visualizing a box of dog biscuits or a bowl of kibble or more of June's stew. I took another drink of water and gave some more to Snickers, hoping to fill our empty stomachs with liquid.

Darkness descended. I lay on my side, with my knees bent. Snickers curled next to me. He fell asleep immediately and began snoring softly.

I wondered if I should wake him up now and then during the night, because of his head injury. Once when a girl I knew had fallen off her scooter and hit her head on the pavement, her parents had been instructed to wake her up every two hours all night long, to be sure she was sleeping and not unconscious.

While Snickers slept, I lay there with my mind racing. I was sure I'd get to the shelter the next day. If nobody came to rescue us, Snickers and I could walk there. But what should I do when I got to the shelter? People would ask where I lived. They would want to know who my parents or guardians are. I couldn't give my real name.

I decided to say my name was Kaitlyn Smith. If asked, I'd say I had missed the bus and was walking when the tornado hit. That part was true. Although I was becoming an accomplished liar, I knew if I told too many untruths it would be hard to remember what I'd said and I would be more likely to be found out.

When I shifted position, Snickers opened his eyes and looked at me as if he wanted to be sure I was still there. Then he went back to sleep. Good. I wouldn't need to wake him on purpose.

I stroked his back and found that petting him relaxed me. Soon my eyes closed, too.

Several times during the night, I woke up because I was stiff. Even cuddled next to Snickers, I couldn't get comfortable and I longed for my bed at Rita's house, with the purple bedspread and the soft patchwork quilt. Thinking back, I realized how many things I had liked about living with Rita—physical things like the quilt and the computer access, but also intangibles, such as Rita's willingness to let me choose my own clothes and her sense of humor as she encouraged me to do homework. Rita had a curiosity about the world that made ordinary events more interesting. She carried binoculars in her car, in case she spotted an unusual bird. She always asked store clerks and waiters about their jobs. “You can learn a lot by listening to the people you meet every day,” Rita said.

Two days before I left, I had found her knitting like crazy, and I asked her what she was making. “A bagel,” she said.

I stared at her. “What?” I asked, thinking I had misunderstood.

“This morning I was toasting a bagel,” she said, “and I thought it was the perfect shape to be a bracelet, so I decided to knit a bagel bracelet.”

I thought she was crazy until I saw the finished product. The next day, she held up her arm and said, “I finished my bagel bracelet. How do you like it?”

It was a round knitted tube, about an inch in diameter, made of a soft light tan yarn. Rita had sewn a variety of funky old buttons around the outside rim. It was unlike any bracelet I'd ever seen, and I loved it.

“Cool,” I said. “Can you make one for me?”

“Sure. Go through the old buttons in my button jar and pick out which ones you want for decoration.”

I wished now that I hadn't left before Rita had knit my bagel bracelet. It would have been perfect to remember her by. I wondered if she had knit a bracelet for me anyway, in case I came back. If Starr and I go to visit Rita, I'll ask her to knit matching bagel bracelets for us.

Thinking about Rita made me sad, and it occurred to me that I was a little bit homesick. How could I be homesick for a place that wasn't really my home? I told myself I only felt that way because I was hungry and tired and uncomfortable.

Tomorrow I would push Rita out of my thoughts and get on with my quest to find Starr. I felt sure that she had longed for me all these years, just as I had yearned for her. Once we were reunited, I would truly be home.

T
he sound of a vehicle approaching woke me. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was growing light. I saw a pair of headlights coming toward me.

Snickers stood and shook, making his ears flap. I stood, too, and walked toward the road, waving at the lights.

A large black pickup truck, the kind with a backseat, pulled up next to me. The driver, a man in a baseball cap, leaned out the window. “Need a lift?” he asked. “There's temporary housing and food available about ten miles up the road.”

“Is it okay to bring my dog?”

The man laughed. “They may not let him inside the building, but I don't mind giving him a ride. Hop in.”

I hesitated briefly, wondering if I should ask him for identification. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't dream of getting in a truck with a man I didn't know. Then I saw that he wore a white smock over his shirt; the smock said AMERICAN RED CROSS VOLUNTEER in big red letters.

He opened the passenger door. Snickers scrambled in first and sat between me and the man as if he had ridden there a hundred times.

“My name's Jake,” the man said.

“I'm Kaitlyn,” I replied, silently congratulating myself for having chosen the pseudonym ahead of time so that I could answer without hesitation. “My dog's name is Snickers.”

“Where do you live?” he asked. “Should I drive you home instead of to the shelter?”

“I'm not from around here. I'm on my way to my sister's house, but I missed the bus yesterday. Snickers and I were walking a while and got caught in the tornado.”

“You were outside?” he asked. “With no protection?”

“We sat under a tree to try to get out of the hail, and it ended up shielding us from the wind.”

He looked at me as if I were the eighth wonder of the world. “You are one lucky girl,” he said, “and your dog, too. Half the trees in the county were uprooted. The wind hit one hundred and fifteen miles an hour in some places. The next town east of here is gone, every building wiped out.”

“I know,” I said. “I saw it. I tried to dig out a boy who was buried in the rubble, but I couldn't get everything off him. I told a man in a helicopter where the boy was.”

“That was you?” Jake said. “You're the one who saved the boy from Alabama?”

“You know about Randy?”

“They airlifted him to the hospital and he couldn't stop talking about a girl who he had been mean to, but she tried to help him anyway. The TV station is having a field day with the story. According to the reporters, you saved the kid's life.”

I hoped that was true.