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Show Twisters . . . 61 Arthur bent double, grabbing his sides. We couldn't stop howling, either of us. Over the sounds of wind battering the house, Stacey heard us whooping it up and thought we'd flipped. "What's going on?" she kept yelling. We were too weak to answer. A little later, it was almost as funny trying to get Mrs. Smiley "out of this bloomin' cellar," as she put it. She was being an awfully good sport, but said she wasn't no mountain goat and to remember that. We couldn't get her to try the stairstep system that Arthur rigged up under a window with a chair and a stool, though he demonstrated it could be done-with a little pull-up there at the end. "Pull-up!" Smiley snorted. "I'm eighty-one years old, boys. Don't you think I'm better off to stay down here?" "It's too dangerous," Arthur tried to explain, "they said everyone had to get out because there could be explosions and fires." "LandsakeB!" she muttered. "Never thought I'd be chased off by a darned old cyclone!" She kept running her hands in and out of her sweater pockets. I could tell she was plenty nervous. Stacey was outside the window by that time, removing broken glass from the sill with that same mop, giving us weather reports. "Can't you guys think of something?" she said. "The rain's let up for a minute. It'll be lots easier if we can get Mrs. Smiley down to the bus before it starts again." Suddenly Smiley brightened. "How about if we call the fire department? They'd come out for an old scaredy-cat like me." |