Black Blizzard Read online

  Tyler got a sick feeling as they moved toward the dust clouds, but he knew trying to run away from the storm would be a worse idea. Taking shelter on the bus was their best chance.

  Fifteen minutes later, they returned to the bus. L.J. was limping, with an arm still around each of their shoulders. Brown dirt and dust layered over the protective clothes covering Tyler and Julia’s faces. Twenty-five miles per hour. That was the average speed Ethan said the storm would travel, but this wind felt faster than that.

  José and Kevin were screwing around, running outside the bus and kicking up sand. Everyone else was inside. Ethan, Daniela, and Sha’relle ran out to greet them. Mr. Dwyer came down the steps with a disapproving look on his face.

  “As the adult responsible for your safety, I expect you to listen to me when I give you instructions.” He gripped his hat in his hands. He was mostly looking at L.J., but then he glanced at Julia and Tyler briefly.

  “Sorry,” Julia and Tyler said together.

  “You were right,” L.J. said, limping to a stop in front of Mr. Dwyer. “I’m sorry.”

  “L.J. twisted his ankle.” Julia’s voice became clearer as she pulled her mask away from her face.

  “Are you sure he wasn’t faking just so he could hold onto you?” Ethan teased.

  Tyler clenched his fists. Why couldn’t L.J. like Daniela or Sha’relle or anyone else?

  L.J. whispered something.

  “What?” Ethan asked.

  “He said, ‘Water,’” Julia replied.

  “Oh, you’re dehydrated? Way to go!” Daniela said sarcastically. “Guess you didn’t think about that before you took off.”

  L.J.’s hair was caked in sweat and dirt. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. He sounded like he meant it.

  “You’re not going to drink all the water we have left,” Daniela said.

  “Leave him alone,” Ethan said. “We’ll ration the water.”

  “Fine.” Tyler handed over his water bottle to L.J., who gulped the last of what was there.

  “Okay now. Let’s not start fighting,” Mr. Dwyer said. “We need to move past this. No more runaways. We stay together as a team, deal?”

  The students standing outside nodded, some of them looking more comfortable with this plan than others.

  “When is the replacement bus going to get here?” Daniela asked. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “They probably aren’t letting any buses or emergency vehicles drive in the storm. It’s not safe,” Mr. Dwyer said.

  “Just go outside,” José replied to Daniela.

  “Yeah, right. Easy for you to say,” she snapped.

  The clouds were clearly moving closer. The dust storm was less than a football field away.

  “At least our bus will cool down once the clouds block the sun,” José said.

  “Way to find the silver lining. No pun intended.” Kevin snorted to himself, and José chuckled. They seemed like the only two people still in a good mood about this situation.

  “Everyone back on the bus—let’s go,” Mr. Dwyer said. “The dust storm will be on top of us any minute.”

  6

  “Did you just bump my leg?” Julia asked Tyler.

  “No. How could I have bumped your leg from way over here?” Tyler’s face heated up where he was now sitting across the aisle from Julia, several rows back from his seat. “Why?”

  “I just . . . I thought I felt something brush it. Never mind.”

  Tyler wondered if he had lost points with her on the rescue-the-runaway mission. Maybe he shouldn’t have talked so much.

  “Did you guys see something move?” L.J. shouted.

  “What are you talking about?” Daniela asked.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Sha’relle said, ducking her head to peer underneath her seat.

  Then someone two rows behind Julia yelled, “Snake! Oh my god!”

  Daniela screamed. “Someone get it!” She was up on her seat and looking down at the bus floor.

  Several other students climbed onto their seats, even trying to balance on the back part of the seat. Others gasped and squealed.

  “Get it out of here!” Daniela shouted.

  “I do not like snakes,” Tyler muttered to himself, also climbing up on his seat but trying not to look too scared because Julia was right there.

  Toward the middle of the bus, Sha’relle held up what looked like a thin rope. “You mean this?” The snake moved and flicked its tongue.

  Daniela, who was right beside Sha’relle, screeched.

  “Calm down. You’ll scare him,” Sha’relle said.

  “How do you know it’s a boy?” José asked.

  “It’s a harmless garter snake.” Sha’relle held it up. The snake was about eighteen inches long and skinny, less than an inch in diameter. She lifted the snake overhead and placed it around her neck.

  Daniela gasped as the tan and green scaly animal lay against Sha’relle’s dark skin.

  “God! What are you doing? How can you hold that thing?” Ethan asked. “You could get bitten!”

  “Get it out of here!” Daniela pleaded.

  Sha’relle let go of the snake and let it wrap around her upper arm.

  “How can you touch that slimy thing?” Daniela asked.

  “Snakes aren’t slimy. They’re not even wet—we’re in the desert. I think they’re cool. Aren’t you, little buddy?” Sha’relle held the head of the snake near her face and talked to it. She petted its little head as its tongue darted in and out.

  “God. You’re freaking me out!” Daniela squealed.

  “Garter snakes aren’t even venomous,” Sha’relle pointed out.

  Daniela shook her head. “I don’t care what you say. That is nasty.”

  “My mom has snakeskin boots,” Kevin offered, as if that would comfort her.

  “Just get it out of here.” Daniela shooed a hand in the air and made a disgusted face.

  “It must have gotten on the bus when the front door was left open,” Mr. Dwyer suggested. “Let’s shut the door before we get any more animal stowaways.”

  The bus driver slammed the door shut and the panels shook in their hinges. He pressed against them to make sure they were secure. The rattling stopped.

  “Please. Get it out of here.” Daniela held up her hand, scooting away from Sha’relle. “Just. Please.”

  “You’re hurting his feelings,” Sha’relle joked.

  “Whatever,” Daniela scoffed.

  “Come on,” Mr. Dwyer said. “Toss it out the window.”

  “Sheesh. Fine.” Sha’relle walked over to an open window. “They just don’t understand you,” she said to the garter snake. “So long, little friend.”

  Tyler glanced at Julia. Her arms were folded tight, hugging her middle.

  Sha’relle unwrapped the snake from her arm. She reached toward the window and dropped the snake through the narrow opening, and as soon as it landed, it slithered away on the sand.

  The dust storm was now less than half a football field away.

  7

  “Now that everyone is on the bus . . . ” Mr. Dwyer raised an eyebrow in L.J.’s direction. L.J. sank down in his seat. “And all critters are, hopefully, off the bus . . . ” He shot a look at Sha’relle, who just smiled and brushed her hands together.

  “We need to get ready,” Mr. Dwyer continued. “The bus needs to be as airtight as possible. Close all the windows. Look for any cracks in the seams and fill them with . . . something, anything.”

  The team stood there, dumbfounded, for a moment.

  “You heard him,” Ethan said. “Close up all the windows. Hurry.” Most of the students leapt into action.

  But Kevin and José leaned back and put their feet up on the seatbacks in front of them. Ethan yanked Kevin’s legs down. “Not cool,” he said. “Both of you, get up and help.”

  Kevin gave him a dirty look and then got up reluctantly. José followed.

  The sound of windows sliding up and clicking closed r
esonated through the bus.

  Tyler’s window was open too. He pushed the metal latches inward and heaved up, but the window was stuck halfway.

  “Come on, come on.” Tyler slapped at the window—then rubbed his stinging hand. He pushed on the metal latches again, but they wouldn’t budge. “Come. On.” He slammed the heel of his hand into it. Why hadn’t the others thought about this while he and Julia were out looking for L.J.?

  The dust cloud grew closer. Tyler had never seen anything like it. A wall of black and brown clouds churned toward them. It looked like photos he had seen of bombs being dropped in a war.

  Tyler pounded and pushed at the metal window latch. Finally–Click—it gave way and slid up a notch. He pushed the latches inward again and pushed the window closed. It clicked into place. “There.” He brushed off his hands.

  Four guys, including José and Kevin, fought to see out the back of the bus’s emergency-door window and watch the approaching storm. But the rest of the team continued checking windows.

  “No, that’s okay,” Julia yelled sarcastically toward the slackers watching out the back window. “We got it. No need to help. We’re fine.”

  Mr. Dwyer hurried around the bus, checking all the windows one more time. Another window wouldn’t close and it was already letting in dust and wind.

  “Keep your coverings around your faces. You need to protect your nose and mouth,” Mr. Dwyer said.

  “Why do we need to do that if we’re inside the bus?” Kevin asked.

  “Because dust could still leak in.” Mr. Dwyer’s voice had never sounded more tense. “It’s a precaution.”

  “I can’t get this one closed!” José shouted from a seat toward the back, where he’d finally moved to get to the last window. “Can somebody help me?”

  “I got it,” Kevin said, coming over to José. His fingers turned white where he pressed into the locks. He heaved. “Ugh! Never mind. It won’t budge.”

  “Let me try,” Ethan offered, leaning over the seat to reach for the window.

  “Get something to cover it with,” Mr. Dwyer suggested. Kids scrambled and dug through their backpacks.

  “I have a sweatshirt!” Kevin said, while Sha’relle offered a hat she’d found.

  “Use my jacket.” Ethan grabbed his black sport coat. The upper window was stuck halfway open, just a few inches high but about a foot wide. It was a big enough hole to let in more than a little dust once the storm hit the bus.

  “We have to get that opening covered or we could have sand all over the bus,” Mr. Dwyer instructed.

  “It’s just sand,” José said.

  “Have you ever breathed in sand?” Mr. Dwyer asked.

  “No.”

  “Or gotten a tiny piece of sand in your eyes?” Mr. Dwyer added.

  “Oh, yeah. It stung.”

  “Well, try getting a dozen tiny particles in your eyes,” Mr. Dwyer said. “Your cornea could get scratched.”

  José quickly dug through his backpack and found a sleep mask he’d brought. “Ha!” he shouted, holding the mask above his head.

  Ethan shook his head. “You are lucky.”

  “I’m prepared,” José corrected with a grin. He strapped the sleep mask onto his forehead like a pair of goggles.

  “Right. Prepared to sleep,” Ethan said before returning his attention to the open window.

  “How can we secure this?” Mr. Dwyer asked.

  “Here,” the bus driver said, walking down the aisle. He looked out of breath just from walking that short distance. His round belly hung over his belt. Being a bus driver involved a lot of sitting and probably wasn’t the best occupation for staying in shape, Tyler reflected.

  “Use this duct tape. I always carry it with me.” The driver handed Ethan a roll of tape and huffed back to his seat, where he tried to call for help on his radio again.

  No one answered.

  José held the jacket up to the window and Ethan peeled off the thick, gray tape and secured the cloth over the hole. Everyone was silent on the bus. Some watched Ethan and José secure the jacket, while others were staring out their own windows. The bus had begun to rock slightly from the wind, and it sounded like stones and sand were pelting the sides.

  “Look!” Julia squeezed Tyler on the arm.

  They both looked outside. The cactus that had been bent at a forty-five-degree angle minutes ago had shifted to a ninety-degree angle—all the way sideways.

  8

  “Does that look like a twenty-five-mile-an-hour wind to you?” Tyler shouted as the wind began to rattle the bus even harder.

  “Twenty-five is the average,” Ethan explained. “Dust storms can move faster.”

  The driver locked the doors and turned off all the bus lights. Tyler figured he did that as a safety precaution. He remembered the firefighter safety speaker saying this prevented other cars from seeing the headlights and misjudging where the bus was on the road.

  Pull aside. Stay alive. Tyler hoped if anyone came along on the highway, they would know to do that in a dust storm and not accidentally hit the bus.

  “The sky’s all black and gray, smoky-looking,” L.J. said. “Like something big exploded, like Chernobyl.”

  “I think you mean Hiroshima,” Ethan said.

  Of course Ethan would know to correct him. Ethan loved history. Did L.J. even know that about him? A good friend would know things like that, Tyler thought.

  “But it’s not quite like the photos of Hiroshima,” Ethan went on. “That explosion looked more like a cauliflower, and you could see the top of it where the smoke ended, but this dust cloud looks a mile wide. See how it takes over the sky?”

  The enormous gray cloud rolled toward them, as thick as pollution from a factory.

  “How can a dust cloud get that big?” L.J. asked. Everyone looked to Mr. Dwyer.

  “Well, the strong winds cause a downdraft in an area of land with sand or topsoil,” Mr. Dwyer explained, going into teaching-mode. “So the dirt and sand lifts right off the ground—sometimes up as high as five hundred feet and a mile wide. Experts call these storms black blizzards because the dust clouds get so dark.”

  “What do we do once it gets here?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah, what else can we do to protect ourselves?” Ethan said, looking expectantly at their teacher. “We don’t have much time.”

  Mr. Dwyer scratched his beard again. “Well, we’ve already covered up,” he started. “I think all we can do now is sit tight and hope for the best.”

  The cloud drew closer, but it moved slowly, kicking more dust and dirt into the air. The light from the afternoon sun was getting blocked out more and more.

  Tyler’s ears popped again. Then he heard a high-pitched howling noise in the distance.

  “What was that?” Julia asked, clutching at her seat as she tried to peer out the windows. “It sounded like a coyote.”

  “It was just the wind,” Tyler told her. It had to be the wind.

  The bus swayed and creaked. Dirt and debris began smacking the sides of the bus and the windows. The eerie darkness kept rolling toward them like a fog.

  Tyler had once gone to a football game at the University of Phoenix stadium, where the Cardinals played, and the way that retractable roof slowly opened up was kind of how the dust storm moved. But the stadium’s retractable roof didn’t get right in your face and burn your eyes and throw debris at you.

  Then, all at once, the cloud was upon them—and they were shrouded in darkness.

  9

  The dust cloud completely blocked the sun, making it look like nighttime inside the bus. The cloud was like an eclipse, but it didn’t just cover the circle of the sun like a solar eclipse did. The dust clouds covered the entire sky. Everyone grew quiet.

  “I can’t believe how dark it is,” Sha’relle whispered. “You can’t see a thing!”

  “The cloud is completely covering us,” Daniela said.

  Dust and dirt whirled around them, pelting the bus and sounding like
a BB gun shooting at aluminum cans.

  The jacket covering the open window billowed inward like a sail on a ship. Tyler watched it carefully. If that blazer blew off, they would have dust and dirt everywhere inside the bus. José kneeled on his seat to press down on the tape and make sure it stayed secure.

  Kevin walked to the front of the bus and sat across from where Mr. Dwyer was sitting behind the bus driver.

  “Got any good jokes?” Kevin asked, pushing his shirt-covering away from his face so it sat on top of his head like a hood.

  “Seriously?” Mr. Dwyer turned to him in surprise. “You’re not worried about the storm?”

  “Nah—it’ll pass,” Kevin said. “I was in a dust storm once at the mall. We just stayed inside. It blew over after a while. It was just super dark. Like this.”

  “Well, okay then. Let’s see . . . ” Mr. Dwyer scratched his beard. “Oh, here’s one.”

  Kevin leaned forward. This was the most he’d paid attention all day. Some of the other students on the bus stopped fidgeting so they could listen too. Mr. Dwyer’s jokes were famously lame, but apparently everyone could go for a distraction right now.

  “Mr. Neutron walks into an IHOP and says, ‘I’m starving. How much for a stack of pancakes?’ The waitress says, ‘For you, Mr. Neutron, no charge.’”

  Kevin laughed and shook his head. Corny as usual.

  At a sudden gust of wind, one panel of the front door flew open. It was the side that had been rattling earlier.

  The dirt and dust hit Kevin first. He yelped and scrambled to cover his face, which was now unprotected.

  From what Tyler could see—which wasn’t much in the darkened bus—Kevin was bent over on his seat and holding his head. The driver jumped to get to the door and Mr. Dwyer was already out of his seat, crouching in front of Kevin to look at his face.

  “I got dust in my eyes!” Kevin groaned.