Sunrise (43 page)
Uncle Paul yelled to us from the longhouse door. “Turbines 8-A and 8-B didn’t get shut off in time. Storm burned them out. We’re going to lose four greenhouses if we don’t get some power over there.”
Darla sighed and dropped my hand. “I’ve gotta go. Don’t wait up.”
“Want help?”
She smiled her answer, and I wound up spending all night helping her and a crew of other volunteers string temporary lines from other turbine towers to fill the hole in our electrical grid. By the time we got back to the long-house, the sky was already hinting at grayness.
“Let me show you my favorite place to watch the sunrise,” I said.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asked.
“Sure. But it won’t take long.”
We got two claw hammers and climbed the longhouse roof together, sitting on the peak.
“I am freezing my butt off,” Darla said, “literally.” “That would be a true national tragedy.”
She laughed, a sound as lovely as the crystalline shards of light refracted off the new ice.
“I talked to Dr. McCarthy while I was in sickbay,” I said. “There was a good obstetrics department at the hospital in Dixon. They had heart monitors, preemie incubators, all that stuff. There’s no reason anyone would have looted the equipment, since nobody else has electric power—it should still be there. Doc thought maybe we could mount an expedition and move a bunch of it back here. There’s some other stuff he could use too.”
“Are you . . . are you saying what I think you are?”
“I am. Let’s start a family.”
Darla leaned over and kissed me long and softly, setting off fireworks in my brain and longing in my body that lingered well after the kiss ended.
We sat on the roof, our good arms wrapped around each other, watching the sunrise. The gray turned to a low line of deep red rising from the horizon, and then streaks of pink shot from the line, and it transformed, bursting into yellows and violets and oranges and greens and even, wonder of wonders, a patch of pure blue sky. It was the most spectacular sunrise I had ever seen.
The first sunrise of the rest of our lives.
Acknowledgments
I have a whole round table of literary knights in my corner: my wife, Margaret, slayer of unnecessary dialogue and prepositional phrases; Robert Kent, champion of the action scene; Lisa Fipps, warrior of t word choice; Shannon Lee Alexander, chevalier of characterization; Jody Sparks, the emotional knight; s and Josh Prokopy, the squire. Thank you all.
Thank you to the people of northwest Illinois who were so warm and generous during my research trips. Thanks in particular to the people of Stockton. I owe you at least two apologies: one for the liberties I took with the physical layout of your town and another for making my fictional Stocktonites far less friendly than the real ones.
Thank you to Krista Fry for some last-minute help on high school sports in Warren and Stockton.
Thank you to Jim Cobb, author of Prepper’s Home Defense. The hour you spent talking to me about post-apocalyptic Chicago greatly influenced my depiction of Rockford, Illinois.
Thanks again to my brother Paul, his wife Caroline, and their children Max and Anna for lending their names to my books. Sorry the characters named in your honor didn’t all survive! I also deeply appreciate the two hours Paul spent with me (during his own birthday party!) brainstorming ways to heat greenhouses with wind turbines.
Thank you to Lisa Rojany Buccieri for making me work far harder than I wanted, polishing this book. Your insightful edits dramatically improved my work, and I’m grateful. Thank you to Dorothy Chambers for uncrossing my i’s and undotting my t’s. Thank you to Ana Correal for another gorgeous cover image.
I cannot thank everyone at Tanglewood Press and Publishers Group West enough, particularly Peggy Tierney, whom I’m proud to claim as my editor and friend. You’ve all labored so hard to connect readers with my books. Truly, I owe my career to you.
About the Author
Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really glad this writing thing seems to be working out.
Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. Sunrise is his third novel. The first book in this trilogy, Ashfall, was named one of the top five young adult novels of 2011 by National Public Radio, a Best Teen Book of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews, and a New Voices selection by the American Booksellers Association.
Connect with Mike at
www.mikemullinauthor.com
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