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care, now," Mr. Kerfeld said when they walked out.
The air felt hot and sticky. Clouds built up in the west. "Rain coming," Mr.
Brooks remarked.
"I guess so," Justin said, and then, softly, "Do you suppose anyone here but
Charlie knows what his last name is?"
"People know," Mr. Brooks answered. "They just don't care. There's a
difference." Justin nodded. But didn't that make it worse, not better?
Chapter Six
LIGHTNING FLASHED, NOT far enough away. Beckie counted vampire bats. She'd
barely counted two of them before thunder boomed, loud as a cannon's roar.
Rain came down in buckets.
"Wow!" she said. "You hardly ever see this inCalifornia ."
"This isn't anything special," Gran said. "Why, when I was a little girl. . .
When was that storm, Ethel? You know the one I mean the bad one. Was that in
'36? Or was it '37?"
"It was '37, I think," Mrs. Snodgrass answered, so of course Gran decided it
must have happened in 2036. They went back and forth, back and forth. Either
way, it was more than forty years before Beckie was born, so she didn't worry
about it a whole lot.Another flash of lightning strobed across the sky. This
time, the thunder came even sooner. The Snodgrasses' house shook.
"You don't want to see the lightning and hear the thunder at the same time.
That's real bad news," Mr. Snodgrass said. He glanced at his wife and Gran.
One of his gingery eyebrows rose a little. Was he thinking they were the
lightning and the thunder? Beckie wouldn't have been surprised.
Water drummed on the roof. No, you didn't get rain like this inLos Angeles .
It came down, and it kept on coming. Nine zillion raindrops danced on the
growing puddles in the back yard.
Beckie wondered how often the Snodgrasses' house got flooded. They didn't
seem antsy, so maybe it didn't happen as much as she guessed it might.
Mr. Snodgrass had other worries on his mind. "Hope we don't get tornadoes,"
he said.
"Bite your tongue, Ted!" his wife exclaimed. Mr. Snodgrass really did stick
out his tongue and make as if to chomp down on it. Mrs. Snodgrass rolled her
eyes before she went on, "We haven't had a twister tear throughElizabeth for
as long as anybody can recollect. But remember the one that gotPalestine ?
What year was that, Ted? Was it 71?Or 72?"
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"Well, I reckoned it was 73 myself, but I'm not gonna get all hot and
bothered about it," Mr. Snodgrass answered, a dig plainly aimed at his wife
and Gran. Mrs. Snodgrass rolled her eyes again. Gran didn't even notice she'd
been zinged. Beckie might have known had known she wouldn't. Noneso blind as
those who will not see, Beckie thought.
More thunder boomed and rumbled, this time a little longer after the
lightning that lit up the front room with a white-purple flash. Beckie could
imagine funnels forming in weather like this. "What do we do if there is one?"
she asked.
"We go down cellar and say our prayers," Mrs. Snodgrass answered. "If God is
listening, it'll stay away from us. If He's not. . ." She screwed up her face
into what was meant for a smile. "If He's not, I expect He's got somebody else
He needs to save more than us. His will be done."
She sounded as if she meant it. People here took their religion more
seriously than they did inCalifornia . Back home, Gran went to church but Mom
and Dad didn't, or not very often. InElizabeth , almost everybody seemed to.
Beckie had gone since she came here with the Snodgrasses and her grandmother
going, staying away would have made her seem rude and weird. At seventeen, she
felt the need to fit in. She didn't think she was getting much out of
going the preacher was a bore. But people smiled and nodded just to see her
there. That counted, too.
Another flash of lightning lit everything up for a moment. As Beckie blinked,
she counted bats again. Halfway between five and six of them, the thunder
crashed. "That's more like it," she said."A mile away, or pretty close."
"About what I figured myself," Mr. Snodgrass said. "I bet that one came down
on Jephany Knob. A lot of times after a thunderstorm you'll see trees knocked
down up there. It draws lightning, sure enough."
High ground did. Beckie knew that. She'd seen pictures of trees blasted
during thunderstorms. She tried to imagine what they'd smell like. What was
the odor of hot sap? She didn't know, but she wanted to find out. "After the
rain stops if the rain ever stops I'd like to have a look up there," she said.
Look wasn't all of what she meant, but saying something like I want to have a
sniff up there would only make everybody think she was strange.
"Well, you can do that," Mr. Snodgrass said.
"I don't want you going up there by yourself," Gran said.
Beckie started to say everything would be fine. What she wanted to say was
that Gran was an old foof who belonged back in the twentieth century, or maybe
the nineteenth. Before she could get the words out, Mr. Snodgrass said,
"Myrtle's right, Rebecca. There may be snags up there. There may be rattlers,
too there usually are."
And there may be people with guns, Beckie remembered. She swallowed whatever
protest she might have made and nodded instead. "Okay, I won't," she said.
"Maybe Justin will want to go up there with me."
That didn't make Gran any happier but then, what did? "I don't know what that
boy has in mind," she said, but that wasn't what she meant. She meant she knew
just what Justin had in mind, and she didn't like it one bit.
"Don't be silly, Gran," Beckie said.
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"I'm not being silly. Don't you wish you could say the same?" The look Gran
gave her meant her grandmother thought she had the same thing in mind as
Justin did. The only thing Beckie had inmind right then was picking up a lamp
and bashing Gran over the head with it. She didn't, but it sure was tempting.
"Justin's a nice enough fella," Mr. Snodgrass said.
"Yes, and a whole lot you know about it," Gran said.
"Oh, I recollect, I do," he answered. "I may not be young any more, but I'm
not dead yet, either, not by a long chalk. Isn't that right, sweetie?" He
turned to his wife for support.
"Men," Mrs. Snodgrass sniffed. By the way she made itsound, half the human
race was in big trouble if she had anything to say about it. Mr. Snodgrass
mimed being cut to the quick. His wife laughed, but she wasn't kidding or not
much, anyhow.
The high-topped running shoes Justin had worn when he came up toElizabeth
were good enough for almost anything. Oh, he'd get stares if he went to a
fancy dinner in them, but he doubted anybody inElizabeth had ever set out that
fancy a dinner. They weren't hiking boots or anything, but he felt more than
surefooted enough in them to climb Jephany Knob.
"How you doing?" he asked Beckie.
"I'm fine," she answered. Just then, her foot came down on some slick mud.
She almost took a pratfall, but a wild flail of her arms and a helping hand
from Justin kept her upright. "Thanks," she said.
"Sure," he said. "You helped keep me from landing on my can a couple of
minutes ago." He didn't much want to let go of her hand, but he did. Right
now, she was a girl he knew, not a girlfriend. He knew Mr. Brooks wouldn't
want her to turn into a girlfriend. Romances between Crosstime Traffic people
and locals almost always turned out badly.
"It's nice, isn't it?" she said. "The air feels . . . washed clean."
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