Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere (33 page)

A wave of panic burned through me. I looked around every which way and turned in a slow circle. “Matthew?”

“What?”

My heart was up in my throat. “How are we gonna find home when nothin's where it's supposed to be?”

The SUV crawled along like a June bug making its way across concrete. I rubbed the compass-locket between my fingers and stared out the window, trying to recognize where we were. I prayed and waited for that feeling of familiar, but it didn't come. It seemed like we'd come in from the wrong side or something. I was confused and aggravated. It didn't feel or look like we were in New Orleans.

The further we scooched along, the worse the sight was. We passed by a row of leaning shotgun houses with waterlines that looked like
the ring left in the tub after the water drains—lines clear up by the tops of the doors. A family with a mama and five or six kids sat there on the ground looking nowhere with that look of nothing on their dirty faces.

“Sweet Jesus,” Miss Priscilla said again.

My stomach did a flip-flop.

Walls of stuff were piled high and out of the way on both sides of the messed-up street. Stuff that used to be people's lives. That's when I first knew that we'd lost everything. Everything. Not just the food in Mama's fridge, and Daddy's truck. We'd lost
everything
. How could anyone come out alive on the other side of a storm that had done took away everything? I grabbed hold of Georgie's glasses that were sitting on the seat between me and Matthew. I held them careful with one hand and kept my other hand on Memaw's locket.

“We're getting close to the Lower Nines—I can feel it,” Uncle Alvin said.

I could feel it too.

“My, my, would y'all look at that.” Miss Priscilla all but stopped the SUV.

Right there, off to the side of the road, mixed in with all the rubble, was ol' Mr. Jasper Junior Sr. and his saxophone, playing a lonesome jazzy song. A lady sitting on top of a laid-down tree smiled sad and swayed, moving her head this way and that. The teenage boy in the wheelchair beside them was tipped up on his back wheels with the front ones in the air. He moved his chair to the sound of the soulful music, dancing in a way I ain't never seen no one dance before.

“That's the spirit of the Nines right there,” Matthew said.

He was right. In the middle of all that mess and destruction, the feeling of home was beginning to take over. My heart started thumping a little bit harder and a whole lot faster. I was getting closer and closer to Daddy. It took everything I had to not scream at the top of my lungs for Miss Priscilla to go on and hurry up already and get us to where we were going.

I was fixin' to ask if it'd be possible for us to go faster than new grass could grow, when all of a sudden I seen it.

I knew where we were! Just a little ways off, up higher than any of the piles of rubble, was Mr. Frank's upside-down school bus still sitting on top of the building—the building that was right next to the doughnut shop. Right where it was the last time I'd seen it. When the water was everywhere. When the water was right where we were driving that second. When the bodies had floated by.

Every single house with at least one wall still standing had a big ol' spray-painted X with numbers scattered around it. Somehow I knew our house would have the number
one
up on it. There were lots of X's. And there were lots of numbers.

We went around a corner, and just like that, the bus was gone. A panic started to take hold when something made me stop and look down at the locket I'd been rubbing on all morning. I opened it. Right away the little needle inside the compass went to moving back and forth before finally stopping with the N situated off to the left.

I couldn't stay stuck up inside the SUV for another second. I asked Miss Priscilla if I could please get out and walk, especially since she was moving along at an armadillo pace anyhow. Matthew got out and walked with me. Miss Priscilla and my uncle followed in the truck behind us.

Where are you, Daddy?

While I walked with Georgie's glasses safe in my hand, I tried to ignore the sound of the whop-whopping helicopters, and the far-off hollerin', and the not-so-far-off gunshot sounds bouncing around in the thick, rotten-canal-smelling air.

Matthew picked up a long stick and swatted at rocks, making them roll out in front of us. I was watching a rock roll when I noticed the dead fish.
Lots
of them—scattered around like it had done rained fish or something. All them dead fish eyes, following me while I walked.

And the smells. The air tasted the way it smelled. I couldn't help but gag and cough.

Matthew asked if I was okay and patted my back the way Mama did when one of us swallowed something wrong.

I shrugged. “I don't know. I guess.” I promised myself not to look at no more fish. “I'll be all right soon as I see Daddy and Georgie.”

I checked Memaw's compass.

“Armani,” Matthew said, “what if we can't find 'em?” He slapped the rock with his stick again. “I just wanna make sure you're prepared in case, well, ya know.”

“Yeah. I know” is all I said. I wrapped my hand around the compass-locket.
Please let us find them, God
. Please. Daddy was strong, but that water monster had been even stronger. I knew right then in my heart that no matter what, I'd never hold it against Daddy for not being strong enough to save Georgie—or little Cricket.

I swiped away a hot tear rolling down my cheek before I caught up with Matthew.

Concrete steps leading nowhere. The morning of my birthday, them steps most likely led to someone's porch—attached to someone's home. That was a sight I'll carry with me forever. Concrete steps leading nowhere.

“It's something, ain't it?” Matthew said quiet.

“What?”

“The way everything looks when it's gone.”

I didn't wanna look no more at the mess the storm had left behind. The trees with nothing but thick trunks, looking all naked without leaves or branches. The layer of swamp mud covering most everything and Miss Priscilla reminding us it wasn't safe to touch nothing with bare hands. All the things that a person calls
home
outside of their home. Everything there but gone at the same time.

We kept on walking. Matthew kept on hitting rocks with his stick. Helicopters kept on flying over our heads. The air kept on stinking. Miss Priscilla kept on following. And my heart kept on growing heavier and heavier.

I looked down at my brother's glasses all covered in my fingerprints. “It's my fault we stayed,” I said, my own words catching me off-guard. “How's that?” Matthew asked and pushed the rock.

“ 'Cause I wouldn't let Georgie tell Daddy that Mr. Babineaux from next door said we should evacuate.” My feet shuffled along. “I didn't
wanna mess up my birthday.” My throat tried to close up. The air got thicker.

“You had a birthday?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Matthew about knocked me down when he shoulder-bumped me and flashed me one of his smiles. “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks.” A wave of guilty washed over me, because I knew I would've
never
invited that boy to my house, especially for my party. But there I was, walking down the middle of what used to be my neighborhood, knowing that if there was ever a day worth celebrating again, it wouldn't be the same without Matthew and Martha and the boys right there with us.

“Y'know,” Matthew said, “Auntie Mama told us the night of the storm that stayin' was an act of hope. What do you think she meant by that?”

I couldn't speak. I stopped in my tracks and froze solid when I realized where I was. The flashing blue light was gone. Most of the color was gone. But the red paint chips around the edges of the door were enough for me.

“You sure you know this place, honeybee?” Miss Priscilla came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

I could barely breathe. I sure couldn't talk.

Uncle Alvin answered for me. “She knows it. Pete's granddaddy built that shop square and true.”

I wasn't expecting the feelings that had took over my whole entire body just from seeing a familiar sight that wasn't nothing familiar no more.

“I—I don't . . . I mean, do you think Mr. Pete might know where Daddy and Georgie . . . ?” My blurry eyes searched the sad, caring faces of Matthew and Miss Priscilla—and Uncle Alvin. Big gator tears rolled down my cheeks. “Georgie didn't know how to swim. He—”

Uncle Alvin reached out to me with a shaky hand. I stared into his black, watery eyes. “We're all storm-tossed children now. Ain't nothin' we can do about that.” A tear fell from his eye. “I gotta go find my girl.” He nodded at me, then walked past the SUV and kept going on down the road.

“Alvin!” Miss Priscilla hollered after him. “I'm comin' with ya, darlin'. Just hang on.” She looked from me to Matthew with all the lovin' a mama can when she looks at her children. “Now y'all listen to me.
I'm gonna go with Alvin. I don't think he should be by himself in the state he's in.”

She turned and looked at him getting farther away. She talked faster. “I'm gonna get in my truck and take him where he needs to be, then we're comin' right back here.” Miss Priscilla looked at her watch. “It's a quarter to two. I'll be back as quick as I can. Don't y'all go
nowhere
else. I ain't in the mood for no shenanigans.” She pointed her finger from Matthew to me. “Do y'all hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am,” we both said.

“You can wait for me on that bench over there if y'all want.” She pointed at a bright white bench sitting up by the door to Pete's. I knew I'd never seen it there before. It sure did look extra bright and white up next to the faded, water-stained building. “Y'all best not move an inch from this location.”

She squeezed us in one lump of a hug, then she walked backward to her truck, still pointing that finger at the two of us. “I'm just so proud of the two of y'all. Honeybee, you're stronger than you know, darlin'. Don't you forget that.”