About Average Page 6

  When spring rains come down,

  The soil whispers, Thank you . . .

  Did “soil” count as one syllable or two?

  Soil . . . soil . . .

  Two springs ago, her mom had helped her build a small display stand next to the end of their driveway. It was just some white-painted boards laid across two sawhorses, shaded by a large blue-and-orange U of I umbrella. She had painted two sandwich-board signs that stood out beside the road from April to November—HOMEGROWN FOODS. She grew and sold everything from asparagus to zucchini, and fresh flowers, too—not large quantities, but high quality. Between fifty and seventy-five cars and trucks drove past their house each afternoon on County Road Twelve, and loyal customers stopped several times a week. So far she had put more than six hundred dollars in the bank.

  She was thinking of buying a small power tiller and using it to expand her pumpkin patch. Pumpkins brought in good money, and the deer and raccoons left them alone—as long as there were plenty of other munchies around . . . but Shep, their border collie, kept most of the critters away. Of course, Shep had been known to chew on the veggies too. . . .

  The deer and raccoons

  Will share my garden with Shep.

  Nature is messy.

  “And this digital hygrometer? The measurement is expressed as a percentage. Who can tell me why? No one? Well, it’s because air that is totally saturated with as much water vapor as it can hold without precipitation is represented by . . . ”

  Jordan kept her eyes forward, but tuned out again. Mrs. Lermon had this way of asking question after question, and she answered half of them herself. Her little lectures could fill a whole class period. Which seemed to be what was happening. Plus, it was like the teachers had gotten together and said, “In every class today, how about we all do things related to this weather, so no one has any chance of forgetting how hot and muggy it is. Hey, sounds like fun!”

  It wasn’t. What she didn’t need right now was a detailed explanation of the respiratory and integumentary discomfort caused by dew points above sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

  Jordan glanced over at Nikki. She was taking notes like crazy, acting like every word Mrs. Lermon said was a gift of brilliance.

  Maybe Mr. Graisha would cancel the after-school orchestra practice. . . .

  No, no way. He was going to drill them on that thumping graduation music over and over and over. The man was sort of insane.

  The man was insane. . . .

  Five syllables.

  She thought Nikki would have been more excited when she’d told her about being one of the haiku winners. Nikki had smiled and said, “Really? That’s great!” But that was it. It had sort of slapped her back to reality.

  After all, Nikki had actually done most of what she had only wished about doing this year. Nikki had had a speaking role in the school play, she’d been a wingback on the soccer team and a guard on the basketball team, she played first chair viola in the orchestra, and she had performed her own modern dance routine in the April Fool’s Day talent show.

  And with all the different ways there were to stand out, to be special, to make something of herself, what had Jordan done this year? She’d won twelve minutes of sitting in front of a clicking fan that smelled like burning plastic.

  And now she had haiku on the brain.

  I have haiku on the brain. . . .

  Seven syllables.

  So what could she do? Not much.

  Set simple goals.

  One: live through the rest of this class.

  Two: live through the orchestra practice—and try to avoid Marlea.

  Three: go home and water her tomato plants and sweet corn.

  And maybe take Cinders out for a slow ride through the woods . . . and stop and go wading in the stream.

  She sighed. The next-to-next-to-last science class . . .

  Next-to-next-to-last . . .

  Five syllables.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  VELVET AND STEEL

  The orchestra was twenty minutes into the practice, and Jordan thought it was going pretty well. Mr. Graisha had broken up the piece into sections, and they were playing each section three times before adding the next one.

  Also, instead of waving his little white baton around, he was clapping his hands to mark the rhythm and at the same time singing out the melody of Pomp and Circumstance at the top of his lungs.

  “Daa, da da da daa daa, daa, da da da daaaa!”

  The man looked totally insane, but it was working.

  It was just as hot and humid in the auditorium building as it had been over in the main school all day. Mr. Graisha’s face was bright red, and he was sweating buckets, but he hardly seemed to notice.

  “All right,” he shouted, “this time I want to hear the first twenty measures, the whole theme, right up to the first big crescendo—and play it loud, okay? Fill up the whole auditorium, blow the roof off the joint!”

  He began clapping. “Okay, here we go! And one, and two, and, Daaa, da da da daaa daaa, daaa da da da . . . ”

  He stopped singing and waved his hands over his head.

  “Hold it!” he shouted. “Hold it—someone’s really out of tune—stop playing! Stop! Everyone!”

  The orchestra stumbled to a halt, but the harsh tone that had thrown him off kept droning on. It was from outside.

  Mr. Graisha hurried over to the wide double doors facing the playground and pushed the right one open. A burst of wind slammed the door right back, and it hit him hard. He staggered backward, then dropped to his knees, stunned. Then he slowly toppled to his side and lay still, one foot still holding the door ajar. Another burst of wind ripped the door open and knocked it back against the outside of the building—WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! A playground trash barrel sailed in through the open door, two feet above Mr. Graisha. It tumbled once and clattered onto the hardwood floor of the stage, spilling paper and empty plastic bottles everywhere.

  Above the sound of the wind and the whamming door, the original noise kept going. It was the town emergency siren.

  Only a few seconds had passed, and the kids still sat glued to their chairs, instruments in their hands. Then, as if they were puppets all connected by the same string, everyone jumped up. Kids began yelling, and some were screaming. “What do we do? What do we do? We’ve got to get to the school!”

  Somebody’s cello hit the floor. Its neck broke, and the strings made a sickly twang.

  Jordan knew in a flash. This was a thunderstorm. Or even a tornado. Her breaths turned to short gasps. She felt fear clutching at her throat, making her want to scream.

  NO!

  She tried to think.

  WhatdoIdo, whatdoIdo, whatdoIdo, whatdoIdo?

  A shiny set of words jumped into her mind, words she’d said to herself just minutes ago, at the end of science class.

  Set simple goals, right?

  First, Mr. Graisha.

  She could see a huge bump on his forehead. And blood. But she also saw he was breathing.

  We have to get him away from there.

  Sudden pain shot through her hands—her violin and bow, gripped tightly, all her knuckles white. On pure instinct, she bent down and put the instrument in the case, clicking all three clasps.

  Her head jerked up as both doors on the west side of the stage slammed open, pushed outward by the wind from the playground side. Leaves, grass, paper, sticks, part of a wooden fence—it was like the whole outside world was trying to rush into the building. Raw, angry noise filled every bit of space, howling and whistling and growling, and it kept getting louder.

  A four-foot strip of blue-and-yellow plastic clattered in through the playground door, whacked against Mr. Graisha’s foot, and tumbled all the way across the stage. Part of Jordan’s mind realized it was a piece of the spiral sliding board.

  The kids were huddled in little groups now, some with tears streaming down their faces—especially the younger ones. Jordan felt like she was trapped in a dream and co
uldn’t wake up.

  She jumped as someone grabbed her elbow.

  Nikki put her mouth next to Jordan’s ear and yelled, “We need help!”

  Jordan had never seen Nikki scared of anything, not in all the time they’d known each other. Right now her eyes were open so wide, she looked like an anime character. She was beyond scared.

  Jordan was scared too, but she fought the fear. It tried to paralyze her, tried to make her dizzy and weak. It felt exactly like a bad dream, so she forced herself to wake up, forced herself to think. The fear didn’t go away, but the whole scene snapped into focus, more vivid than a 3-D movie. And she saw what had to happen.

  She took Nikki’s hand and yelled, “Stay close!”

  Jordan pulled Nikki and ran over to the grand piano. She grabbed her book bag, reached into the small pocket, and a second later, she sucked in a huge breath and blew three sharp whistle blasts. Breet! Breet! Breet!

  The sound of that Acme Thunderer cut through the noise of the wind, the screams and whimpers of the kids, and the wailing siren.

  Every kid on the stage turned to look at Jordan.

  She blasted her whistle again and motioned for everyone to come close. In three seconds, twenty-two kids were gathered around her in a tight semicircle.

  She yelled as loud as she could. “We have to hurry!” She pointed at Jonathan. “You and Rick and Susan and Ellie, get Mr. Graisha on that chair cart and roll him over here! Everyone else, grab the music stands and bring them next to the piano. And then the folding chairs! Hurry!”

  No one moved. Nikki was still holding on to Jordan’s arm.

  Jordan put the whistle between her lips and blew it again. Nothing.

  She stamped her feet. “Move!” The kids huddled closer.

  She shouted again. “HURRY, PLEASE!”

  Lindley moved first. She dashed to the center of the stage, grabbed two of the black music stands, and rushed back.

  That broke the spell. Everyone jumped into action. In less than a minute, all twenty-three music stands were clustered around the big piano, and Jonathan and his team had wheeled Mr. Graisha over. Nikki came back to life, and she and Kylie and Marlea led a brigade that gathered all the folding chairs.

  Jordan motioned that Mr. Graisha’s rolling cart had to be tight against the long, straight side of the piano. Then she took hold of one of the music stands and tilted the top part flat, like the top of a T. She motioned and yelled, “All of them, like this! Hurry, please!”

  As eight or ten kids began that job, she grabbed Jonathan’s arm and shouted into his ear. “Get a bunch of kids!” She motioned for him to follow.

  She ran to where half the curtain hung folded along the wall of the stage. Reaching above her head, she grabbed the edge of the thick fabric.

  The noise outside now sounded like giant jet engines, whistling and whining. In the auditorium, the high windows on the west wall began bursting inward, and glass shattered onto the seats.

  Jordan screamed, “Everybody grab hold! One, two, three, PULL!”

  Seven kids yanked hard and then hung on the edge of the curtain.

  For a second nothing happened, then far above, the cloth gave way, and a massive wave of red velvet cascaded to the floor. A dust cloud vanished in the swirling air.

  Jordan seized the corner of the fabric closest to the wall and pantomimed how the others needed to grab it along the front edge and stretch it wide. Then she led the charge, pointing to show them what to do.

  They pulled the wide billow of velvet like a rain tarp across a baseball field, and in one smooth flow, the seven kids hauled it up and over the tops of the music stands and the folding chairs and the rolling chair cart and the grand piano.

  And that was it.

  Jordan blew the whistle and motioned with her arms.

  Instantly, everyone understood what to do. Jordan ran out to the center of the stage, grabbed her violin case, then dropped to her knees and followed the last two kids under the curtain.

  The wind noise rose again to a higher pitch, and one of the stage doors facing the playground banged twice, then ripped off its hinges and sailed sixty feet straight across the back of the stage like a giant rectangular Frisbee. It slammed against the far doors and knocked the whole metal frame out onto the concrete steps.

  Jordan heard the sounds and felt the sudden change in air pressure as all that happened, but she didn’t see any of it. By then she was with Mr. Graisha and the rest of the orchestra, hidden inside their steel and velvet fort.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SOS

  Joe Streeter was one of the first people at the scene, arriving shortly after the fire trucks and police cars. He’d never seen a tornado this powerful whip up so fast—an F2 or even an F3, by the look of things. A sudden clash of forces and temperature gradients, then a deep wind shear and a massive rotation—six minutes from start to finish.

  The path of the twister made no sense at all, not that any of them ever did. Early eyewitnesses said it had snaked across some fields west of town, lifted clean over the downtown, touched down and destroyed two homes a block apart in the Jerome Gardens subdivision, and then hopped six blocks and landed right on the playground at Baird Elementary.

  The main building only had some minor glass damage, plus the boiler chimney on the east wall had toppled into the bus turnaround. The school had been nearly empty—only nine students and fourteen staff and faculty members. There wasn’t a storm cellar, but everyone had gotten to the designated inner hallway space in time. There hadn’t been a single injury, and all were accounted for.

  But Joe stood with Carl Tretorn, the fire chief, staring at the auditorium building. A large brick structure, it had stood just forty feet away from the main building. The connecting walkway was perfectly intact, its roof and columns untouched, while the auditorium itself was nearly flattened. All that remained standing were a few steel girders that had supported the frame of the stage.

  “I tell you what,” Carl said, nodding toward the rubble. “We lucked out on this one, big-time. The boiler’s over in the other building, so there were no broken gas lines, and there was nothing scheduled for after school. Flipped one big breaker and cut all the electricity. Every once in a while you catch a break.”

  He eyed Joe. “So, was it you who triggered the sirens?”

  Joe nodded. “Been watching all day. But you never think anything like this’ll actually happen.”

  Carl spat onto the ground. “Well, a short warning’s better than none, that’s for darn sure. Nice work.”

  Joe nodded off to Carl’s right. “Here comes Jim Regan. Is he still the principal here?”

  Jim arrived at a run, his face the color of oatmeal. “The secretary,” he said, panting, “she had a note on her blotter. There was a special orchestra practice in there. On the stage.”

  “Holy moly!” Carl turned and yelled to the men on the nearest trucks. “Survivors—north wall!”

  The scene instantly transformed into a search-and-rescue operation. Picks and shovels appeared, and the chief got on the radio and ordered heavy equipment.

  The first firefighter who trotted over and began tossing rubble aside suddenly stopped and held up one arm.

  “Quiet—shut off those diesels!”

  Joe pulled on a pair of borrowed gloves and stood still with the others. As a hush settled, he heard something too.

  At first it sounded like a referee on a far-off basketball court, whistling a foul. Then he caught the pattern: three short blasts, three long, three short—SOS.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  APPLAUSE

  A few things were unusual at the sixth-grade graduation the next Friday evening.

  First, it was taking place in the auditorium at the new high school.

  Second, the turnout was huge. Practically the whole town had showed up. Folks who couldn’t fit into the hall were watching the live broadcast on the local cable channel.

  And third, as the elementary school orchestra be
gan playing Pomp and Circumstance, it was hard not to notice that the conductor was wearing something that looked like a white headband. It was a bandage.

  As Jordan had predicted, the superintendent’s speech included these words: “After all, this certainly isn’t an ending. It is more like a great beginning.”

  But no one could have predicted what happened after Caroline Jenkins received her certificate of completion and sat back down.

  Because when Jordan Johnston’s name was called, and she rose and walked across the stage, every single person in the large hall stood up and began to applaud. Mr. Regan had her certificate, but he didn’t hand it to her. He was clapping too, and he smiled and motioned for her to turn and face the audience.

  Jordan looked out and saw so many faces she knew. Her mom and dad were there in the front row, and her sister, Allie, was holding up her little brother, Tim, so he could see. She saw the Carvers and three or four other families and lots of kids who knew her as their babysitter. She saw people who had stopped and bought sunflowers and carrots and green beans at her roadside stand. She saw all her teachers, waving and smiling at her.

  And from the corner of her eye, she saw her classmates clapping and cheering like crazy—including Marlea Harkins.

  Jordan smiled back at everyone and then stepped forward to the front edge of the stage and took a deep, graceful bow.

  Mr. Regan walked to her side and held up a hand until the hall went quiet. Everyone remained standing.

  The principal turned to Jordan. “In addition to your certificate of completion, the school board wants to present you with a special commendation, and I shall now read it.”

  He perched his glasses on the tip of his nose and began:

  “The duly elected school board of Salton, Illinois, does hereby commend Jordan Eloise Johnston for her outstanding bravery, her clear thinking, and her decisive actions during a devastating tornado that struck the Baird Elementary School on June 14. In only four minutes, Jordan implemented a safety plan and devised a hiding place that protected her own life, the lives of twenty-two other children, and the life of her orchestra conductor, who had been knocked unconscious. What almost certainly would have been a great and scarring tragedy has instead become this wonderful occasion to offer Jordan the heartfelt thanks of a grateful community. We remain forever in her debt.”