Another Kind of Hurricane Read Online Free PDF Page A

Oh crap, crap, crap. Had Wayne fallen over the edge of the rock? They had peered over that rock ledge a million times before. It was a sharp drop and there was rock at the bottom, but it wasn’t very far down. Henry knelt, his hands still stinging, and crawled up to the edge. The fog followed him
.
    Wayne
.
    Henry’s heartbeat sped up again and thumped out his best friend’s name
.
    Wayne. Wayne Wayne. Wayne Wayne Wayne Wayne Wayne
.
    —
    Brae whined and pushed his cold nose under Henry’s hand. Had Henry just said Wayne’s name out loud? Henry sat up in bed and swung his feet to the floor. The wood was freezing, and he buried his toes into the thick fur on Brae’s warm back.
    “You up?” Mom’s voice came from the kitchen.
    “Yeah!” Henry yelled back. He slid his feet onto either side of Brae and sat like he was on a black and white horse. Brae was that big. When people asked Henry what breed he was, he always said part Border collie, part Holstein cow.
    A knock at the door. “Henry,” came Mom’s voice. Jeez, hadn’t she heard him? She walked in.
    “How many times are you just gonna walk into my room without asking me?”
    “How did you sleep?” Mom tried to brush Henry’s hair from his face, but he pushed her hand away.
    “Like crap.”
    “Me too. I kept thinking about all those families in that hurricane. Can you imagine? Your house floating in tiny pieces down the street? You floating down the street with it? Can you imagine if that were you, Henry?”
    What if Henry had lost his home and was rowing a boatthat used to be his dresser drawer? What if he was careening down a river that used to be his street? He didn’t want to play a dumb
What If
game with Mom. He had enough of his own
What If
s to keep him busy.
What if
Henry and Wayne had stayed home that night?
What if
they hadn’t raced?
What if
he had been able to save Wayne?
    “
What if
that was me in the hurricane?” said Henry. He put his hands on Brae’s head and pulled his ears. “I’d ride Brae like he was a dolphin until I hit dry land,” he said, jumping up from the bed and pushing past Mom. “I gotta get ready for school.”

chapter 11

ZAVION
    In the morning, Papa and Zavion walked back toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge.
    “I wish there had been keys in that car,” said Papa.
    “You wanted to steal it?” Zavion asked. “We haven’t repaid the store for the chocolate bars, and you wanted to steal a car?” He rubbed his eyes hard, hoping when he opened them again that he would blink a few times and find himself home in his bed.
    “We’d have borrowed it, Zav,” said Papa as he lifted his hand to flag down a van. But it drove by them. “If the keys had been in the console, I would have taken it as a sign.”
    A sign that Zavion wasn’t home in bed.
    Borrowing, surviving
—Papa had all these words for it, but it was still stealing.
    The early sun burned the fog off the river and out of Zavion’s gut. Survival sizzled and popped and disappeared, and stealing remained in the bright light.
    Zavion had argued this point with Papa plenty of times before. Papa would grab a paint can out from in front of someone’s house without asking and not feel one ounce of worry that the person might not be finished with it. It drove Zavion crazy. How could he be absolutely sure? It was only a few weeks into the school year and Zavion had already asked his teacher twice if
thinking about
looking at someone’s paper was the same as looking at it. His teacher had said no, but it still left Zavion feeling unsettled, knowing that he had the potential to look because he had an idea of it in his brain.
    A pickup truck pulled up next to them. A man leaned across the seat toward the open window on the passenger side. He wore a New Orleans Saints baseball hat. “Need a ride?” he asked.
    “Yes,” said Papa.
    “Hop in.” The man pushed the truck door open.
    “Go on, Zav,” said Papa.
    “We shouldn’t do this,” said Zavion.