Ann Alma Children's Library 2-Book Bundle. Ann Alma

cabins, not shacks,” Willard said, glaring at Lee, his hands on his hips.

      The woman grimaced as she tried to sit up. She fell back onto the blanket.

      The twins agreed that their mother couldn’t stay where she was. They decided to bring a mattress over and carry her back on it.

      “Get Uncle John’s,” Willard said, starting toward the smaller cabin.

      “That man, John, is your uncle?” Alex asked.

      “You saw him?” Willard glanced at his sister.

      When Alex told the twins about the two men and the log, Clare said, “The other man’s our pa. D’you think we can get him to come back?” she asked Willard.

      The boy shook his head. “They started late. They’ve to get everything afloat ’nd chained down before the tide’s out. It’ll be dark before they get their haul to the city.”

      “What haul?” Lee’s hands tightened into fists. She wanted to ask a million questions. Did the twins know where Mom, Uncle Brooke and Pat were? Why didn’t they want someone to come up here to help their mother? It couldn’t just be because they were poor.

      Lee didn’t get an answer to her questions, because Clare and Willard ran off to the smaller cabin. She and Alex followed.

      In the tiny, dark room they pulled a mattress out from under the heap of bedding. The four of them struggled to hold the mattress up high while they crossed the creek. Both Lee and Alex got their shoes wet. Lee wished she had bigger arm muscles. She could tell that the twins carried their burden more easily.

      Willard lowered the mattress. “I’m gonna get a drink,” he said, wiping his forehead.

      Laying the mattress down, both Willard and Clare crouched by the creek to scoop water in their cupped hands.

      “You’ll get sick,” Alex said. “Beaver fever.”

      “What?” Willard frowned, then slurped up another handful.

      “We drink it all the time,” Clare said.

      Lee was parched. Her tongue felt as dry as a blackboard brush. But Uncle Brooke always warned against drinking water straight from creeks. He said it had diseases. Clare slurped again before splashing water on her face. “Ah,” she sighed.

      Scooping up a handful, Lee looked closely at the clear, cool water. She splashed her face and slurped up a little to wet the inside of her dry mouth. It was icy cold and tasted different from bottled water. She scooped up another handful, spilling most of it down her shirt before she got it to her mouth.

      They picked up the mattress and continued. When they got closer to where the twins’ mother had been lying behind the log, they gasped in horror. The mattress fell to the ground.

      “Oh no. Ma!” Willard cried.

      

      A trail of blood led along the grass to the end of the log. The woman sat there holding her leg.

      “Ma, you shouldn’t have moved,” Clare said. She checked her mother’s leg. “It’s bleeding more.”

      “You need stitches,” Lee said. “We’ll get Uncle Brooke and….” She stopped, then asked, “Do you know where our parents are?”

      “Are there more of you?” The woman asked. She grimaced as Clare tightened the tourniquet again. “That painter and all her animals, are you with her?”

      “No. Our parents were camped at the beach, but now they’re gone,” Alex said. “Do you know where they are?”

      The twins shook their heads.

      Willard turned to Alex. “Let’s cut poles to put under the mattress. That way we can carry Ma back to the cabin.”

      Lee nodded. She didn’t understand why the twins weren’t trying harder to get help. They hadn’t even bandaged the cut. Perhaps they didn’t have bandages. The flies that crawled on the woman’s leg might infect the wound.

      “Do you have any bug spray?” she asked, scratching her neck.

      Clare shrugged. “Never heard of it,” she mumbled. Looking up at Lee, she said, “Oh, you mean fly tox? No, we don’t use it.”

      “My uncle knows a lot about first aid. If you know where the campers are….” Lee tried again.

      Clare was bent over her mother. She shrugged.

      “Campers,” Lee continued. “One’s a big, new, white motorhome with a blue awning. The other, my mom’s, is a really old Volkswagen van. And there’s a canoe. But everything is gone. Even the tubes.” Suddenly Lee realized just how scary her situation was. She sat down on the ground, feeling shaky.

      “You’ve all that?” Clare looked at Lee’s T-shirt, her shorts and runners. Then her eyes rested on Lee’s watch. “You must be rich.”

      “No, we’re not.” Lee stopped. They were all gone! She looked around the clearing, almost expecting Uncle Brooke or Mom to come walking from behind a shrub, as they had done when they played hide and seek up here.

      Clare checked her mother’s leg and wiped her forehead. “The droughts, weren’t you hit by them?”

      “The droughts?” Lee wasn’t sure just what a drought was.

      “The dust storms, the droughts?” Clare sounded amazed.

      Lee shrugged. “What’s that?”

      Clare’s mother must have been listening. She opened her eyes. “You don’t know about the droughts?” she asked.

      “It didn’t rain for several years,” Clare said. “We’d no water. The wells dried up. All the plants died. We couldn’t even wash. Then the wind blew ’nd blew. It made big dust storms. There was sand in my eyes ’nd my ears. In our food. In my bed. And piles of sand by the doors ’nd windows. Pa, he used a shovel ’nd wheelbarrow to dump the sand back outside.” She swatted at the flies on her mother’s leg.

      Lee wondered if Clare was telling the truth. “A wheelbarrow?” she grinned.

      “Really,” Clare said. Her mother nodded.

      Clare continued. “The dust clouds, they were so big, it was dark even during the day. I guess you never lived on the prairies.”

      Lee shook her head.