Another Kind of Hurricane Page 7

  Zavion wanted to climb the tree, jump from the ground to its lowest branch and climb all the way to the top, all the way to the still, silent sky.

  “I like it,” he said.

  He had to do it.

  He had to ask Papa now.

  “Speaking of the world telling you to do something new—” he began.

  “Yes?” said Papa, placing the red spruce tree down again and picking up his paintbrush.

  Zavion picked up his own dry paintbrush and pushed it along the wooden table, tracing the shape of a mountain, as if a picture would speak to Papa better than words.

  “We need to go to Mama’s mountain.”

  “We’ve had this discussion.”

  That didn’t sound like a promising beginning. Maybe a picture really would be better. Zavion was going to have to be clearer.

  “No, we haven’t had a discussion about this. We’ve had a mention of it.”

  “A mention?”

  “Yes, I mentioned it and you made fun of me, and then you left the kitchen.”

  Papa dipped his paintbrush in water and wiped it dry with a rag. He squeezed a dot of orange paint onto the corner of the slate. “Why don’t you go for a run, Zavion? Wouldn’t that feel good?”

  Zavion couldn’t imagine running. He was exhausted. Trying not to think about…before…was exhausting.

  “Let’s go to Mama’s mountain,” he tried again.

  “I don’t know why you are so obsessed with this mountain idea.”

  Zavion stuck his paintbrush in the orange paint on Papa’s slate and grabbed a slate of his own. “Ask me.” He painted the top.

  Papa opened the pink paint and squeezed it next to the orange. “Why do you want to go to that mountain, then?”

  Zavion dipped his paintbrush in the pink and added it to the edge of the orange. He unscrewed the red paint and stuck the tip of his paintbrush in the top. He blurred it into the edge of the pink. He tried to remember the shape of the mural in his room and drew the jagged edge of a mountain and filled around it with red paint.

  Before came flooding in.

  Except for Papa, everything he had known his whole life was gone. The big oak tree and its shade and the brick walkway leading up to his house. Gone. The house. Gone. Everything inside the house. Gone. And the one last thing that had reminded him of Mama. Gone.

  All of them swept away in the hurricane.

  And before that—Mama herself. She was gone too.

  After Mama died, Zavion spent every waking moment searching for a way to feel like he wouldn’t just float away. And after the moments turned to days, and the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months—seven months, to be exact—he had found it. It was in the pathway from the bathroom through the art studio across the hall and into his bedroom, the long way to his room after he brushed his teeth, but he walked it the same way each night. It was on the slices of bread he laid out every morning, between the peanut butter and the honey, tucked tight into the wax paper bag he placed in the backpack he took to school. It was tied in the laces of his lucky running sneakers. It was on the thin rim of the molding over the archway between the kitchen and the living room he jumped to touch every time he passed through. And it was embedded in the gray rocks that sat across the edge of his windowsill, each of them with a white crystal line running through the middle—rocks he had found by the river, made wishes on, and placed on his sill to come true—all these routines and rituals designed and practiced and perfected in order to feel like his feet were firmly on the ground.

  And always, always, Grandmother Mountain standing guard over Zavion as he slept each night and woke each morning to begin his maze of a day once again.

  That mountain—Mama’s mountain—

  And now everything from his room, his home, his life, was—

  maybe—

  maybe not—

  probably—

  surely—

  completely—

  gone.

  Zavion put down his paintbrush and held the white mountain—rising up inside the blazing sunset—in his hand.

  “Because sometimes the world tells you to do something new,” he said.

  chapter 20

  HENRY

  “Please, Jake.”

  Henry watched Jake close the door to the trailer on the eighteen-wheeler. He was doing a last check of the truck before he headed out of town.

  “Please let me come with you.”

  “I don’t know, Henry.” He opened the driver’s side door of the cab and climbed in. He turned the headlights on, then turned them off. He turned the windshield wipers on, then turned them off.

  Henry put his hand on the giant cab door and looked up at Jake.

  “I need to get out of here,” he said.

  Jake started the truck. It rumbled to life. Henry felt its vibration through the metal. A buzzing feeling in his hand.

  “Jake—” he said.

  Jake was testing the gears.

  “Jake—” he said louder.

  Nothing.

  “Jake!” he yelled above the engine roar.

  Jake turned his head. He cut the engine. Henry’s heart was racing from raising his voice. “I need—” Henry began. But he didn’t know what to say. He looked past Jake, out through the passenger window to Mount Mansfield. “I want—” he tried again.

  Jake jumped down from the cab. He began inspecting the front tire, running his hand along its tread.

  “The red-breasted goose in the Siberian tundra is vulnerable to arctic fox attacks,” Henry said all of a sudden. “The foxes are always hungry. They’ll eat the geese in an instant. If the geese build their nests alone, the foxes eat their eggs and chicks too. Like that—” Henry snapped his fingers. “But they don’t make their nests alone. They wait until the peregrine falcons build their nests, and then the geese build theirs around them. The peregrine falcons fight off the arctic fox.” Henry paused.

  Jake stared at him, listening intently.

  “The peregrine falcon is small but fierce,” finished Henry.

  “National Geographic special?”

  “PBS.”

  “Cool birds. I can always count on you to find the cool animals.”

  Henry looked Jake right in the eyes. “I want to be a peregrine falcon, Jake.” He glanced out the cab window again. The edges of Mount Mansfield glimmered under the sun. He looked back at Jake. “I can help in New Orleans.”

  Jake leaned against the truck. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “It isn’t going to be easy there.”

  “I know.”

  “It isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you seen it on TV? It’s…pure survival,” said Jake. “Nothing pretty about it.”

  “Nothing pretty about here,” said Henry, glancing back at the stupid hulking mountain one more time.

  Jake nodded slowly. He pressed his lips together and took in a deep breath through his nose. “Nope,” he finally said. “You’re right about that.” He turned and looked at Henry. “I gotta go. I can’t explain it, but I need to be in the middle of that city. I need to be right there in the middle of that hurricane-torn place, like maybe it will stop my own spinning—” He laughed. It was a sad, small sound. “I’m a nut, is all.”

  “You’re a peregrine falcon,” said Henry. “Me too.” He held his breath, the air inside him filled with hope.

  “Okay, bird boy,” said Jake. “I’ll take you with me. If your mother says it’s okay.”

  Henry blew the air out of his body. And the hope that he had held spun and curled into the wind and headed south, which happened to be the way the wind was traveling.

  chapter 21

  ZAVION

  Zavion had to get to Grandmother Mountain. That one thought was crystal clear in his mind. As crystal clear as the white lines running through the middle of his wishing rocks.

  Somewhere there was a person who could take him there.

  But be
fore that, Zavion had a debt to pay. He had to find a way to get money. He had to find a way to get Papa to take him back to New Orleans. He had to slow down his heart.

  marble journey part III

  PIERRE DUCHAMP

  Pierre opened the bag of clothes from the New Orleans Salvation Army.

  Shirts.

  Socks.

  Boxer shorts.

  Sweatshirts.

  A pair of blue jeans.

  He knew the people who came in to his Salvation Army. The Baton Rouge branch. He thought of them as his people.

  They were certainly more his people than his own family.

  —

  His own family opened their arms wide in the middle of winter, heads thrown back to the sky, mouths open, drinking in the wet, cold snowflakes. The more snow the better. They worshipped it. His brother snowboarded. His sister skied. His sister’s son played ice hockey, and her daughter did too. She was only ten, but she was already on a team. Had even won a few medals.

  And his mother—well, his mother stayed home and made the hot chocolate. She couldn’t watch any of them. Couldn’t stand to watch the speed. Downhill, across the ice, or falling fast from the sky. Ever since her husband, Pierre’s father, had been killed in an avalanche back-country skiing. She couldn’t bear it that all her children had been born with their father’s deep devotion to the snow and speed. She worried for them just as she had worried for her husband.

  But she was also proud. She saw her husband in each of them.

  Except for Pierre. Because Pierre hated the snow. Even before it took his father away, he’d hated it. Hated how it melted into his skin and numbed him on the inside. And after his father was killed, he hated how it reminded him of his father.

  So he had left the snow behind, left his family, and moved down to Louisiana.

  He loved the thick, warm air here.

  He loved the thick accents and the warm people.

  He felt at home.

  Even during Hurricane Katrina he had loved the city. In fact, he had found his bravery in that very storm. Saved a little girl who had been sucked into the water and carried away from her house.

  Calm-bodied and clearheaded, he had stayed in the rising river for a good part of that first night, helping to rescue people.

  —

  The bell rang above the front door of the store.

  “Hey, Tavius,” said Pierre.

  “Hey there, Pierre. How are you?” said Tavius.

  “Happy to see you,” he said—and then he blushed. “I heard a few more folks have come to live with your brother,” he added quickly.

  “Yup.”

  “A boy and his father?”

  “You have some magical antennae, don’t you? I was just saying to Enzo, that you’re like a butterfly—”

  Pierre blushed a second time.

  “Don’t they—don’t butterflies—they have an ability to smell with—you know—with their antennae?” said Tavius. “Not that you really have antennae…” He trailed off as he put two fingers on either side of his head. He wiggled them and laughed. Pierre laughed too.

  “The butterflies are at the peak of their life cycles this time of year,” said Pierre.

  “They sure are,” said Tavius. There was a pause.

  Pierre put his fingers up to his head too, and wiggled them. “I like being a butterfly,” he said. “Peak of my life cycle. I like that.”

  Tavius beamed.

  “Here,” said Pierre, taking his antennae down and picking up the garbage bag. “Take this bag of clothes. It just came from Cora in New Orleans. There’s some good stuff in here. I’m betting the boy who just came to live with you could use it.”

  Tavius reached for the bag. His hand grazed Pierre’s as he took hold of it. Pierre looked up at him and smiled. Tavius was his people, that was for sure. Maybe even his one person.

  “Hey,” he said. “Before you go home. Do you want to get some coffee? Or go for a walk?”

  chapter 22

  HENRY

  Mom had needed a little coaxing to give her blessing.

  “You really want to go, Henry?” she asked. She sat on the front steps, dirt smeared across the knees of her blue jeans.

  Henry nodded. He was perched on top of the fence at the side of the house. Jake leaned against it next to him.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Please, Mom—”

  “It’s just so far away….How safe is it? What if it’s too hard to be there…in the middle of all that…chaos? Jake has a job to do. He can’t just turn around and come home if you decide you want to leave—” Mom ran her hands through her hair and left a mark of dirt on her forehead.

  “It might be good for him, Eliza,” said Jake. His voice was quiet. “I can tell you I’m counting on that for me.”

  Henry watched Mom look at Jake. She bit her lip.

  “You told me I didn’t need to go to school right now, remember?” said Henry.

  “I remember. But what about seeing your dad on Monday?”

  “Mom, I can miss that, can’t I?”

  Mom nodded. “You really don’t mind taking him, Jake?”

  “I promised him a trip. I’d better make good on it.” Jake smiled, but it stopped at his cheeks. His eyes looked sad.

  Mom stood up then. She walked over to Henry and put her hands on his knees. Her fingernails were caked in dirt too.

  “You go, then,” she said. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Henry.

  “Help Jake, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mom looked at Jake. “I guess he’s yours,” she said. She touched Jake’s shoulder. “Thank you.” Then she sighed. “I’ll miss you, Henry. And who’s going to help me in the garden?”

  “Brae will—”

  At the sound of his name, Brae dropped the stick he was chewing and tipped his head to the side.

  —

  Saying good-bye to Mom had been hard, but saying it to Brae was harder.

  Brae had put his head into Henry’s lap as soon as Henry sat up in bed the next morning. Henry scratched him behind the ears. “I’m gonna miss you, boy,” he said. After he’d put on his football jersey, he asked Brae to sit, lifted his chin, and looked straight into his eyes. “Don’t learn any new tricks while I’m gone, okay?”

  Brae licked his nose.

  —

  Henry’s ears were vibrating with scraps of sound. Boxes being dragged, boots shuffling, the three-note tune Jake endlessly whistled. Henry craned his neck from his seat in the front of the truck and saw a group of big-rig drivers by the police station, drinking cups of coffee. There was Jake, talking to the one woman there.

  Stacks of bags and boxes were piled high in the back of the trailer. What was in them? Maybe Little League shirts or yo-yos or comic books or cookies. What would a kid all the way down in New Orleans do with a Green Mountain Insurance Company baseball shirt? One of the bags looked like it was full of stuffed animals, a black and white cow peeked its head out the top. Were there cows in Louisiana? Henry thought of the kinds of animals that were in New Orleans. He’d looked them up. Alligators, feral pigs, yellow warblers, shorebirds. And lots of butterflies this time of year. He’d also looked up how far Louisiana was from Vermont. Almost sixteen hundred miles. Henry thought about how many times a marble would have to turn to get from here to there. He shook his head. Wayne would know how to do the math to figure that one out. Henry didn’t have a freaking clue.

  How long had it taken his marble to get to New Orleans? It hadn’t rolled there—that was for sure. It had traveled just like he was about to, tucked away in a truck. Henry couldn’t believe it. Here he was, in the parking lot of the state police department, in Jake’s truck, almost on his way to New Orleans. He and Wayne had always wanted to go on a road trip with Jake. And Jake had promised them—this year would be their year—

  And now—

  Now—

  Wayne couldn’t go. He would never be able to go.


  Across the parking lot, a trucker Henry didn’t recognize put a box into his trailer. The clouds behind him moved as he moved, like he was loading them onto the truck too, like he was shipping Vermont skies south with the yo-yos and comic books and cookies.

  —

  Jake climbed into his seat. “This is going to be quite a field trip,” he said. “I was talking with one of the other truckers—not a regular—her name is Margarita—do you know her? She lives in Underhill too, just moved there last year. She teaches Spanish, actually—I should tell Annie— Anyway, Margarita just got back. She said that the smell of garbage in New Orleans is overwhelming. The food-and-clothing drive coordinator said the same thing, and Margarita confirmed it. Cat litter and rotting milk, she said. Are you sure you’re prepared for all that?”

  Henry was never prepared for a math test, no matter how many practice problems his teacher gave.

  He was never prepared for how lonely he felt at his dad’s house, even though he had gone there every Monday for the last six years of his life and his dad had a houseful of kids.

  No, he was not prepared.

  Jake laughed. “Me neither,” he said before Henry had even opened his mouth. “Being prepared is not the issue. The issue is what you do when you’re taken by surprise.”

  “Here—” said a voice.

  Who was that? Henry leaned around Jake to look down at the ground. Talk about a surprise—a bad surprise! Nopie! Nopie was talking to Jake. “Some apple pie. I thought you could eat it on the ride.”

  “That was mighty thoughtful of you,” said Jake. “Thank you. And thank your mom for me, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Nopie. “Good luck down there.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nopie stared up at Jake with his crazy-wide turtle eyes. Jeez. Wasn’t he going to leave?

  “Aren’t you going to wish me good luck too?” said Nopie finally.

  “Good luck?” asked Jake.