Hurricane by Terry Trueman Read Free Book Online Page A

the way to El Salvador, thousands of people are dead.
    But he also says that tens of thousands are missing.
    Missing.
    Like Dad and Víctor and Ruby.
    The radio tells us:
    The airport at San Pedro Sula is under three feet of water....
    Out in Xalopa some people have been sitting on their roofs for more than thirty hours without water, food, or help, trapped....
    The beaches of Tela and Sula, where Dad used to take us to swim and hunt lobster and play in the sand, are completely destroyed....
    The Bay Islands, Honduras’s greatest and most beautiful place, have been wiped clean. Not a single building still stands....
    What will happen now to our country and our people? Will we ever recover from this? Will we ever be happy again? We are almost gone now. As I think about my dad and Víctor and Ruby, and even about poor Berti, my mouth gets dry and I feel sick. There is something worse than gone, and that is not knowing, maybe never knowing, where your loved ones are.
    What could be worse than gone?
    Never knowing....

SEVEN

    â€œI know this sounds terrible and I’m so sorry to have to say it, but we must leave the rest of the bodies where they are,” Mr. Cortez says, tears choking off his words.
    For two days now the men of La Rupa and we older boys—Pablo, Carlos, Enrique Larios, Jorge Álvarez, Alberto, and I—have dug and scraped at the earth, searching for survivors. Using shovels and rakes, sticks, and our bare hands, we’ve clawed our way into the mud, hoping and praying that we will find more of our neighbors, family, and friends. Our hands are bloody with blisters, cuts, and scratches. My back aches from so much digging. But we’ve found no one alive and only the dead bodies of one child, Edgar Barabon, and one adult, Rosa Handel.
    In our living room, a dozen people sit crammed together, deciding what to do about the people who are still buried. Everybody agrees that by now, two days and nights after the mudslide, no one is still alive down there.
    Suddenly Mr. Ramírez mumbles, “I pulled my Vera out, and now she is wrapped in plastic, under stones in the yard.” He pauses, staring off into space. Dirt still covers his body. His fingers are cut and torn from using his bare hands to dig. He seems so different now, not like the same man who only a week ago gave our soccer ball back to us with a two-handed, over-the-head toss like a sideline throw, or who, a few months ago, teased Víctor about tearing down our barbecue jailhouse.
    Mr. Cortez looks at Mr. Ramírez sadly, and then he looks around the room at all of us. “Perhaps later we will be able to bring everyone up from the mud—maybe when we get help. But right now we have no coffins, we have no place to put the bodies—and we can’t help those who are already gone.”
    There’s silence in the room, but we all nod. It’s not just Mr. Ramírez who has changed. I barely recognize these people, my neighbors whom I’ve seen every day for my whole life. How long will it be until help arrives? If all of Honduras is as bad as La Rupa, what if no help ever comes?
    Even though the hurricane is over, a steady rain falls all afternoon. But the worst of the storm has passed. What more can happen to us now anyway? How could things be worse? As I think this, I remember Dad, and Víctor and Ruby. Things could be much worse. My stomach aches and churns.
    Mom brings in two large pots, one of beans and one of rice, cooked in boiled rain water, and sets them on the table in the kitchen. There’s no tap water to wash the dishes, but nobody complains about having to use a slightly greasy plate or fork or spoon. Everyone comes to the table to dish up. The kids go first, and even the younger ones know not to take too much food. Nobody pushes or shoves. Nobody asks for more than their share or argues or complains about the portions they’re served. Everyone just says, “Thanks.”
    Looking at