Free Another Kind of Hurricane by Tamara Ellis Smith Page A

headed out of town.
    “Please let me come with you.”
    “I don’t know, Henry.” He opened the driver’s side door of the cab and climbed in. He turned the headlights on, then turned them off. He turned the windshield wipers on, then turned them off.
    Henry put his hand on the giant cab door and looked up at Jake.
    “I need to get out of here,” he said.
    Jake started the truck. It rumbled to life. Henry felt its vibration through the metal. A buzzing feeling in his hand.
    “Jake—” he said.
    Jake was testing the gears.
    “Jake—” he said louder.
    Nothing.
    “Jake!”
he yelled above the engine roar.
    Jake turned his head. He cut the engine. Henry’s heart was racing from raising his voice. “I need—” Henry began. But he didn’t know what to say. He looked past Jake, out through the passenger window to Mount Mansfield. “I want—” he tried again.
    Jake jumped down from the cab. He began inspecting the front tire, running his hand along its tread.
    “The red-breasted goose in the Siberian tundra is vulnerable to arctic fox attacks,” Henry said all of a sudden. “The foxes are always hungry. They’ll eat the geese in an instant. If the geese build their nests alone, the foxes eat their eggs and chicks too. Like that—” Henry snapped his fingers. “But they don’t make their nests alone. They wait until the peregrine falcons build
their
nests, and then the geese build theirs around them. The peregrine falcons fight off the arctic fox.” Henry paused.
    Jake stared at him, listening intently.
    “The peregrine falcon is small but fierce,” finished Henry.
    “National Geographic special?”
    “PBS.”
    “Cool birds. I can always count on you to find the cool animals.”
    Henry looked Jake right in the eyes. “I want to be a peregrine falcon, Jake.” He glanced out the cab window again. The edges of Mount Mansfield glimmered under the sun. He looked back at Jake. “I can help in New Orleans.”
    Jake leaned against the truck. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
    “It isn’t going to be easy there.”
    “I know.”
    “It isn’t going to be pretty.”
    “I know.”
    “Have you seen it on TV? It’s…pure survival,” said Jake. “Nothing pretty about it.”
    “Nothing pretty about here,” said Henry, glancing back at the stupid hulking mountain one more time.
    Jake nodded slowly. He pressed his lips together and took in a deep breath through his nose. “Nope,” he finally said. “You’re right about that.” He turned and looked at Henry. “I gotta go. I can’t explain it, but I need to be in the middle of that city. I need to be right there in the middle of that hurricane-torn place, like maybe it will stop my own spinning—” He laughed. It was a sad, small sound. “I’m a nut, is all.”
    “You’re a peregrine falcon,” said Henry. “Me too.” He held his breath, the air inside him filled with hope.
    “Okay, bird boy,” said Jake. “I’ll take you with me. If your mother says it’s okay.”
    Henry blew the air out of his body. And the hope that he had held spun and curled into the wind and headed south, which happened to be the way the wind was traveling.

chapter 21

ZAVION
    Zavion had to get to Grandmother Mountain. That one thought was crystal clear in his mind. As crystal clear as the white lines running through the middle of his wishing rocks.
    Somewhere there was a person who could take him there.
    But before that, Zavion had a debt to pay. He had to find a way to get money. He had to find a way to get Papa to take him back to New Orleans. He had to slow down his heart.

marble journey part III

PIERRE DUCHAMP
    Pierre opened the bag of clothes from the New Orleans Salvation Army.
    Shirts.
    Socks.
    Boxer shorts.
    Sweatshirts.
    A pair of blue jeans.
    He knew the people who came in to his Salvation Army. The Baton Rouge branch. He thought of them as
his
people.
    They were certainly more his people than his own family.
    —
    His own family opened their