Hurricane (4 page)

Víctor said, “We keep this to ourselves, okay? Dad wouldn't like what I did.”

I answered, “Sure, Víctor.”

Two seconds later we both laughed when Víctor said, “You speaka da Engleesh pretty
bueno
,
amigo
!” and punched me in the arm.

Now, in the dark bedroom, Juan interrupts my thoughts. He says, “Catch,” just as I hear a
splat
on the wet plastic tarp that covers my blankets.

I reach around the top of the tarp until my fingers find what Juan's thrown. It's his C-3PO action figure, the gold android from
Star Wars
.

Víctor had the entire
Star Wars
collection when he was little. Juan lost Princess Leia and threw away Jabba the Hutt because Jabba was too scary. He still has all the others. C-3PO is his favorite.

“Are you sure you want to lend me this?” I ask.

He says softly, “Yes.”

The wind suddenly howls even louder and the rain pounds down. I say, “I'll give him back to you first thing in the morning, okay?”

“Okay,” Juan answers, but he still sounds really scared.

“You can have him back right now if you want. I mean, I know he's one of your best ones. You sure you don't want him back?”

Juan is quiet for a few seconds and then says, “You're kind of scared too. You can use him tonight.”

“Thanks, Juan.”

“Okay,” Juan answers back.

In another few minutes, I hear Juan snoring softly, just like he snores every night. His snores sound funny, so tiny and weak. I probably should have given him C-3PO back, but maybe he feels good thinking he's helping me.

Talking to Juan and comforting him let me forget about my own fear for a few minutes, but now it's back, worse than ever.

I glance at the big green digital numbers on the battery-operated clock across the room next to Víctor's bed: 10:08. This storm has been going for four hours now without slowing down at all.

How long can it keep going?

I don't know when exactly I finally doze off. Maybe some of the time I'm asleep, I'm dreaming I'm still awake. But finally I do have a dream that I know, even while it's happening, is a dream. It's Christmastime in La Rupa. Never do five seconds pass without the sound of firecrackers popping. Sparkling bottle rockets and whirling flames fill the daytime sky. The blue smoke and the smell of gunpowder fill the air. I feel like I might explode with happiness. This Christmas Day is just like every Christmas I've ever known. The smells, the sights, the warm feeling on my skin—everything is perfect and wonderful.

Suddenly, I see a flock of beautiful wild parrots fly across our backyard, their black eyes staring at me. Their stares feel strange, though, like they are trying to warn me of some danger.

Now back in my house, I try to open a present, only it's wrapped too tightly. I tug and pick away at the wrapper, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I hear a terrible low growling sound. I look up from the gift. The growl is too deep and scary to be a dog, even a large dog. Suddenly Berti stands next to me. Staring in the direction of the horrible sound, she growls back, showing her fangs, wanting to protect me. The sound slowly turns into a soft, frightening howl. I am scared, but I don't want to show it. Maybe by acting brave, I will be all right. The gift in my hand turns into a large gray stone, a weapon I can use to fight off whatever is howling just outside the walls.

I wake up. There's a little bit of rainwater puddled on the tarp, right over my lap. For half a second I'm embarrassed because it looks like I've wet my bed. Now I'm wide-awake, hearing the storm howling. I look over at Juan's bed, where he's awake too.

The rain has stopped. Maybe when we get up, the sun will be back and everything will be normal.

“Are you awake?” Juan asks.

I answer, “Yeah.”

Juan quickly asks, “Do you think it will rain again?”

I answer, “Maybe, but probably not so heavy and not for so long.”

The wind is still blowing hard, but without the rain it doesn't feel as scary.

Juan says, “I'll bet Víctor is mad at the rain.”

“Oh yeah,” I agree. “Víctor is probably telling the rain just what he'll do to it if it starts falling down on us again.”

“Yeah,” Juan says. “Víctor will kill the rain if it keeps falling.”

I smile and answer, “He will, Juan. He'll kick the rain's butt!”

Juan loves to hear Víctor and me talk like this. He's scared that he'll get in trouble if he says these kinds of things, but I can always make him smile or giggle when I talk a little bit bad.

“I'll bet Ruby's sad and worried about us,” Juan says.

I answer, “I'm sure she misses you. But she'll be home soon, and then she'll give you a big hug.”

“No way,” Juan says. “Yuck!”

I smile. Juan wouldn't want Víctor to see him enjoying a hug from Ruby. Víctor would call him Baby-J, a nickname Juan hates.

Juan's quiet for a few moments. Then he asks, “They are coming back, huh?” His voice sounds very tiny. “They love us, even when we're bad, so they will come home, right?”

Could Juan think that Dad and Víctor and Ruby are gone because of him, because of some bad thing he thinks he did or thought? Little kids are so weird.

I am quiet for a bit, trying to think how to make him understand.

“Juan,” I say, “the storm has kept them away. It's not
your
fault. This storm has nothing to do with us, with how good or bad we are.
Everybody
is getting rained on, good guys and bad guys both. It's not our fault. It's nobody's fault. Dad and Víctor and Ruby will be back when the storm stops. And it
will
go away someday.”

“Yes,” Juan says. I can hear the sleepiness in his voice, and sure enough, within a few minutes I hear his little snores again.

I lie in the darkness thinking about what I've just said to Juan. The storm will go away—if only I could believe this myself!

I glance over at Víctor's clock again. 12:18.

Before I can fall back asleep, the rain comes back, but it's not like the rain from earlier. It's not so heavy, and the sound of it falling is almost nice, like rain is supposed to be. The winds have calmed down too. I feel safe for the first time all night. My hands are steady and my insides are calm. My breathing feels almost relaxed. Maybe the storm
is
over.

I start to think about Berti again. How stupid and selfish can I be? She's just a dog, for crying out loud, and not much of a dog at that. But with the storm calmer now, I'm not as worried about Dad and Víctor and Ruby as I was earlier, so Berti comes back into my thoughts.

I remember when I first met her. She showed up in La Rupa about a year ago. I was out in the street by myself kicking a soccer ball, when suddenly this medium-sized tan dog came trotting right up to me. I saw her coming from way down the street. She never hesitated as she walked, with her head up and her eyes looking straight at me. She stopped about ten feet away from me and barked.

I said, “Hi.” She walked right over to our house and just sat there at the foot of our steps, looking back and forth between the house and me. Her ears stood up and she wagged her tail. It was almost like she felt that our house was her house, and like she was waiting for me to invite her in.

I went over and petted her on her head and back. She was muscular and had short hair. She smiled as I scratched her neck. After a while I went up the steps and walked into the house. The dog followed me as if she'd done it a million times before.

She hung around the house the rest of the day. I noticed that she had a black tongue. It was a little pink but mostly black. I worried that she had the plague or something, but when Dad came home, he explained that she was probably part Shar-Pei, a breed of dog from China, the kind you see in pictures with too much wrinkly skin.

“Shar-Peis have black tongues,” Dad said. “Yep, she must be part Shar-Pei and part shepherd or collie, which would be the part where her smarts come from.”

Everybody in the house oohed and aahed over the dog all night. She licked everybody's hands and kept wagging her tail.

Dad said that when he was a boy, he had a great dog. “This new dog is so sweet and relaxed that she reminds me of Roberto,” he said. Dad started calling her Roberta, and pretty soon she became Berti.

At school the next day I looked up Shar-Pei in an encyclopedia. Under the part where they say what the breed is supposed to do, like German shepherds are good guard and search dogs, Jack Russell terriers are rat killers, collies herd, and Labradors hunt, Shar-Peis, I learned, have been bred over the centuries for … nothing. Under the category for Special Talents was just that one word:
nothing
. And sure enough, Berti has been pretty much true to her Shar-Pei bloodline: good at almost nothing except being sweet and happy and laid back.

So where are you tonight, Berti? Out in this storm? When are you coming home? Why did you run away?

I've always thought of Berti as
my
dog, partly because I found her and let her into the house that first day, and partly because I just
want
her to be mine. Víctor works with Dad every day, so he and Dad are best friends. Juan is the baby and gets most of Mom's and everyone else's attention all the time. My sisters aren't into playing with a dog, so Berti should be mine. But the fact is that Berti is nice to
everybody
. Every kid in our house thinks that Berti likes him or her best. Whoever gives Berti a bite of a burrito or tortilla is definitely her favorite human at that moment.

Yet I'm the guy who has to take all the responsibility for her. I always have to feed her. I also have to clean up her messes in the yard, which is gross. This was the deal when my parents agreed to let us keep her.

I'm tired of thinking about this. Berti is gone now, but like Mom said, she'll be home when she gets hungry. The heck with her. I don't even care if she comes back or not.

Well, that's not really true.

I finally fall asleep again.

I dream that I'm flying over Honduras, only it doesn't look like Honduras. There are bright lights, like fireflies, only brighter. I soon recognize that the lights are coming from the little houses of La Rupa below me. Two wild parrots are flying next to me. One of them is so close that I can see his eye. It is bright and shiny and looks right back at me. It feels good to be so free.

Suddenly there is a tremendous explosion, like the world is cracking in two. All the lights below me go out, and I can't tell if I am flying or falling in the darkness. The wild parrots disappear. I hear a strange, distant sound of crying and moaning. In the darkness, just waking up from my dream, I am confused. The earth quivers under my bed.

Juan cries out, “José!”

I jump out of bed and grab Juan into my arms.

The house seems to shake all around me.

Is it really shaking, or is it just my legs?

Is
any
of this real?

Before I can get my bearings, there is a huge
THUMP!
and now I know that it's not just me. It's like a bomb went off.

I stumble into the living room, still carrying Juan. Mom and the girls are here too. We have all managed to find one another in the dark.

Mom asks with panic in her voice, “What is it? Is anyone hurt?”

I answer, “Juan and I are okay.”

“I'm all right,” Ángela says, “but it's like the world is breaking apart!”

“I'm okay,” María says.

Mom says, her voice firm, “Nothing is breaking apart … we have to stay calm.”

I make my way to the window and look out. There is a river of mud surrounding the house and covering the street as far as I can see in the darkness.

I yell, “It's a mudslide!”

“Oh God,” Mom says.

I stare out the window again, looking as hard as I can. “The mud isn't moving anymore. It's stopped!”

Mom says, “Everyone stay calm.” She shines a small flashlight on each of us. Juan, dressed in
X Files
underpants and a white T-shirt, reaches out to Mom, and she grabs him from me.

Now voices outside are calling out for help. They grow louder and louder.

“Is that Dad and Ruby?” Juan asks in a tiny voice.

“No,” I tell him. “It's our friends—our neighbors.”

I hurry back to my room and pull on my pants and a T-shirt. I grab my jacket and slip into my Nike high-tops.

By the time I come out of my bedroom, Mom is standing at the front door with a larger flashlight. She hands it to me and says, “Be careful!”

I look into her eyes, and I can tell how scared she is. I'm sure that she wants to tell me not to go out, but we both know that I have to. It's what Dad would do and what Víctor would do too. My hands shake and my stomach flip-flops. For a second I just stand there, hoping Mom will tell me I can't go.