Chapter 2
Rebecca awoke to the smell of bacon and pancakes. She opened her eyes a little and saw her mom
flipping pancakes, and her dad sitting at the counter drinking strong black
coffee. Her eyes surveyed the rest of
the room and she saw her other sibling still sleeping and snoring. The dull sound of rain came from outside, but
it was much lighter then it was the night before. Rebecca pulled more of the green blanket
around her shoulders and fell back asleep.
When she woke up again, almost everybody was at the table eating
breakfast. The only people left sleeping
were Rebecca, Nate, Katie and all three of the dogs. Carefully removing the blanket, so as not to
wake up Katie, Rebecca stood up and stretched.
She walked over to the table where Caleb and the little kids sat eating
a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, fruit, and orange juice. Pulling up a chair between Abi and James,
Rebecca sat down with a sigh.
“You OK?” Asked her mom.
“Yeah I’m fine,” She answered in a tired voice, “I’m just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Want some pancakes?” Mom asked Rebecca.
“Sure,” She replied through a yawn.
Rebecca looked up at the morning sky through the kitchen window. The sky was cloudy and rain was falling just
like yesterday, promising another grey and dreary day. Mom walked over to her with a plate full of
pancakes and bacon, and a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice.
The Wesson family did not grow the
oranges on their farm in Washington.
Rather, their grandparents, who lived in Florida,
owned an orchard with lots of oranges, and grapefruits. So when they come up to visit twice a year
they bring a truckload of oranges and grapefruits. Then those are stored and mom makes fresh
orange juice and grapefruit juice with them.
“Leanne, could you pass the syrup?” Rebecca asked looking Leanne’s way.
“Here you go,” Leanne replied, handing the sticky container that held
the syrup to Rebecca.
Rebecca drizzled the warm syrup over her
fresh blueberry pancakes. As she was
eating, Rebecca glanced over to the living room where Nate and Katie were just
waking up. James, Abi, Ella, Ben, Josh,
and Leanne finished their breakfast, and accused themselves from the table, and
mom sent them upstairs to change out of their pajamas. Nate and Katie walked over to the table with
Rosie, the Wesson’s Yorkie, trailing behind.
The twins sat down at the counter, and mom handed them their breakfast.
After taking a bite of pancake Rebecca wondered aloud, “Hey, where did
dad go?”
“Oh, he’s outside seeing if any damage was done.” Mom replied as she
flipped the last patch of pancakes on the griddle.
“Well our bridge is out, but from the looks of things it doesn’t look
like much damage was done up here.” Rebecca added as she looked out the window.
“Is there any news about the damage that the flood did in the valley?”
Caleb questioned as he finished off his third pancake.
“We haven’t heard anything other then that the flood did do great amount
of damage,” Mom replied.
Just then Dad came in through the
back door, “OK, it doesn’t look like any harm was done, our small pond has
morphed into a lake though. And the driveway is a little flooded, but really that’s
all” As dad finished his last sentence, the phone rang. Mom dried her hands off
with a dish towel and went to answer the phone.
“Hello?” answered mom cheerfully, “Yes, OK, right, Here he is.” Covering
the receiver with her hand, mom walked over to dad in the mudroom. “It’s for
you.” She said handing the phone to dad.
“Hello, Oh hey Jack. Yeah. Oh
no. Yeah, I can probably get Katie,
Nate, Caleb and Rebecca to come along too.
Ok, I understand. Ummm probably
about 45 minuets. Wait you know what,
with the flood, it will probably take about an hour. All right, see you there. Bye.”
Everybody stared at Dad once he put
the phone down, especially the older kids, whom, after hearing their names
mentioned, where particularly curious.
But dad said nothing in reply to the stares, instead he turned to mom
and said “Honey, can I talk to you a second.”
She followed him into the mud room and they shut the door. Nate got up and put his ear up to the door of
the mud room.
Caleb rolled his eye, “Nate, get away
from the door.”
Nat out his fingers up to his lips, “Shhhhhh”
“Nate…,” Caleb replied staring more intensely at him.
“Okay, okay I’m going,” Nate said, pretending to be indignant that his
eavesdropping was interrupted.
“You
can be so immature sometimes,” Katie chided, but Nate just laughed. He was always playing around like that, even
during a serious time like this.
Finally, after what seemed like
hours of waiting, even though in reality it was only five minutes, Mom and Dad
emerged from the mud room.
All
eyes on him, dad finally spoke, “That was Uncle Jack on the phone, and he said
that his farm is Ok, he has more flooding then us though, because he lives
lower down the mountain.. I can’t say
the same for some of the families down in the valley though. It sounds like many homes got flooded, and
those that didn’t have severe water damage.
Anyway there is a lot of debris built up around the city, and a lot of
people won’t have homes to go to, until we get the debris moved. So the reason I mentioned you kids,” Dad said,
turning to the older kids sitting anxiously at that table, “I want you guys to
come and help out, moving debris, gathering supplies, and I’m sure Uncle Jack
will find lots of other things for you to help out with. He has kind of headed up the volunteer
team. He already has some people working
in the valley. Not all the water has
totally subsided at the lowest point, but otherwise it’s only about ankle deep
at the highest in most places. So will guys be willing to come help?” He finished.
Nate, Caleb, Rebecca, and Katie exchanged glances. Katie was the first to speak, “I’d be happy
to come and do what I can to help.” The others readily nodded agreement.
“OK then, go get dressed in heavy work clothes, and be ready to leave in
5 minutes.” Dad ordered.
The kids ran upstairs to obey and
within, about ten minutes later everyone was in the car ready to go. The Wessons were not exactly known for their
punctuality. In fact with a bigger
family they were often late, because somebody has to go to the bathroom, or mom
forgot her cell phone, or dad forgot his wallet, or Katie forgot her purse…And,
as you can imagine, the list goes on and on.
The Wesson black pick-up truck pulled out of the driveway only five
minutes after the wanted departure time.
Caleb sat in the passenger’s seat next to Dad, and Nate, Katie, and
Rebecca sat next to each other in the backseat. The truck headed down the mountain, normally
the trip to the valley took about forty-five minutes, but with some of the
mountain road still slightly covered with water, the trip took about an
hour. Finally they arrived at the small
town in the valley. Before long they
were forced to stop, debris and wreckage covered the road. Rebecca stared at the sight before her, a
couple houses were absolutely destroyed, and you could hardly tell where some
of the roads once were.
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ReplyDeleteCool!! Love the story! Is there more??
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