Stand Tall (17 page)

That’s when they heard the siren.

At first the sound didn’t register.

Then a voice on a loudspeaker blared the news:

“
This is an evacuation. Move immediately to the Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School. The Burnstown levee broke. Floodwaters are heading toward us.
”

Tree couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t there supposed to be more warning than this?

The siren grew louder.

“Okay,” said Grandpa. “We move quick and smart.”

Tree let Grandpa lean heavily on him to get out of the tub. “Throw me that towel. Get me my leg.”

Tree’s whole body was shaking. He knew how long it took to get his grandpa dressed.

Dad was working at the store.

It was just them at home. He didn’t know how they’d get to the school.

“Get my pants. Get my shirt.” Grandpa said it strong, but urgent. “No panic.”

Pants on, socks; stump liner; leg clicked into place.

It was going to take forever to walk him down the stairs.

“Call your dad.”

Tree raced to the phone. It was dead. Picked up the cell phone. Dialed. No answer.

Dialed again with shaking hands.

Nothing.

“Mom’s out of town, Grandpa.”

“Call the neighbors. We’ll find somebody.”

Tree’s mind went blank. “I can’t remember—”

“Johnsons on the left, Nagels on the right.”

Another siren.

“I’m going to call the police, Grandpa. Tell them we need a ride.”

He punched 911.

Circuits busy.

The front door opened.

“I’m here!” Tree’s father shouted.

“
We’re upstairs, Dad!
”

Dad took the stairs three at a time. “We’ve got to get out fast. Pop, can you move?”

“Slowly. Sorry to be a bother.”

“You’re no bother. Tree, hold him under the arm.” Tree did. Two men trying to carry a third. Too much confusion.

“I’ve got him, Dad. Grandpa, just hold on.”

Tree bent down, slung Grandpa over his shoulder. Felt his muscles sag under the weight.

“I feel like I’m in Vietnam again.”

Sirens louder. Dad grabbing food, boots, coats.

“In the car. Come on. We’ve got to beat it.”

Rain lashing outside. Wind railing.

Tree, scared frozen. How could a flood be coming when they hadn’t seen it yet?

There wasn’t time to go back, to get more clothes, anything
important. Tree thought of his tools and his books and his computer.

In the car Tree remembered Bradley.

“I’ve got to get Bradley!”

Tree ran back into the house as the sirens grew louder. He found Bradley scared half to death in his room; carried him to the car. Dad trying to drive up the hill. Not easy with the sloshing. Tree looking forward, looking back at the house and wondering what, if anything, would be left. Bradley lay as still as Tree had ever seen him.

The car didn’t seem like it could make the hill, started sliding.

Grandpa: “Okay, steady her to the left and crawl it up, that’s right, just loose the clutch a bit, ram her forward now.”

Inch by inch they slid, slipped, up the muddy hill.

Buses, cars making the trek, packed with scared people. For some reason Tree thought of the photo of his parents laughing. He wished he’d grabbed it. He buried his face in Bradley’s fur.

“Good dog,” Tree said. “That’s a good dog.”

It’s hard to understand the power of nature when it’s unleashed on you like that. Man can walk on the moon, orbit Mars, and cure so many diseases, but no one can stop a raging river once it decides to flood its banks.

At the middle school. A policeman at the door told Tree the impossible.

“No animals in the school, son. I’m sorry. They’re being kept at the football field.”

“But he’ll be scared!”

“They’ve got some tents. It’s the best we can do right now. We’ve got to get the people inside.”

Lightning crashing, rain falling sideways.

Bradley shaking like he’s going to explode.

A volunteer fireman asked Tree if he wanted to leave Bradley with him—he’d get him to the shelter.

“No. I’m taking him myself.” Tree looked pleadingly at his father, who was helping Grandpa inside.

He gave the fireman Bradley’s leash. “Can you hold him just a minute?”

Tree helped Dad get Grandpa into the gym.

They got him settled. Dad took Tree aside. “I don’t think I’ve told you how much help you’ve been with Grandpa. . . . I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Thanks, Dad. That means a lot.”

More people were streaming in.

People shouting if anyone had seen so-and-so as the lightning flashed outside and the thunder sounded like a nightmare. Tree looked up at Eleanor Roosevelt’s words carved below the basketball hoop:

Grandpa was doing his best to help the people around him, like the little girl crying for her mother. Her father kept telling her that Mama was going to be coming through that door any minute, but the little girl kept crying anyway.

“Well, darlin’,” said Grandpa. “What color hair does your mother have?”

“Brown.” The child sniffed.

“And what’s her name, other than Mommy?”

Small voice. “Carol.”

“I just happen to know a story about a mother with brown hair named Carol who got stuck in a flood, but she was so smart, she helped a dozen people to safety.”

The little girl’s eyes were wide.

“You want me to tell you that story?”

“Yes!”

“I’ve got to take Bradley over to the field, Dad.”

“I want you right back.”

Tree ran out the door; Bradley was cowering near the fireman’s feet.

“Okay, boy, it’s okay.”

Tree tugged on the leash. Bradley dug his heels in, wouldn’t move. Tree bent down to pick him up, saw Mr. Cosgrove walking fast, wearing a big slicker, carrying a flashlight.

That’s when Tree got the idea—as clear and clean as taking apart a laser pen.

“Mr. Cosgrove, could we keep some animals in the basement in those storage rooms?”

Mr. Cosgrove stopped, looked at Bradley.

He thought for a moment, then motioned Tree to the back door.

“Thanks.” Tree picked up Bradley, carried seventy-four pounds of old, wet dog through the darkened hall.

Mr. Cosgrove unlocked the storage room. “Put those newspapers on the floor and pray we don’t get caught.”

Tree pictured the vet’s office with all those animal cages. If they had cages, they could have more animals in the basement. Tree looked around the big room. It had lots of tall steel file cabinets. He opened some file drawers—they were empty and deep—almost like cages. But he’d need a top so the animals could breathe and not get out.

A loud siren blasted in the distance. Mr. Cosgrove and Tree ran upstairs.

More people were pouring in.

Dad walked over.

“We need to stay together.”

Tree told him about Bradley in the basement.

“He’ll be all right, Tree, I—”

A little boy let out a huge wail. “But they’ll drown! They can’t be outside. They can’t!”

His father was holding a cage with two white rabbits.

Tree whispered to Mr. Cosgrove, “They’ve already got a cage.”

“Do you know what a pension is?” Mr. Cosgrove snapped.

“Sort of.” Tree knew it involved money.

“You know what this could do to my pension?”

The little boy was crying hard.

“
Just
the rabbits and the dog. No more.”

Tree carried the rabbits downstairs, told Bradley he had two roommates. Told the rabbits, “This is the greatest guard dog in the universe.”

The rabbits looked on, unconvinced, as Bradley slept.

“Tree!” Mr. Cosgrove was holding McAllister, who looked like he’d been drowned nine times. “Some woman said this cat can’t stay on the field—it’s too sensitive.”

McAllister shook, hissed.

Tree: “I can make a cage for him if we have some chicken wire.”

“I’ve got that.”

Deep hissing.

Mr. Cosgrove deposited wet, crabby cat in Tree’s arms.

Bradley opened one eye.

“No, Bradley.”

Bradley rose, barking.

“Bradley, no!”

McAllister arched his back, big meow.

“You guys have to get along.”

But certain animal ways are bigger than floods.

“What are you doing?” Sully stood at the storage room door.

“Saving animals.” Tree put newspaper in a file drawer, lowered McAllister in, covered the top with wire netting, attached it with screws.

“He’s not too happy to be saved,” Sully observed as McAllister hissed.

“That’s the
last
animal.” Mr. Cosgrove put the cat in another room.

But more animals were coming.

Tree was running ragged, making cages. He and Sully tried to keep Mr. Cosgrove calm.

“These are just a couple of kittens, Mr. Cosgrove.”

“Look what we’ve got here . . . a ferret.”

And the big challenge . . .

“How do you feel about farm animals?”

Three chickens clucked in a cage. “They have arthritis,” Sully explained.

News of the flood came sporadically. Radio signals went in and out. Tree was wondering about everything.

Will the house survive?

Will anyone be hurt?

Where in the world is Sophie?

He’d called her house endless times on Dad’s cell phone; no answer.

Over and over they heard the warnings: Never stay in your car during a flood. It only takes two feet of water to carry you off.

Amber Melloncroft and Sarah Kravetz shuddered in a corner, blankets over their shoulders.

Tree remembered Grandpa saying how in Vietnam it didn’t matter how much money you had, how good you’d been on the football field, how smart you’d been in school.

War is the great equalizer.

Jeremy Liggins stood in the doorway, holding a cage. A policeman told him to bring it outside. Jeremy wailed, “Hamsters can’t be in the rain. They’re desert animals.
They’ll die.
”

Tree walked over. “I might have a safe place for them.”

“Where?”

The policeman helped an old woman inside; Tree led Jeremy downstairs.

Mr. Cosgrove stopped when he saw them. “
No.
”

“Mr. Cosgrove, Liggins’s hamsters will die if they have to be out in the rain.”

Mr. Cosgrove took a hard look at Jeremy. He’d heard him say plenty of mean things to Tree.

“You can keep them down here, but
only
because Tree asked. I hope you appreciate a friend like him.”

Jeremy looked down, nodded.

“Mr. Cosgrove, you’re going to get a medal for being a hero.”

“That won’t mean much on unemployment.”

“This reminds me of Vietnam, Leo.” The Trash King huddled under a Red Cross blanket. “Those tropical storms, we’d never get dry. Everything smelled like jungle rot.”

“I’ll take this over Nam any day.”

“Me, too.” King’s wife, Betty, leaned against his shoulder. “You think there’ll be any junk left when we get home, babe?”

“There’ll be junk in our lives till we’re dead.”

Tree watched Grandpa massage his bad leg. King waved an unlit cigar. “A flood like this makes you think. Maybe I should branch out. Get into something current, like hazardous waste.”

“You’ve always been a trendsetter,” Betty observed.

Tree’s dad came by. “I talked to your Mom in Philadelphia. She’s fine. She can’t get back yet because of the weather. She sends her love.” He smiled. “Her house will probably be okay. It’s on a hill. She’s worried enough for all of us.”

He didn’t sound edgy at all when he said it.

Dad’s house wasn’t on a hill. Tree wondered what that meant.

“I told her how well you’ve been handling all this, how you’re helping out everywhere.” Dad grinned. “I told her I was so proud of you, I could bust.”

Tree beamed. “Thanks, Dad.”

Mayor Diner came in at this point, windblown and wet. She took her slicker off, looked at the horde of people in the gym.

Walked to the free-throw line, smiled sadly.