Karen's Hurricane

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Gabrielle Charbonnet

  for her help

  with this book.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Thunder and Lightning

  2 Underneath the Oak

  3 My Two Families

  4 Hurricane Karen

  5 What Happens in a Hurricane?

  6 Fix-Up Day

  7 Hurricane Preparations

  8 Hurricane Warning

  9 Hurricane Karen Strikes

  10 The Eye of the Storm

  11 Shadows on the Wall

  12 Captain Kristy

  13 After the Storm

  14 A Cruise Downtown

  15 A Terrible Tragedy

  16 How to Say Good-bye?

  17 Karen’s Idea

  18 Good as New (Almost)

  19 The Beautiful Bench

  20 The Unveiling

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Thunder and Lightning

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” said a booming voice. “The world’s greatest girl daredevil, the Amazing Karen, will now perform her most death-defying stunt.”

  I was wearing a gigundoly beautiful purple sequined leotard. I climbed up a tall ladder and into the end of a big cannon. I waved to the cheering crowd.

  “The Amazing Karen will now be shot out of the cannon, all the way over a twelve-story building,” said the voice. “And she will not be scared at all!”

  The crowd cheered even louder. I was so, so brave. Waving one last time, I slid down into the cannon. I could hear someone lighting a fuse. And then —

  Boom!

  My eyes popped open. I was not wearing a sequined leotard. I was wearing pajamas. I was not in a cannon. I was in bed. I was not the Amazing Karen. I was plain old Karen Brewer. My wonderful moment waving to the crowd, my beautiful leotard, the cannon — all of it had been a dream.

  Suddenly lightning flashed outside my window, lighting up my room. An instant later —

  Boom!

  One thing had not been a dream — the great big boom at the end.

  And I realized that I was not so, so brave. I was scared.

  Just then the door to my room flew open and my little brother rushed in.

  “Karen, Karen!” said Andrew. “Save me!” He leaped onto my bed and scrambled underneath the covers. He pulled the sheet over his head.

  Now, if there is one thing in the whole wide world that will make a big sister feel brave, it is her little brother feeling more scared than she is.

  I knew I had to be there for Andrew.

  “It is okay,” I said calmly, patting his back. “It is just a little storm.”

  Lightning flashed. Boom!

  Under the sheet, Andrew whimpered.

  “Okay, it is kind of a big storm,” I said. “But we are perfectly safe. Thunder is just a loud noise. It cannot hurt you.” (That is what Mommy used to tell me, back when I was little. I am seven now. Andrew is only four going on five.)

  “What about the lightning?” asked Andrew’s voice.

  “Lightning can be dangerous if you are outside,” I said. “But we are inside, safe and cozy and warm.”

  Andrew poked his head out from under the sheet.

  Flash! Boom! went the storm.

  “How about this?” I said. “Listen. We will figure out how far away the lightning is from us. When you see a flash of lightning, start counting slowly.”

  Flash!

  “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi,” Andrew and I counted together. Then, boom!

  “We counted to five,” I said. “That means the storm is about five miles away from us.”

  “Really?” said Andrew. “Gosh, that is pretty far.”

  I could tell he felt better, knowing the lightning was so far away.

  There was another flash, and we counted again. This time we reached eight.

  “The storm is moving away from us,” I said.

  Andrew nodded.

  “Do you think you can go back to your own bedroom and sleep now?” I asked.

  Andrew nodded again. He crawled out from under my sheet and slid out of bed. He padded toward the door. Then he turned around.

  “Thanks, Karen,” he said. “You are a good big sister.”

  “You are welcome, Andrew,” I said. “You are a good little brother.”

  Andrew left the room. I was asleep again so quickly, I do not even remember my head hitting the pillow.

  Underneath the Oak

  “Hi, Hannie!” I called. It was the next morning, before school. Nancy Dawes and I ran to meet our other best friend, Hannie Papadakis. (I will tell you more about them — and me — soon.) She was standing beneath the big old oak tree in the corner of the schoolyard.

  Hannie was holding something up to her mouth. She took a big breath and — tweet!

  “Wow!” I said as we reached her. “Some whistle! How did you do that?”

  “With an acorn cap,” Hannie said. She showed Nancy and me how to put our thumbs together to make a little V shape. Then we each put an acorn cap behind our Vs and blew hard into them.

  Tweet!

  “Wow!” I said again. “Loud.”

  Hannie nodded. “Yup. My daddy showed me how to do that.”

  I looked around us. Scattered all over the ground were acorns. So were sticks and branches. One of the branches was pretty big. It was much longer than I am.

  “The storm last night hurt our tree,” I said, frowning.

  I called it our tree, because the Three Musketeers — Hannie, Nancy, and I — played under it a lot. It was a huge, beautiful old oak, with a trunk that was so big that the three of us could not reach all the way around it while holding hands. I know because we had tried.

  Way high up, the trunk split into three main branches — one for each of us. The oak gave us shade in the summer, and it protected us from drizzle in the spring. In the fall its leaves turned bright red and yellow, and in the winter its branches looked black and spooky against the white snow.

  Hannie, Nancy, and I have played hide-and-seek behind the old oak and told one another our most secret secrets underneath it. I have even cried beneath its branches, and somehow crying under the old oak always made me feel better. All year round it was just about the best tree in the whole world. It was our friend.

  I looked up into its branches. Even though it was only September, many of them were bare. I had not noticed it before, but our tree was beginning to look kind of scraggly.

  “Hey, you guys,” I said, peering up. “Have you noticed — ”

  At that moment the bell rang, and Hannie and Nancy ran to line up. I ran after them. Later I would have a chance to tell them I was afraid our tree was not healthy.

  * * *

  “Class, I have an announcement to make,” said Ms. Colman. Ms. Colman is my second-grade teacher. She is the best teacher in the world. She is always kind. That is a very good thing in a teacher.

  “Oh, goody!” I said (not too loudly). I wiggled in my seat. I love Ms. Colman’s announcements.

  “This Friday will be Stoneybrook Academy’s first annual Fix-Up Day,” said Ms. Colman. “We will not have class that day. Instead, we will join the rest of the school in sprucing up the buildings and grounds.”

  Hands shot up around the classroom.

  “Are we going to help fix a building or some ground?” asked Ian Johnson.

  “If we are fixing up the ground, I call dibs on the bulldozer,” said Bobby Giannelli.

  The other boys started arguing about who would get to drive the bulldozer.

  “If the boys fix the ground,” said Sar
a Ford, “then we girls will fix the building. Will we be allowed on the roof, Ms. Colman? I lost a tennis ball up there once. It is probably still there.”

  “Will we have to wash the windows?” asked Jannie Gilbert.

  “I do not do windows,” said Pamela Harding.

  Ms. Colman laughed. “You will not have to wash any windows, Pamela. And I am sorry, Bobby, but no one will be driving a bulldozer.”

  Ms. Colman went on to explain that each class in the school would work on a special project to help make our school look fresh and pretty.

  Already my feet were tapping. I was getting excited. I am an excellent fixer-upper. I often help my big-house Nannie and my little-house nanny with cleaning and organizing. Plus I am good at decorating and painting and making things look beautiful. This project was perfect for me.

  Oops! I just realized. I have not told you about my two houses yet (or about my nanny and my Nannie). Before I go any further, I will have to do that.

  My Two Families

  A long, long time ago, when I was little, my mommy, my daddy, Andrew, and I lived together in a big house here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Then Mommy and Daddy decided they could not live together anymore. So they got a divorce. It was a sad time for Andrew and me. Mommy, Andrew, and I moved out of the big house to a little house (also in Stoneybrook). Daddy stayed at the big house. (It is where he grew up.)

  After awhile Mommy met a nice man named Seth Engle, and they got married. That made him my stepfather, and he came to live with us in the little house. He brought along his cat, Rocky, and his dog, Midgie.

  Then Daddy married a woman named Elizabeth Thomas. She became my stepmother. And guess what? Elizabeth already had not one, not two, not three, but four kids. They are Sam and Charlie, who are in high school; Kristy, who is in middle school; and David Michael, who is in second grade like me, but at a different school.

  Then Daddy and Elizabeth adopted Emily Michelle from the faraway country of Vietnam. She is two and a half. So she is my little sister.

  There were so many people at the big house that Nannie, Elizabeth’s mother, came to help take care of everyone. Nannie also helps with the pets: David Michael’s gigundo puppy, Shannon; Pumpkin, our new kitten; some fish; Bob, Andrew’s hermit crab; and my rat, Emily Junior. (I love my pet rat.)

  Andrew and I spend every other month with Mommy and Seth in the little house. We live with Daddy at the big house during the other months.

  Because Andrew and I move back and forth, we have two of a lot of things. We have two houses and two families, two mommies, two daddies, two cats, and two dogs. We have a Nannie (my stepgrandmother) at the big house, and a nanny (named Merry Perkins) at the little house. I have two stuffed cats, Moosie and Goosie. I have two best friends, Hannie and Nancy. (Hannie lives across the street and one house down from the big house. Nancy lives next door to the little house.) I even have two pairs of glasses — blue ones for reading, and pink ones for the rest of the time. After Ms. Colman read a book called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang to our class, I made up special nicknames for my brother and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. I bet you can guess why.

  Now Ms. Colman was telling our class how the Stoneybrook Academy students would help on Fix-Up Day.

  “Older grades will paint hallways and lockers,” Ms. Colman said. “The sixth grade will design and paint a mural in the cafeteria.”

  My class ooohed. I hoped we would get to do something like paint a mural.

  “The younger grades, including the second grade, will work in the yard, making the outside of our school as beautiful as the inside,” Ms. Colman went on. “Mr. Berger’s second-grade class will collect litter, rake the paths, and spread new bark chips in the swings area. Our class will plant some new shrubs. Together we will make the school grounds look terrific.”

  “Yea!” Everyone cheered. Planting shrubs was definitely better than picking up trash. I hoped our new shrubs would have flowers on them. Or maybe they would be berry bushes.

  My hand shot up. “Ms. Colman, can we plant raspberry bushes, or blueberry bushes, or strawberry bushes, or blackberry bushes?” I said.

  Ms. Colman smiled. “That is a fun idea, Karen,” she said. “But I think the fix-up committee has chosen other plants that will not require much upkeep.”

  “Drat,” I said.

  “Besides, strawberries grow on vines, not on bushes,” Ms. Colman added kindly.

  “Can we plant strawberry vines to grow up our fences?” I asked hopefully.

  My teacher smiled and shook her head. “I am afraid not.”

  “Drat,” I said again.

  You know, planting shrubs was better than raking paths, but it was not as good as painting a mural. We did not even get to choose the bushes or shrubs ourselves. I wished my class could do something really special for our school. I would have to think about this.

  Hurricane Karen

  When I got home that afternoon, I found Merry, my nanny, alone in the kitchen. (Mommy has a new job at the crafts center in town. My stepfather, Seth, works all day as a carpenter and furniture-maker. So Merry takes care of Andrew and me until Mommy and Seth get home. I love Merry.)

  “Where is Andrew?” I asked. I do not miss Andrew except when I am expecting to see him. Then I do.

  “He is at Ezra’s house,” said Merry. “Are you hungry, Karen? Would you like a snack?”

  “Yes, please,” I said. I am always hungry after school.

  Merry served me a snack of cream cheese on celery sticks, and a glass of juice. I dug in. I ate my snack, pretending that I was a rabbit eating in someone’s garden. I tried to wiggle my ears a little.

  “Karen, when you are done with your celery, could you help me make a salad for dinner tonight?” Merry asked.

  “Sure,” I said, crunching away.

  After I finished, I stood on the stepstool by the sink. Merry handed me a head of lettuce. “Tear up the leaves into bite-size pieces and drop them in the salad spinner for washing. I will cut the tomatoes.”

  After a minute, Merry said, “I like to have music on when I work in the kitchen. Is that okay with you?”

  I nodded.

  Merry switched on the radio on the windowsill. Violins were playing a soft tune.

  “Some like it hot, but I prefer classical,” said Merry, smiling. “That is a line from an old movie.”

  “Oh,” I said. Merry is just full of interesting tidbits like that. “I will say that myself sometime.”

  The music ended, and an announcer’s voice came on the radio. “On the weather front, the North Carolina coast braces for what is shaping up to be the worst storm of the year.”

  I ripped a lettuce leaf and threw it in the spinner.

  “The National Weather Center has issued a hurricane watch for the entire coast of North and South Carolina,” the radio announcer said. “There is a sixty-percent chance that the hurricane will make landfall on the Carolina coast within the next seventy-two hours.”

  Gosh, I said to myself. A hurricane. That must be exciting for those people down in the Carolinas. I ripped a leaf and tossed it in the spinner. I ripped another leaf and got ready to toss.

  “The governor of North Carolina has urged residents of coastal areas to prepare for possible evacuation procedures, as the state readies for the onset of Hurricane Karen.”

  My lettuce leaf flew out of my hand and onto the floor, missing the spinner completely. “Hurricane Karen!” I exclaimed. “Oh my gosh!”

  What Happens in a Hurricane?

  “Hannie!” Nancy and I ran across the school playground to our friend. “Have you heard? I have a hurricane named after me!”

  It was the next morning. Earlier, I had heard on the radio that Hurricane Karen had turned north. It might hit Virginia instead of North or South Carolina.

  Hannie and Nancy had heard of Hurricane Karen too. (They had not tuned in to the morning news for updates, though.) They were almost as excited about Hurricane Karen as I was.


  “Whooooosh!” I pretended to be a big wind. “Look out, everyone! Hurricane Karen is coming through!” I ran around the playground, whooshing and thundering. Hannie and Nancy laughed.

  And now I bet you will never guess who else was excited about Hurricane Karen. Give up? It was Ms. Colman. When the bell rang, Hannie and Nancy and I raced into our classroom, as always.

  “Guess what!” I shouted as I flung my books down on my desk. “I am a hurricane!”

  “I thought of you when I heard about the hurricane,” Ms. Colman said. “I think that after Ricky takes attendance, we can spend some time talking about hurricanes.”

  Ricky Torres is my pretend husband. We got married in the schoolyard a long time ago. We also sit next to each other in the front row of Ms. Colman’s class — but not because we are married. It is because we are glasses-wearers. Natalie Springer is the other glasses-wearer, and she sits on the other side of Ricky.

  Ricky stood up proudly and marched to Ms. Colman’s desk to get the attendance book. When he had finished, Ms. Colman pulled down the large map of the United States that hangs in front of our blackboard.

  “Here we are, in Connecticut,” she said, pointing. “Here is North Carolina, and here is Virginia. It is not often that hurricanes come as far north as Virginia. Usually they strike states that are farther south, such as Florida, Georgia, or the Carolinas, or else they go into the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Will Hurricane Karen hit Stoneybrook?” asked Jannie Gilbert in a scared voice.

  “I am already here!” I piped up. Then I said loudly, “Whoooosh!”

  “Indoor voice, Karen,” said Ms. Colman. “It is not likely that Hurricane Karen will make it as far north as Connecticut, according to the weather experts. Hurricanes are very unpredictable, though. So it is difficult to say for certain where a hurricane will go.”

  Ms. Colman went on to explain a lot of interesting facts about hurricanes. (Ms. Colman is an excellent explainer.) First she told us what a hurricane is. It is a large, circular storm that spins around. Hurricanes always start forming over large bodies of water. She explained the difference between a hurricane and a tornado. (Tornadoes spin around too, but they are much, much smaller than hurricanes.) She showed us some pictures of hurricanes taken from space. They looked like giant pinwheels. A single hurricane can be much larger than the whole state of Connecticut.