Hurricane Boy by Laura Dragon

Author:Laura Dragon [Dragon, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781455619177
Publisher: Pelican Publishing
Published: 2014-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Stuck

“Little boy? Little boy?” A soft voice broke into Hollis’s awareness. “Wake up. You’re here.”

“Here?” Hollis mumbled, stirring. A scent drifted into his nostrils. Gardenia. “Gee?” he grunted.

The voice didn’t sound like Gee, but he was too excited to notice that. His eyes flew open, but Gee was not there. Yelping in surprise, he scrambled sideways and slammed into the sleeping Algie and Leta.

“Oh, honey.” The wrinkled witch, who had loomed inches from his face, became an ordinary elderly lady with faded gray eyes and curls as white and shiny as his mother’s good plates. She straightened up and smiled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Hollis nodded, his hope crushed. “You smell like my grandmother,” he said without enthusiasm.

“Well, that’s very nice,” she said. “It must be the perfume my grandchildren bought for my birthday.”

Leta and Algie sat up rubbing their faces. Hollis moved over to give them room. “Where are we?”

“You’re at First Methodist Church in Charleston,” she said.

Hollis frowned. That didn’t sound like Baton Rouge.

“South Carolina?” Leta squeaked.

“No, dear,” the lady said. “West Virginia.”

Hollis tried to remember where West Virginia was.

“I gotta pee,” Algie said. “Is West Virginia in B-Baton Rouge?”

“No, dear,” the lady said.

“It’s by Ohio, Algie,” Leta said.

Hollis tried to think of where Ohio was.

“You know your geography, don’t you, dear?” the lady said to Leta, who looked smug and nodded.

Of course she does. Hollis gave up trying to figure out where they were. He’d ask Leta later.

“There’s a bathroom on the bus,” the lady told Algie. “But if you can wait just a moment, I’ll take you to a nicer one inside.”

Algie nodded, and they got up. Hollis noticed that the bus was empty. Everyone else must have gotten off while they slept. Shading his eyes from the overhead sun, he estimated it to be about lunch time. Following the others off the bus, he hurried to catch up to the lady before they entered the shelter.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“About noon,” she said.

“Lunch time! Good! I’m starving,” Leta said.

“What time does the bus go back?” Hollis asked.

The woman appeared confused. “Back where?”

“Back to New Orleans. We have to go back.”

“Well, it’s dangerous there. The bus isn’t going back. This was our last run. The shelter is full.”

Hollis stared. “No,” he said. “We have to go back! A man kidnapped Algie and made us get on the bus with him. That was the only way they’d let him on. We have to go to Baton Rouge. Our grandmother is there.”

“My goodness! Do you know where this man is now?”

“I guess he’s in there.” Hollis pointed at the shelter. “Once the bus left New Orleans, he let us go.”

“Well, don’t worry about him anymore. We all knew you had to be here without a parent when everyone else got off the bus and no one woke you up. But we can’t send you back to New Orleans. How about we get in touch with your grandmother and send you to where she is. Would that be okay?”

Hollis hesitated before nodding.

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