Sea by Heidi Kling Page B

so I carefully unhooked her hands from around my neck and handed her my flashlight and my journal. “Here, you can look at these pictures. I promise I’ll be right back.”
    She smiled a bit and nodded, flicking the light on and off.
    Then, I slipped on my sneakers, and grabbing a towel to use as a tarp, I stepped out into the storm.
    The lightning was so close, I hugged the side of the building as I went.
    The wide path was ankle deep with water. My sneakers were drenched and the rain was hitting my face so hard it was like standing under a faucet on hyper-speed. I ducked my head and ran.
    I could have gone looking for Vera, that would have been the most logical choice, but I wanted to find Dad, to make sure I was doing the right thing with the girls. But mostly I just wanted my dad.
    So even though it was totally against the rules, I ran down the central path and then headed down the muddy trail toward the boys’ dorms, screaming into the streaking blackness, “Dad! Tom!”
    Lightning shot across the sky as I stumbled through the mud—now as deep as a half-filled baby pool. “Dad!”
    From outside, the boys’ dorms looked just like the girls’. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised: white with blue roofs and basically falling apart. I heard terrified shrieks coming from a stocky building with a flapping blue door. Shadowy figures were scurrying in and out of the flap. They were using the sort of scoopers I saw in the buckets in the bathroom to bail the water off the floor. Ick. Then I saw who was doing the scooping.
    “Sienna!” Dad yelled when he saw me. “What are you doing here? Are you okay? Are the girls okay?”
    “Yeah!” I screamed. “They’re scared but okay.”
    Dad handed his scooper to Tom and gave me a quick wet hug. “Good. Just go back to your dorm. It’s on higher ground than this one. Shut the door tight and shove anything you can find under the crack to keep the water out.”
    “That’s what I did.”
    “Great. And put the girls together on the highest bunk farthest away from the window.”
    “I did that too.”
    Dad’s answer was a kiss on the cheek. “Well done.”
    I have to admit it was nice to hear. “What else should I do?”
    “I’ll walk you back, and you should just keep the girls company and wait it out. If things get rougher, which I don’t think they will, go find an older girl to help you entertain the girls or move a few of them into the older girls’ dorms a few buildings down.”
    Peeking inside the dorm, I noticed the youngest boys were huddled together on the top bunk. One of the boys’ heads was bleeding and he was holding an X-Men T-shirt to his hurt scalp. My Wolverine boy from the soccer game. Poor guy!
    “What happened to him?” I asked.
    “When the thunder cracked, he jumped and fell off his bunk and banged his head.”
    “Ooh. Looks bad. Does he need stitches?”
    “We don’t think so. Vera’s going for the first-aid kit to find a butterfly bandage.”
    So Vera’s breaking rules too?
    “Tom, I’ll be right back,” Dad said. “I’m just going to walk her ...”
    I shook my head and squeezed Dad’s wrist. I saw how much work he had to do. I got here by myself. I didn’t need an escort back. “No, I’m fine, Dad, seriously. You stay here.”
    Dad looked surprised, and I didn’t blame him. His wimpy fifteen-year-old daughter who usually couldn’t spend a night without screaming can handle a monsoon?
    “If you’re sure ...” He glanced back at the Wolverine boy, who clearly needed more help than I did.
    I nodded. I could do this. “Positive.”
    I felt like I was body boarding through a giant wave. I didn’t know rain could be like that. Like the sky had burst. And then there were screams from the neighboring dorm. When I flung open the door, I found that more of the younger soccer boys I was playing with yesterday were standing in three inches of slushy water. Using soggy pieces of cardboard, they attempted to scoop