Racing the Hurricane

I lay awake in my bed at night, listening to the rain pounding on the roof. Hurricane Alex, first of the season, was coming in. I was in my cousin’s house in Port L, where many hurricanes have hit before. The thing that Port L was most famous for was when a hurricane came and stripped a dock in half. It still stands broken. I shake these thoughts out of my head and focus on falling back to sleep. As hard as I try, I can’t get the sound of the rain splashing against the window, growing louder, then falling to a crescendo until it starts back up/ I am not aware when I fall back into the darkness of sleep. “Hey, Elizabeth, want to go out to the park for lunch?”“Sure.”“Okay, um… Looks like the only thing that we can bring there is sandwiches… Is that all right?”“We’ve been having sandwiches forever, though!” We recently made a trip to my grandparent’s house, where they sent us home with at least three pounds of cold cut meat. “I know,” I return back to Elizabeth’s complain. “Well, that’s just going to be easiest. Fine if you don’t want to- that’s what I’m taking.” Elizabeth reluctantly agreed. I took out a slice of bread and the meat. I placed on it at least 10 pieces of turkey and folded it in half. Rayne, my older cousin, looked up from studying her Texas Government. “You’re eating that?” I take a look at my sandwich. “Yeah. Why?” “Oh… Okay, then. That’s HUGE!” I ignore her and stuff it into a sandwich bag, which I place in a backpack Elizabeth took out. “Hey, Elizabeth, should be bring Pinkie?” I look at her dog. “No, he’ll be safer here.” Soon, both of us are outside and riding to the park. “It’s raining,” Elizabeth commented. “I know. But it’s just left over from last night. It’ll be nothing.” As we reach the park the rain stops. We ride up the ramp and park our bikes on the soft dirt. Lunch is short. We eat under the play set on bars sprawled out of a metal pole, supposedly the ‘trunk’ of the tree house themed park. Then it begins to rain. “Let’s go up on the play set,” Elizabeth suggests. “You go up with our stuff and I get the bikes.” I first run down to throw away my drink that I finished. “Get out the umbrellas,” Elizabeth orders. I follow, taking the blue one out first. It doesn’t open completely. Elizabeth takes it and tries to open it. It doesn’t work. She takes out her orange one which works well. “Thanks for giving me the one that works,” I say sarcastically. “You’re welcome,” she returns before adding, “Well, this one’s mine, anyway.” I finally get it open. We sit up there until Elizabeth says, “Someone’s coming.”We stay quiet and casually hide our faces behind the umbrellas as a girl about the age of eight comes with a dog, calling it.“I think there’s going to be a thunderstorm soon,” I announce loudly to Elizabeth, hoping the girl would turn back.“You think?”“Yeah. We should really be turning back right now.”After a few seconds of silence Elizabeth says, “She’s gone.”I stand up and look. Yes, the owner, a girl with chestnut brown hair tied in thick, curlypiggy tails with navy blue ribbons, was headed back.By then the rain had stopped. We make our way down to our bikes and sit with our umbrellas covering the seats of our bikes and us at the same time. As we talk, the rain goes on and off. Soon, it began to pour. Hard. We watch as the rain slants at an angle almost horizontal “We should have gone five minutes ago,” Elizabeth says. I have no comment. Then she pulls out the phone and dials Rayne’s number. “Hey, Rayne… yeah, we’re stuck out here… it’s pouring…yeah… can you…” I motion for Elizabeth to hand me the phone. She does, whispering, “Don’t get it wet.” “Hi, Rayne… yeah, it’s, like, pouring out here… so we’re going to wait five, ten minutes to see if it gets any better. Okay, I’ll call if we need help. Thanks, bye.” I hand the phone back to Elizabeth and wait under my umbrella. My feet are getting soaked. Good thing I didn’t wear tennis shoes as earlier planned. I move my position so that my knees touch the ground. It gets me wet, but it’s better than aching muscles. My back is drenched. I glance over to see that Elizabeth has put up the phone. “I think it’s hurricane Alex. Maybe it’s the edge. The clouds are definitely connected.” I don’t think I comforted Elizabeth at all.” The rain suddenly stopped. “Let’s go… hurry!” I hold the umbrella with my teeth and try to shove the kickstand back up. It doesn’t work. Finally it gives in and I ride out into the grass. Just as we reach the road we rain pours hard on our umbrellas. An oversized raindrop plops on my nose. “Let’s go back under the play set!” Again, we wait, the rain pounding hard on our backs. I am soaked. Elizabeth pulls out the phone. “We need to call Rayne,” she says firmly. “Come on, if we ride back on our bikes it’ll be more of an adventure!” “We need her to pick us up, then we’ll come back to get our bikes later!” “They can be stolen!” I look at the silver and blue bike that looked relatively new. “You’re right.” “Seriously, we can get back ourselves. Elizabeth doesn’t answer. “Or she can come with towels and we can wait in the car,” “Yeah!” Elizabeth dials the number and hits ‘talk.’ “Hi? Rayne? Yeah, can you get some towels and come get us?” “But it’ll be more of an adventure if we go back ourselves!” I whisper. The rain stops. “Let’s go, let’s go!” I hastily shout. Elizabeth hangs up without saying another word. We roll our bikes out into the rain. Elizabeth stops and shouts, “Oww! You go on first!” I am in such a hurry that I blaze straight through the grass and onto the street. A truck is behind me, so I ride as close to the curb as possible. I splash through an enormous puddle. Dirt and water drench my feet and bottom of my shorts. I ride faster and squint as the truck zooms by. I glance behind me. “Elizabeth, are you all right?” I can barely hear her through the rain. She shouts something, and I see her pedaling behind me. “Any cars behind us?” “What?” I give up and decide to cross the road. As we turn the corner, I finally see the fun of the whole situation. “THIS IS AWESOME!” I scream. I don’t care if anyone hears me. “THIS IS AMAZING!” Winds sweeps against me and blows my umbrella back. I let go of one bike handle and hold the umbrella in place. It flips backward like a bowl. “Your umbrella is flipped back! It looks so funny!” Elizabeth laughs. “Oh, no! Mine flipped, too!” The wind abruptly switches directions and my hair catches on one of the metal hinges of the umbrella. Then it flips back around. Thanks, wind. “Just turn your umbrella around,” Elizabeth shouts, giggling. “I can’t! My hair is caught on it!” I scream as I aim my bike for another huge puddle. I don’t even care that I’m getting all wet. I mean, how many times is this going to come up in my life? I should live well with it! As the rain picks up speed, Elizabeth and I scream and laugh on the way back to her house. By the time we reached the door by the garage, we couldn’t have been more soaked. I attempt to close up my umbrella, which takes quite a while. Finally we enter and lay the bike against the wall. “Open up your umbrella and put it here,” Elizabeth said, gesturing toward the ground. Why did I even bother closing it? I lay the umbrella down and we race into the house. “That… was AMAZING!” We both exclaim. Rayne quickly sends us away with beach towels to dry off with. “Best experience of my life!” “Definitely!” The next day, Elizabeth and I gaze out the window. “Want to do it again?” “Let’s go for it!”