Free Getting Air by Dan Gutman Page B

Zimmerman! At some point, they’ll give up trying! I should’ve gone with David. I’ll bet he found water. I’ll bet he found food.”
    I couldn’t blame Henry for freaking out. We were all on edge. We had seen blood and death. We very nearly died ourselves. We were hot and sweaty, hungry and dehydrated. On top of all that, poor Henry had never even been away from home before. He wasn’t about to say how much he missed his parents, but I knew he did because that’s how I felt. I put my arm around him and held him while he cried.
    That’s when we heard a loud crack. It had to be one of three things.
    Lightning.
    A tree falling.
    Or a gunshot.

CHAPTER 14:
What a Glorious Feeling
    And then it started raining.
    I hadn’t noticed the clouds gathering overhead while we were searching for water. But the sky had darkened and when we looked up through the trees, storm clouds were sliding across the sky and lightning was flickering in the distance.
    There was never a drizzle. Almost right away, the rain came down in sheets. We were under the trees, so it didn’t hit us full force. But none of us needed to be told what to do. We ran out into the clearing and opened our mouths.
    The rain tasted so good. It was like when you’re all sweaty on a really hot day and you’ve been skateboarding for hours and you take that first drink. But even better. The water was fresher, cooler. Or maybe it was just that my body needed it so badly.
    “Drink up,” Mrs. Herschel advised. “It could be a long time until we see rain again.”
    She didn’t have to tell me. I filled myself with water. Henry cheered up almost instantly. After we drank as much as we could hold, Julia took out one of the plastic garbage bags and we held it wide open to catch some rain for later. We got a couple of gallons in there when Julia said we’d better tie the bag up or it would become too heavy and burst when we tried to carry it back to the campsite.
    The rain was still pouring down and we were all drenched and laughing and happily dancing around. My sister just laughed. For all we knew, we were about to get hit by lightning, but it was a risk we were willing to take. And then something really weird happened.
    Mrs. Herschel took off her clothes!
    “What are you doing?” Arcadia shouted over the storm.
    “What does it look like?” Mrs. Herschel said. “I’m taking a blooming shower!”
    I couldn’t believe it! I mean, I know we’re born naked and all that. I know it’s perfectly normal and natural to be nude. And when you think about it, wearing clothes is pretty abnormal, especially in the summer when it gets really hot. But here was this old lady peeling off her clothes like it was no big deal and dancing around in the rain! I didn’t know if I should look at her, look away, or what. Mrs. Herschel even pulled a bar of soap out of the pocket of her dress and started soaping herself up with it. Who carries soap around with them?
    “I’m taking a shower too !” Julia declared, and she started peeling off her clothes.
    “You are not !” I told her. I wasn’t about to have my little sister parading around in the nude with all these people watching.
    “Oh, lighten up, Jimmy!” Julia said.
    There was nothing I could do. She had already pulled the splint off her leg, and then her pants were off, and they were so wet there was no way I was going to get them back on her.
    “What a great idea!” Arcadia said, taking off her flight-attendant uniform. “Let’s skinny-dip in the rain!”
    I hadn’t mentioned it to anybody, but before the rains came, we were all starting to smell pretty bad. Especially the guys. And with the dirt and the sweat and the stress and everything we had been through, a shower sounded really good. My clothes were smelly and ripped and soaked anyway.
    But I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to take my clothes off. Mrs. Herschel and Arcadia were holding hands and dancing around. Julia was hopping around on one foot while she