Page 2 of Reckoning

Her smile made Tate’s feelings of unease almost go away, but not for long.

He was halfway through his burger and watching Briar dipping a french fry in ketchup when he glanced up at the window behind her. All of a sudden, the bright daylight was gone, and there was a huge black funnel dropping down out of the sky. Startled, he blinked, and then the image was gone. But he knew what that meant. It was the only warning he was going to get.

He jumped up from his chair and ran to the other end of the table where Miss Ellen was standing, shouting her name as he ran.

“Miss Ellen, Miss Ellen!”

She turned, expecting to see a spilled tray, or the twin brothers in third grade fighting again, but it was Tate, and he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Tate grabbed her by the hand and started pulling. “We have to go! There’s a twister. It’s coming right now, and we have to go!” he cried.

She took him by the shoulders, trying to calm him. “Tate, honey…look outside. There isn’t a tornado.”

He began crying and begging, which was so unlike him. His face was pale and panicked, and his big brown eyes were welling with unshed tears. “There is! There is! I see it! It’s a tornado! I see it in my head!”

The room went silent.

People whispered now and then about Abel Bandy’s boy having “the sight,” but in this church, predicting the future was too much like witchcraft. It was severely frowned upon. Yet at the same moment silence spread over the room, the roar beyond the walls became clearly audible—like a freight train barreling through the Ozarks.

Miss Ellen bolted out into the hall to alert their principal, Sherman Wyeth.

Wyeth frowned that an adult was shouting in his school, but then he heard the word “tornado” and ran to look out. What he saw stopped his heart. He ran toward the door, sounded the alarm, and bolted out of the office, shouting. “Everybody to the basement!”

Everything came to a halt. Cooks, the helpers, and all of the teachers started running children out into the hall.

Mr. Wyeth was at the far end, waving them toward the flight of stairs that led down into the basement. There was no time for the orderly lineup. Their lives were on the line.

The adults were shouting, “hurry, children, hurry,” and the children were in full stampede mode. Some stumbled and fell, but they were yanked up so fast they didn’t have time to get trampled.

Tate could see Briar’s head in the crowd ahead of him as he was running. She was going to fall. He could see it happening, but he couldn’t get to her fast enough to catch her. One moment she was in his sight, and then she disappeared. Before he could panic, Miss Ellen was carrying her and running. He knew Briar’s knee was bleeding, but the roar outside was getting louder. His last thought was of his mama and daddy, then down into the basement they went, their little footsteps thundering on the wooden stairs and then slapping the concrete floor beneath their feet as they reached the bottom.

Mr. Wyeth closed the upper door in the hall and ran down the stairs. “Is everyone accounted for?” he shouted, as teachers were already counting heads. Twenty-six children came to school today, and they needed to make sure all twenty-six were with them.

“We’re here!” Miss Ellen shouted.

Satisfied he had all of his charges in a safe place, Wyeth shut and bolted the door at the foot of the stairs and began moving through the room. “You’re safe now, you’re safe now,” he kept saying, trying to calm the panicked children.

“What about my parents?” one child asked.

“They are likely as worried about you as you are worried about them. Pray to God that we will all be delivered,” Mr. Wyeth said.

Tate heard Mr. Wyeth talking, but he already knew they were going to be safe. He was just bothered that there were two classmates between him and Briar, and her knee was still bleeding. She was crying. He wanted to cry too, but boys weren’t supposed to cry. He was thinking about getting up and going to sit beside her so she wouldn’t be scared, when the lights went out!

The power was gone, and the sound of the wind over their heads was like a monster’s roar. One child screamed, which set off the chaos. Children were crying for their mothers.

Tate could hear the principal praying, and then one teacher found a battery-powered fluorescent lantern with an AM/FM radio and turned it on. With that light, they found two other flashlights in the basement. Mr. Wyeth tried to get a station on the radio for a weather update, but either they were too far underground, or the storm was too strong to get a signal.

Finding the flashlights put light back into their world, and the screaming stopped, but one small detail had changed. Miss Ellen noticed that Tate Bandy was now sitting beside Briar Lowe, holding her hand.

At least she’s not crying anymore, Miss Ellen thought, and sat down on the cellar floor to say her own silent prayer. All she knew was that they were alive right now because of a child who’d been born with a gift.

After the roar began to fade, then came the silence, and it was almost as frightening as the storm. Mr. Wyeth unlocked the lower door, but when he opened it, all he saw were the stairs going up and nothing above his head but sky. The clouds were racing, rain was still falling as he climbed up, sidestepping debris. When he reached the top, he stepped out onto the concrete floor and moaned.

“Sweet lord. It’s gone. It’s all gone.” He took a slow, shuddering breath and then went back down, removing debris from the steps and tossing it aside as he went. Once he was back in the basement, he made an announcement.

“Boys and girls, the storm is over, but it’s still raining. It’s best we stay down here for the time being. Everything is gone. The church. The school. Our cars.” He wiped a shaky hand across his face. “Your parents will surely be coming soon to check on you, but you are safer down here until they arrive.”

Miss Ellen stood. “Everything?”