Promises of Home Read Free

squinting into the darkness.
    Darkness squinted back at me. It was almost as though night had settled on Mirabeau as Althea passed over like some shadowy wraith, eclipsing sun and summer sky. I saw trees bending hard in the wind, and grass in the Foradorys’ pasturelands rippling like waves on the ocean. Then I saw it: a dark, jagged line moving toward the woods. Except this line was spinning, its point in the earth, its top arcing back and forth in a short pendulum swing.
    “Tornado!” I screamed. The other boys froze with shock.
    “Yeah, right, Jordan—” Trey began, but then he caught sight of my eyes. His face blanched like an old man’s.
    “I’m not kidding! Tornado coming! Get out! Get down the ladder!” I hollered.
    There was a mad scrabble as boys leaped for the rope ladder we had pulled up behind us, pushing it out into the darkness. It unfurled like a cracking whip.
    I yelled at Clevey. “Go down first and hold it steady for the others.”
    He nodded, fear in his freckled face. As he moved down each rung his weight brought the ladder back toward earth. I saw Clevey reach the bottom, practically sitting on the last rung to steady it. Gusts tore at his hair like a madwoman, and looking down at him, I saw him staring toward the funnel, eyes wide in shock.
    I turned to Little Ed, pushing him out next, followed by Davis. I gestured at Trey. “Go!” I hollered.
    “I’m sorry, Jordy,” he said in a whisper that somehow cut through the screams of the storm. He descended into the slashing wind and darkness. Junebug turned from the window, his eyes intense.
    “We gotta go now, Jordy,
now!
” he ordered, shoving me down the ladder, climbing down practically on top of me. Clevey still crouched on the bottom rung; the others were gone, running God knows where. I fell to the ground, the storm shoving me with the force of nature’s worst bully.
    “Where are they?” Junebug shouted at Clevey.
    “House!” Clevey yelled back. “Four Door’s house!”
    Nearly a half mile away. I stumbled, Junebug’s hand gripping my wrist as he pulled me along. He was bigger than me and I didn’t resist. I could hear a roar, like a growl of God. I tried to cry out, but the gale tore my voice from my throat, sending it spinning far above into the dark, rot-colored clouds.
    Junebug and I ran across pastureland, toward the Old River Road that snakes along the shores of the Colorado. I risked a glance back and, through a sheet of rain, saw the frees churning in the circular wind. Our boyhood hideout and second home cartwheeled crazily apart like a match-stick house.
    “It’s heading this way,” I screamed into Junebug’s ear. “Run! Run!”
    We didn’t get much farther. Halfway through the pastureland we fell into a ditch, with water already swirling in it. I tumbled head over heels, Junebug sliding down more gracefully. I landed in muddy, grass-topped water. I froze in terror, thinking a flash flood would sweep us away, but the rain was collecting placidly and was only up to our ankles—for the moment. We were alone.
    “Lie down! Cover your head!” Junebug ordered me.
    “Where’s Clevey? And Trey and the others?” I hollered, but he shoved me down, forcing me to obey. I went face-first into the cold rainwater, sheltering my head with my thin arms. Junebug pressed down beside me and we waited, listening as the roaring twister approached.
    I thought of Daddy and Mama finding my body—and my sister asking if she could have my catcher’s glove. (She fancied herself a better ballplayer than me, which was ridiculous—she couldn’t hit to save her life.) I thought of our friends talking about how stupid we were in braving Althea’s wrath. And I thought of my whole life, left unlived. In heaven, would I forever be a boy, or would I get to grow up?
    A noise like God’s own tantrum roared in our ears. I shoved my face into water and mud and grass, trying to burrow into the ground.
    I didn’t know how much later it was