Free Flood Friday by Lois Lenski Page A

promised us one. A big six-person trailer for all nine of us.”
    “That’s nice,” said Barbara. “I’m so glad.”
    “Do you think you’ll like it, Tommy?” asked Sally.
    “Like it?” said Tommy. “Heck, no! It’s too little. We’ll bump each other. We’ll knock things down. But what do I care?”
    “Where are you living, Carol?” asked Barbara.
    “With some strange people I never saw before,” said Carol, “up in the high part of town, They’re all right, but—”
    “Don’t you like it?” asked Sally.
    “I was lonesome for my mother,” said Carol. “I cried because she stayed far away on the other side of town.”
    Sally thought of all her schoolmates whose homes had been washed away. Now they were living in temporary housing, or with friends or with strangers—the children separated from parents in many cases. The real impact of the flood reached Sally and filled her with sadness.
    Suddenly into her mind popped the image of her shiny gold compact, the compact that Tommy Dillon had taken from her so long ago. It had seemed so important then, but now had lost all meaning. Somehow she must let Tommy know. And mixed up with her desire to tell him, was a deep sympathy for all he had suffered.
    “Remember that compact you took, Tommy?” she asked.
    Tommy hung his head. All his bravado was gone. “I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll get some money—some day.”
    “No,” said Sally sharply. “ Don’t do that! I don’t ever want to see one again.”

8
CLEAN-UP TIME
    “D O WE HAVE TO have another shot?” asked Sally. “I don’t want to get sick again.”
    “You’ll be a lot sicker if you don’t get them,” said Mrs. Graham. “Everybody needs three shots. It takes two weeks, spacing them a week apart. We all have to have them before we can go back.”
    “When are we going?” asked Sally excitedly.
    “Not till the house is cleaned up,” said Mrs. Graham.
    Mr. Graham had obtained a pass. So he and his wife had paid their first visit to the flooded house. When they returned, they were very blue.
    “The front yard is full of junk,” said Mr. Graham. “There’s a gulley five feet deep washed out by our front porch. Perry Wilson’s truck is wrapped around the elm tree. Somebody’s car is there too, upside down and filled with sand.”
    “Daddy put a mark up on the door frame to show how high the water came,” said Mrs. Graham. “Perry Wilson pulled our gutter down, trying to climb up on our roof. Later he took off his shoes and swam the swift current to the elm tree. He hung there for thirteen hours till a helicopter picked him up.”
    “Mr. Wilson in our tree?” asked Sally.
    “Yes,” said Daddy, “and another man in the apple tree in the back yard. Both were saved.”
    “Most of the back yard is washed away,” said Mrs. Graham. “The river bed has come almost up to the house. Vegetables and flowers are gone. It’s all just sand.”
    “What about the lawn chairs that we put on the back porch?” asked Bobby. “And Rusty’s doghouse? Are the bikes still there?”
    “I saw one chair hanging up in a tree.” Daddy laughed. “The others are buried in the sand. So are your bikes and the doghouse. I didn’t see them anywhere.”
    “And so are most of my pots and pans,” added Mother, “and all our shovels and tools and a lot of our clothes. I was ironing the day before Flood Friday.”
    “Guess what I found up in the apple tree?” asked Daddy. “Two bedspreads, a shirt of Bobby’s, a dress of Sally’s, an apron of Mother’s and Tim’s little red wagon.”
    The children laughed.
    “My sewing machine is buried out there in the sand too,” said Mother. “But I found my earrings still on the window sill in the kitchen. The water was up almost to the top of the window, but they were not washed away.”
    “Goody, goody!” cried Karen. “Mother has her earrings!”
    “Did you go inside the house?” asked Bobby.
    “Not very far,” said Mother. “Daddy knocked