The Twelve Year Storm

Chapter 1

Cloe's POV

The sirens were blaring loudly, another tornado had arrived in the area, and by the sound of it, a big one too. My mom started heading toward the closet to grab her tornado emergency bag and put it on. Then my sisters and I ran over to put ours on. The three of us kids stepped outside and made a run for the tornado shelter while mom ran to get the sleeping bag that "The Surprise" was sleeping in. When mom made it to the shelter we locked up the heavy, metal door and sat down on the blankets lying in the corners of the room. Mom laid "Surprise" in a cradle and I comforted my 6 year old little sister, Hannah. My older sister, Lillian, who is 16 years old, just rapped herself in a robe and sat down on a pillow to play on her iPod. "Surprise" is an ten month old baby boy named Kale.

I could feel Hannah shivering so I quickly pulled her robe out of her bag and made her put it on. My mom went over to the other side of the room to give Lillian a lecture on not using your iPod during a storm, but Lillian replied with "Storms aren't new, Mom, they happen everyday here. Nothing new is going on or going to happen." Kale could sense the awful weather and started crying, he sounded like a puppy. Mom headed over to him to quiet him down. It's sad that Kale had to be born into the nonstop stormy world we live in. The weathermen suspected that the storm would last only a few years.

Suddenly a small breeze made it threw the tiny area between the door and the wall, marking that the tornado was really close. Hannah must of felt it because she started quietly crying and then Lillian got a worried look on her face. She quickly set her iPod down and rushed over to the crate that had a bunch of pillows and blankets in it. She started making a big pile around Lilly and in the end it looked like a little den. Mom, Lillian, and I started making it a little bigger and a little more protected. We managed to fit Kale in there with Hannah to protect them both. We all knew that there was a small chance of the tornado breaking into the shelter, which is in the ground, but it's better to be safe then sorry.

I opened up my safety bag and searched the inside of it. There was three flashlights, a unopened mini box of new saltine crackers, a small pillow, a small blanket, and four water battles. There was also some other odds and ends like clothes and other needed items. Mom turned on a old, little TV and turned to the news channel. The tornado was starting to vanish, but it destroyed twelve homes and killed three people. That was way less deaths and destruction than last time (D.D.) Last time there was 37 dead and 63 destroyed homes. Though the tornado last time was huge. Bigger than I had ever seen before. It was supposedly almost a mile long.

We waited another hour after they sent out the news that the tornado was gone and now it was just a regular storm again. We always wait an hour just to make sure the weather men are correct. Mom unlocked the door and peeked outside, the weather men were right, it was back to a regular storm. Mom packed up all of Kale's and her stuff and headed up to the house with little, sleeping Kale in her arms. Lillian put all of the pillows and blankets back into the crate she got them from while I packed up all our stuff back into our bags. When we were all done we woke up Hannah and headed up to the house.

When we got back upstairs it was already 9 PM so I tucked Hannah into bed. Lilly (Lillian) and I grabbed flashlights and went outside to look for anything dangerous like broken glass to pick up and throw away. We where soon called back inside by Mom at about 10 PM. Lilly and I hurried to bed after a quick snack of a few crackers and a glass of orange juice for both of us. Even after horrible storms we still have school because by now most of us are used to the storms.

The next morning a lightning storm was going on while we had to get ready for school. The kids eight and under get to stay home from school though if there is anything other than a regular just rain with occasional thunder and lightning storm. We ran outside to wait for the bus under our own special bus stop (It was just a metal square with a roof and one wall missing as a door, it got very noisy though do to it being metal, but the kids got used to it.) School here was only five hours long that way kids can get home to shelters in case something bad happens, though the school is very strong and has standed through many different storms and tornadoes. The usual day of learning passed by and after school on the bus ride home everyone talked about how they remember when there was an occasional warm and sunny day and what it was like. When we got home, Hannah and I had to work outside in the yard, during the storms like usual, and clean up the trash and fallen limbs. Lillian was in charge of taking care of little Kale while mom went shopping. An extremely strong thunder bolt suddenly hit our area and shook the whole house. A thunder bolt is what I call thunder's strength and sound.

Hannah and I hurried inside and another thunder bolt striked again and the house shook so much that pictures where falling of the walls. The three of us girls started quickly taking everything off the walls and putting everthing away. Thunder shook the area like crazy and we had to hurry down to the shelter again with out safety packs and Kale. While we were down there I made a dinner of some crackers and some rolls I stuffed in there while heading down. Kale had to eat baby food though. After dinner Everyone, but Lilly, went to bed. When mom finally got home around 9:30 PM the thunder had ended and it was just rain again so she took us all upstairs to our real beds. Then after another long night I knew I had to go back to school again, luckily tomorrow was going to be Friday.