From the cover
prologue
Myth: Tornadoes only move northeast.
People used to believe that tornadoes only move in one direction—to the northeast—but that’s not true. Sometimes they go southwest. Sometimes they touch down and don’t go anywhere, getting sucked right back up into the sky. That’s disappointing. Sometimes they zig and sometimes they zag. Tornadoes are unpredictable.
If a tornado was in middle school, it might get a lot of weird looks from other kids. Its counselor might call its behavior “unexpected.” Its mom might try to get it to move in the same direction as the other tornadoes just to fit in. But maybe the tornado doesn’t care about fitting in—even if it means not having a lot of friends.
I can relate because I used to have one friend but now I don’t. It’s complicated.
I met her during a tornado.
It was the first week of kindergarten. My memories from back then are foggy because I was just a little kid and also my memory is weird, but here’s how I think it went. Everyone was at recess and I was circling the outside of the play area alone, thinking of roller coasters because I was obsessed with them then, feeling my way along the chain link because I liked the way my fingers dropped into the spaces between the links and the way my hand smelled like metal afterward. Not a lot of people like that smell.
Sometimes I don’t notice things at all and sometimes I notice things too much. That day, I noticed when the wind turbine at the far end of the playground stopped turning. I live in Long Beach, Washington, and it’s known for being windy—so windy that there’s an international kite festival every August—so when the turbine stopped, it was different. I notice things that are different. The creepy green-gray circular clouds behind the unmoving turbine were different, too. That’s called a mesocyclone, which is a word I like.
I don’t know if any other kid on the playground saw the twister fall from the funnel cloud that day. I was probably the only one who was looking up instead of playing tether-ball or hanging upside down from the monkey bars or something. Being upside down makes my head feel funny.
I watched as the tornado hit the ground and started bumping toward us, tossing things that looked like bugs but were really recycling bins. The emergency system was loud, so I covered my ears. Kids ran inside but I didn’t run; I walked . . . in the direction of the tornado. I took my hands off my ears and heard the train sound, far away at first, then louder and louder. The tiny bottom of the tornado got bigger as it collected stuff, pulling up and tossing small trees and even sucking up a utility pole, sending sparks into the sky like fireworks.
I was sucked up, too—by an adult. He grabbed me and started running toward the school. I watched the tornado rip out the far part of the playground fence, which is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“What is wrong with you?” the adult shouted, too close to my ear.
An audiologist once told me that I have better-than-average hearing, so it hurt. If you don’t know what an audiologist is, it’s a doctor who studies hearing loss and balance issues related to the ears. I don’t have either of those things, but still I went to one—along with many other doctors that have ologist at the end of their titles.
I cupped my hands over my ears, but I could still hear him shouting: “You need to listen to directions! You could have been...
