Tornado?

I've been fortunate enough not to be in any natural disasters or incredibly dangerous storms. Metaphorically I've had some emotional storms, but literally I do have one memory from when I was little...

I (Little-me) was in bed already, but I could hear my parents in the living room. They were watching the TV and not talking much. After a while they came in and told me that we had to go down to the basement.

Naturally, my first response was, "Can I bring Madeline and Ariel?" My Madeline (you know, the one who lives in an old house in Paris all covered with vines) and Ariel (little mermaid. You knew that) dolls were my most important possessions.

I'm not sure what the actual response was, but what I heard was "You can take one."

It was the hardest choice I'd had to make. I finally chose Ariel when my parents told me to hurry up as they were getting my sister awake. We all went down to the basement, where they explained that there was a tornado across the mountain and it probably wouldn't hit us but we were being careful anyway, because that's what you should do during a storm.

The entire time we were downstairs I was worrying about Madeline, still in my bed. I knew I would be sad if she blew away--I'd waited months to get her from Growing Tree!

But when we went back upstairs a while later, Madeline was safe, and I fell asleep.

Kieryn
Author of the YA spy novel RAIN
www.kierynnicolas.blogspot.com
www.kierynnicolas.com