Free Escaping the Giant Wave by Peg Kehret

they left, but Mom and Dad insisted it wasn’t safe for him to do those things by himself. He was supposed to stay in their room at the Totem Pole Inn until they returned. Period. No excuses.
    Ha! Daren thought. It’s a good thing he hadn’t done that. If he had stayed in the room, he’d be a goner.
    When his parents got back and discovered that the Totem Pole Inn had burned to the ground, they’d be sorry they had told him to stay in the room. Maybe he would let them look for him for a while before he showed them he was okay.
    It was fun to be out here alone, with all the excitement of a fire and nobody to boss him around. Along with the shouts of the firefighters, he heard the snapping of burning wood and, somewhere in the distance, the mooing of cows.
    A van with an official seal on the door drove into the hotel driveway and stopped behind the fire truck. Large megaphones anchored to the roof of the van blared out: “ATTENTION! A TSUNAMI WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR THE FISHER BEACH AREA. FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, GO TO HIGHER GROUND IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: A TSUNAMI IS EXPECTED TO HIT FISHER BEACH AT FIVE-THIRTY P.M. GO TO HIGHER GROUND NOW AND STAY THERE UNTIL YOU’RE NOTIFIED THAT IT’S SAFE TO RETURN.”
    Daren looked at his watch: It was already five-twenty. The tsunami would be here in ten minutes! He scowled. Kyle had said he was going up the hill because there might be a tsunami. Daren didn’t want to be wrong and have Kyle be right. He had been so sure that Kyle was foolish to run away. Now the van made it sound as if the beach might be dangerous, as Kyle had said.
    Daren glanced around, wondering if all the other people who were watching the fire would heed the warning and run for higher ground.
    Nearby, a group of teenagers began debating what to do. “I’m going to stay right here,” one girl said. “If a big wave hits the beach, I’ll be able to see it from here, but we’re far enough back to be safe.”
    Two women hurried past.
    â€œYou won’t be safe here,” one woman said to the teens. “You need to get as far from the beach as you can. Everyone does.”
    The two women got into a pickup truck at the edge of the parking area, started the engine, and drove off toward the town of Fisher.
    The girl called after them:“Send me a postcard!”
    Her friends laughed.
    Daren laughed along with the teenagers, but his laughter felt forced. What if those women were right? It was embarrassing enough that Kyle had found him unconsciousness in the hallway; it would be even worse if Kyle was safe on top of the hill while Daren got hit by a big wave at the beach.
    He turned to the man standing next to him, who wore a bellhop uniform from the Frontier Lodge.
    â€œAre you going to go up the hill?” Daren asked.
    â€œNot me,” the man said. “I’ve heard that song too many times before.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThe government is always coming around with tsunami warnings that scare away the tourists. People get hysterical, check out of the hotels, and leave town. They don’t come back even though the tsunami never hits. I’m tired of the whole thing. It’s bad for business.”
    If anyone should know about possible danger, Daren thought, it was the bellhop who worked here every day.
    â€œIf it was really risky to be here,” the bellhop continued, “those men wouldn’t be driving around in their van scaring people; they’d be racing uphill to save themselves. This is just another false alarm. It happens all the time.”
    A woman standing nearby spoke up. “I worked at the Totem Pole Inn for ten years and my mother worked there before me. In all that time, it never got hit by any tidal wave.”
    Daren smiled. So Kyle was wrong after all. Good.
    He decided to go down to the water’s edge. If he saw a big wave approaching, he could always run away then. Even if the wave