Hit and Run

So. I’m at home with Dad, working on Algebra and Science. You know, the usual.

All of the sudden, a really strong breeze blows in through the window.

Oh, sweet relief, I think to myself. On a day as hot as this, every breath of wind seems like it’s sent straight from heaven. But, then again, that was a really strong breeze…

We look up from Algebra I.

“Oh, dear,” I say. The sky is filled with clouds– big, black, and full of rain. The sun disappears.

Another gust of wind. “Here it comes,” I murmur.

Dad jumps up, heading for the back door. I gasp. The laundry!

We run out back towards the clothesline. “Get them under the eaves!” Dad roars above the thunder.

Another burst of wind and sheets, shirts, and pants come flying off the lines. With this weather, clothespins don’t make much of a difference.

Leaves come flying of the trees– along with a few branches.

The sky is dark– but it’s only 10:00 am.

A big white towel comes off the clothesline at top-speed– and hits me in the face.

“Aahhh!” I scream, like I’m being attacked by a ghost. “Help me!”

Then, as if to dramatize my running-around-with-a-towel-on-my-head, a car alarm starts going of in the distance. Wee-ooh-wee-ooh! Woo-woo! Ba-ba-ba-ba! Whoo-whoop! Me-me-me–

“Are you okay?” Dad asks.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. This towel just came flying at my face, and–”

The thunder, once again, drowns me out.

“Maybe we should get the clothes under the eaves. Remember?”

“Uhh… yes! Of course. Great idea,” I agree, regaining my composure. Well, trying to.

Dad had hung up a couple of long wires under the eaves of the house to serve as clotheslines during storms. When it starts to rain, we have somewhere to put all the clothes.

The wind whips my hair into my eyes. “Oww.” Pain.

“That’s all of the clothes!” Dad triumphs. “Now, into the house!”

We hang up sheets in front of the windows to keep the rain from getting in.

We put pots and pans under the places in the roof we know leak. The two bedrooms, the living room (in two different places), and the kitchen.

We close the two glass windows– the only glass windows– and we’re ready.

The wind blows again, and an old wood-and-tin soccer dug-out falls down and the sheet of metal rips through the grass.

It starts to rain. Not that pitter-patter beginning, either. The I-can’t-hear-myself-thinking kind of rain.

And I feel like Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, ready to take off in the cyclone.

Munchkins, here we come.

 

-Madeline Studebaker