EXTENSION Short Story Contest - Second Place
Eydie Kramer won 2nd place in Catholic Extension's fiction contest. She is a senior at Saint Peter High School in St. Peter, Minn. She participates in diving, track, NHS, and Student Council, and is also an editor of her school yearbook and President of her 4-H Club. Eydie is a member of St. Peter Church, and she volunteers at Catholic Heart Work Camp in the Twin Cities. She is the youngest of five children in her family and takes care of three cats, one rabbit, and one dog. Her hobbies include creating ceramic artwork.
Winds of Change
by Eydie Kramer
The wind whistled in and out of Charlie's ears as she pedaled for home. Just a moment before the sky had been a smoky grey, yet now it threatened a sickly shade of green. The tornado sirens of Maple Grove regularly rang on the first Wednesday of the month but they seemed to wail in earnest as Charlie crossed the deserted playground and street, abandoned her bike by the front porch, and bounded up the stairs three steps at a time to her house and badly needed shelter.
* * * * *
The morning had started like any other Saturday in Maple Grove. Charlie dragged herself out of her comfortable down feather bed after her mom called, and grumpily made her way to the upstairs bathroom. Her younger sister, Shannon, had beat Charlie to the shower - again.
"Mom, Shannon's in the shower!" Charlie snapped, thinking how unfair her life was. Shannon always seemed to get everything that Charlie wanted, unlimited time in the bathroom being the least of a long list of injustices. Shannon had her own room, while Charlie shared her room with the foreign exchange student her family was hosting. Charlie had begged her dad to make Shannon room with Maria, but her whining was in vain.
"You're the oldest, Charlie," dad had said, "You should make Maria feel welcome. Besides, Maria will be in your class so you can help her make friends."
Charlie, close to mutiny, had wondered why she was not considered old enough to enroll in the driver permit class at her high school like everyone else in her grade, but was old enough to make friends for the shy, reserved Maria. Her dad's response would most likely be that Charlie could take the class if she got a job and paid the one hundred dollar fee herself, so Charlie bit her tongue. Money had been tight since mom was laid off from her realty job when prices rocketed and nobody in Maple Grove seemed to be interested in purchasing a home anymore.
Frustrated, Charlie went downstairs and slumped into one of the kitchen chairs. Maria was already buried in a bowl of oatmeal, a sign that she would not reemerge for at least half of an hour. Charlie suspected that Maria did this so that she would not have to talk to Charlie. It wasn't that they disliked each other; they were so different that it soon became awkward when they attempted conversation. Maria was quiet and her English was broken at best; Charlie was outgoing and talkative.
At first, Charlie had introduced Maria to all of her friends and invited her to sit with them at lunch, but when Jo had asked Maria a question, Maria just smiled and began to eat her PB & J. After that no one tried to talk to Maria, and she sat by herself in the cafeteria. Charlie felt a twinge of guilt when she had seen Maria eating alone, but she didn't want Maria to embarrass her in front of her friends. It seemed obvious to Charlie that Maria didn't want to make friends in Maple Grove. The most that she had learned about Maria was that she was from El Salvador, and that she was Catholic, like Charlie's family. Charlie tried not to think too much about Maria - she had her own problems to deal with.
After breakfast, Charlie rode her bike out of the garage and swung a heavy bag of newspapers over her back. If delivering papers for a year was what it was going to take to earn enough money to get her driver's permit, Charlie was prepared to do it. She looked up at the May sky, wondering if it was going to rain and hoped not. Today she was supposed to study with Jo for the biology exam, and then hang out at the mall. Charlie sighed and started her paper route, knowing that, with her luck, it probably would rain after all.
* * * * *
"Shannon, mom, dad, Maria, where are you?"
Panic was rising in Charlie's throat. The house was completely silent except for the windows shuddering in the wind and the sound of the sirens outside. Trying to remember what her mom had told her that morning, Charlie grabbed her cat, Whiskers, and headed for the basement. She definitely remembered her mom mentioning something about "youth choir", but that didn't make any sense.
Neither Charlie nor Shannon were in the church choir. More frightened with each passing moment, Charlie crouched underneath the old pool table and hugged Whiskers to her chest. The lights flickered for a brief moment, and then the basement was plunged into darkness.
Charlie started to pray. Sure, she would say the Lord's Prayer at Mass, and recite the Rosary, but Charlie couldn't remember praying this hard in a long while. "Please, dear God, keep my family safe," Charlie sobbed as the sound of rumbling swelled to a deafening roar of cracking tree branches and cascading bricks. Whiskers scratched his way out of Charlie's arms and cowered in the corner. Then, as quickly as it had come, the tornado passed over Maple Grove and was gone.
Right away Charlie knew that something was wrong. A light breeze was wafting into the basement, and the stairs were bathed in light. Charlie slowly stood up, her knees shaking so violently that she had to support herself on the pool table. She searched the half-lighted basement for Whiskers and scooped him up, their hearts beating rapidly together. Charlie made her way to the staircase and looked up to a patch of murky sky. The house was gone.
"Charlie!"
Charlie's mom appeared at the top of the stairs, her face white with fear. "Thank God," she breathed.
"Dad, Shannon, and I were at church with Maria; today was tryouts for the youth choir. We heard the sirens halfway through the third song . . . I was so scared for you. When we saw the house . . ." Her voice trailed away into silent tears as Charlie ran up the stairs and embraced her mother in a fierce hug.
"It will be okay, mom. We'll get through this together."
Charlie saw Shannon and Maria cautiously stepping over the debris that was once their house, and her dad getting out of the car, surveying the damage in disbelief. The neighbor's garage was also gone and the street was filled with uprooted trees, once majestic, but now snapped like twigs under the tornado's mighty force. Charlie buried her face in her mom's shoulder. She knew that from now on nothing would ever be the same.
* * * * *
Maple Grove was on the state news channel the following week, a young reporter describing "the devastation that blew into the lives of residents of the small town." Charlie's dad was interviewed by Local News 5, and Charlie saw images of her demolished house on the television while her family stayed with a church friend. Charlie desperately wanted to do something to rebuild the community and life that she had lost, yet she felt useless. What could a fifteen year-old do?
Surprisingly, it was Maria who gave Charlie the idea. The Sunday after the tornado swept through Maple Grove, Father Mike announced that the Catholic Church Extension Society was volunteering in the clean-up effort. Maria picked up a brochure after Mass, and signed up to help, shyly offering a brochure to Charlie as well. Charlie's face burned hot with shame as she signed the volunteer sheet.
Maria was selflessly thinking of others, while Charlie had only been concerned with herself, never
even troubling to make her host-sister feel at home in her new school. That night Charlie tossed and turned in her sleeping bag, unable to fall asleep.
At five o'clock the next morning Charlie, Maria, Shannon, and Charlie's mom and dad arrived at the church parking lot to meet the other Catholic Church Extension volunteers. Charlie saw Jo and other families she knew from Maple Grove, but there were also many that she didn't recognize. There was a group from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and even a group from Texas who had drove for two straight days in a church van. As the volunteers handed out water bottles, gloves, and trash bags, Charlie couldn't help but notice the joyful smiles on their faces.
Shivering in the early morning breeze, Charlie moved closer to Maria when Father Mike started to pray. "Our Father who art in Heaven . . ." Maria linked her fingers in Charlie's, squeezed them, and smiled. Charlie smiled back. The rosy sun was starting to rise as Father finished the blessing and the volunteers separated, each going to a different block. Maria and Charlie were assigned Elm Street with a couple from Iowa and their daughter, Jess.
"We went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina," Jess said as the scoured the block, picking up broken glass and twisted shingles. "A group from our church went down for three weeks and we helped to repair water-damaged houses."
Charlie learned from Jess' mom that they traveled around with other Extension volunteers to disaster areas, and had seen the Maple Grove tornado report. Thinking of Maria's and Jess' family's unselfishness, Charlie redoubled her efforts to fill her trash bag. Two hours later, sweating and dirty, she plopped her brimming bag into a dumpster and collapsed unto the curb. Running her hand across her brow, Charlie waved Maria over her side and opened her sack lunch. This time, Charlie started the conversation.
* * * * *
By June, Maple Grove was barely recognizable. The rubbish and debris that had littered the streets was gone and new houses sprung up every day, leaving a faint smell of pine and new wood in the air. Charlie's family was building a house with the money from Charlie's mom's new job - it seems the construction rate was what the realty business needed - and with all the chaos the tornado had caused, Charlie realized in shock that Maria would be going back to El Salvador in two short weeks.
Maria and Charlie had been volunteering with the Catholic Church Extension groups after school, and Charlie had joined the youth choir with Maria as well. Time had passed so quickly that Charlie had forgotten to worry about her driver's permit or fight with Shannon over who had dibs on the shower.
Yes, Charlie had been right when she had thought that things would never be the same after the tornado. The family had lost a house, but Charlie had gained something more valuable. Maria had taught her what it meant to give freely of her spirit as a volunteer, and to care about others before herself. God had truly worked a miracle by sending a tornado and the Catholic Church Extension volunteers to Maple Grove, and showing Charlie the joy of giving. And that wasn't so bad after all.