Storm Boi 🌩️ (ON HOLD)

Part 1

The wind chimes clanged an unruly warning as I wheeled my bike around the corner of the front porch, hurling themselves toward the house like a pack of wolves on the scent. True to form, angry purple thunderheads had stolen up over the western horizon and were unfurling before my eyes like a titanic carpet, confirming the static-laced weather forecast from an hour ago.

Storms don't just come up like this. I narrowed my eyes at the sky and scowled, as though that could somehow help explain the inexplicable. Though the next-closest town was twenty miles away, this land was a huge floodplain, and the blue, cloud-studded vault went on forever in every direction. Someone must've been asleep at the wheel not to notice this howler coalescing on the Doppler radar. It's nearly on top of us already.

My fingers tightened on the bike's handgrips, the cracked leather biting into my palms as the front door slammed open and Mom hurried out onto the cramped porch. The picnic basket cradled in her arms was almost comical juxtaposed against her grim expression, but I twisted my mouth so she wouldn't catch me smiling. Even for a ninety-year-old, Eleanor was as capable as they came, and she'd probably laugh off the Mom's offering of Tupperware-ensconced sandwiches and snacks.

Mom heaved a little sigh as she reached the railing, and I knew she could tell what I was thinking. "I know, I know – just give 'em to her anyway. Tell her we didn't have room for them, if you have to."

I raised one eyebrow at the corner of blue gingham fabric that poked out of the basket as though seeking escape. "Nothing like that touch of class with your emergency rations."

She rolled her eyes and leaned forward, handing the basket down to me. "It was that or your Boba Fett towel – I see now that I chose...poorly."

Any chance for a tart comeback to her two-for-one geekiness was lost as the weight of the basket fell completely into my arms. The thing hit me with the force of a chucked cinder block, and I grunted, reeling backward a pace as I struggled to keep it from dropping on my feet. "What the f-"

"Language," Mom snapped before the worst of the curse was past my lips. She was tolerant of most things, but her belief that if I started swearing I'd be pathological incapable of stopping seemed unshakeable. The argument that I was almost eighteen and therefore able to control most of what I said bounced off her like I was speaking in Klingon.

"-heck is in here?" I amended through gritted teeth as I rebalanced myself. "Do you have some secret stash of gold bullion you've never heard told me about?"

"Yes, hidden in one of the many mysterious rooms of my Victorian mansion," Mom proclaimed, spreading her arms to emphasize the unprepossessing trailer.

I grimaced openly at the humble rectangular building. Mom had done a lot with the place since we moved in with Gramma a decade ago, but it wasn't a palace by any stretch of the imagination.

"If by mansion you mean the Shrieking Shack, or a nice cottage beside Crystal Lake, then maybe I'll believe you." The basket's contents shifted, and I heard a clank as I resettled it in my crooked arms. "Seriously, is this, like, plutonium or something?"

"It's just a few casseroles from the freezer," Mom offered with a shrug.

I gaped up at her, politeness forgotten as I wondered if she'd completely snapped. "How long d'you think Eleanor might lose power? Months??"

"Better safe than sorry." She glared back at me, and I knew that despite my squarer, sandpaper-skinned jaw and straighter hair, in that moment we looked alike.

"Why are you so freakin' stubborn?" I grumbled as I hefted the basket onto the back of my bike and secured it with bungee cords.

"This from the person who's going to ditch that picnic basket for a duffel bag as soon as he can find one."

I looked up at her from beneath my ragged black bangs, totally caught – but she only looked apologetic.

"I'm sorry, I was panicking because of how close the storm's getting, it was the only thing I could find," she explained in a rush. "I should've just grabbed a backpack, but it's moving so fast-"

"It's okay," I said, hating myself for the grudging edge I couldn't quite keep out of my voice. Part of me had been planning that very thing since I laid eyes on the basket, I realized; the image of my rucksack was clear in my mind, easy enough to reach if I snuck in through my own window once Mom had gone back inside.

Her face twisted, sketch-neat features contorting in a wince. "Too girly?"

"It'd be like carrying an entire field hockey team on my back," I admitted with an equally agonized grimace.

She tilted her head to the side, nodding in a way that meant kinda. "Don't let a men's field hockey team hear you saying that - but I get it. What can I get and from where?"

"Black nylon sack, just beside my desk," I muttered.

My face burned at Mom disappeared back inside, accompanied by an especially cacophonous howl from the wind chimes. I hated myself for letting something as stupid as a basket bother me; Mom was doing something really nice for a friend, the way she always did, and I was sniping at her for the dumbest thing of all. It wasn't even like I was going very far - Sunrise View Park was long and narrow, winding along a stream bank for the better part of a mile like paired dancers - but it wasn't like I was going through town. Everyone here was either old or all out of hecks to give, as Mom would say. No one would've thought anything about a boy riding along with a picnic basket on the back of his bike, not with the sky about to crack open on all our heads like doomsday.

Mom reappeared, black rucksack in hand as the storm crept closer, becoming more threatening by the moment. Thunder seemed to rumble through my body, a low hum that vibrated in my chest and made my teeth buzz as it steadily grew louder. The sound filled my ears like water; I knew Mom must be feeling the same thing because she stared up at the furious sea of clouds, her expression going blank as the roaring grew, only subsiding just as I thought my skull would pop.

Mom didn't look away from the sky as she spoke: "Stay there if there's lightning, okay? I'll come and get you."

I nodded, my fingers ripping at the bungie cords until I'd freed the picnic basket from my bike. It was a good thing Mom was still transfixed by the sky; even given the rush she would've painstakingly transferred the clear plastic containers one at a time, but I swung the basket in a low arc, dumping it all into the bag in a single go. By the time she glanced back down at me, the rucksack was safely zipped and strapped to my bike, utterly inconspicuous.

I handed the basket back up to her. "Move my laptop away from the window?"

She nodded. "Stay safe, honey."

Her earnest tone was almost as jarring as the wind chimes, and I almost caught my jeans in the bike chain as I kicked into motion, swinging aboard in a single fluid movement.

"Ben, helmet!" Mom called after me, even as I clipped the glossy black hemisphere to my head. I glanced back to see her watching me, arms folded over her chest with worry, but the road soon curved away and she was lost to sight. 

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