I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919 by Lauren Tarshis

Author:Lauren Tarshis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

There was not a second to waste. It took all of Carmen’s strength to propel herself forward through the muck. She pulled herself up on the wagon so half of her body was out of the molasses. Tony grabbed hold of the side. But before he could pull himself up, he lost his grip on the slime-covered wood.

Carmen clung to the wagon with one hand and she reached down with the other. She managed to grab Tony’s arm, and with every last bit of strength she had, she yanked him up hard. He threw his arms over a wagon wheel, locking them together.

The wagon bobbed and wove in the churning molasses. Terrible sounds rose up around them — cries of fear and moans of pain, the screeching of metal. Molasses coated Carmen’s face, an itching, burning, dripping mask.

She and Tony huddled together, too terrified to talk.

All they could do was look around in horror.

Now Carmen knew how Dorothy felt when she fell out of that tornado and landed in the strange land of Oz.

Except that Oz was a magical land filled with bright colors and jeweled cities.

This strange place was a nightmare, a wasteland of rubble covered with brown slime. The destruction reminded Carmen of the pictures she’d seen in the newspapers of the battlefields of the Great War — the cities and forests of France and Belgium turned to charred ruins.

Wagons, motorcars, and parts of buildings swirled around them.

And people.

A man, his shoulder badly bloodied, clung to a barrel. Another man was thrashing wildly, trying to keep his head above the surface. A woman was facedown, not moving at all.

How many people were trapped in this flood? Dozens? Hundreds?

Was Tony’s family safe? What about Mr. Lawrence and the kids at school?

And what about Rosie?

Carmen leaned harder against Tony.

And that’s when he screamed.

“Watch out!”

From nowhere, a giant piece of the tank smacked into the wagon, nearly flipping it over. Tony managed to keep his grip. But Carmen slipped off.

“Carmen!”

Tony’s voice was the last thing she heard as the molasses swallowed her up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.