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Show Twisters . . . 100 behind me registered in my brain. It was my dad's pickup! Furthermore I knew-some spinal signal told me -that he was driving. By the time he reached me, by the time they reached me-Mom and Dad and Ryan-I was jumping up and down and yelling. The pickup was still rolling when Dad leaped out of that driver's Beat and lifted me off my feet. Mom was out next, her arms around us both with Ryan squished in the middle. The dance we did right there at the Fonner Park Racetrack could no way be choreographed. Even by Aunt Goldie, who claimed she'd had two years of training in the East. We went on home from there, driving slow, through streets that were still being cleared. A tornado had been on the ground near Phillips, but, thank God, it had missed the farm. "Flooding is going to be your Grandpa's worst problem," Dad told us. "The irrigation pivots are standing in a lake right now." Then I learned how Dad had got through to the house around 1:15, how he'd spent three desperate hours trying to find the rest of us. About 4:30 or so he'd discovered Mom at the Presbyterian Church, where she and Ryan and Smiley were sleeping on a rug in the minister's study. "You kids were well hidden in that jail," Dad said after I told him about us. "Everyone else was crowded into that underground tunnel that links the police station to City Hall. I was there twice looking for you and Linda." He'd also gone to the armory, Stolley Park School, Civil Defense Headquarters, and two hospitals. When he finally found Mom at the church, it was Smiley who tried to convince him we'd be all right. |