Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin

Author:Ann M. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250064233
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

24

I Telephone Uncle Weldon

Something good happens the next day. I walk into our kitchen early in the morning and the first thing I notice is that the refrigerator is humming. The second thing I notice is that the kitchen feels warmer. The third thing I notice is that the little table lamp in the living room that my father sometimes leaves on overnight is shining.

The power is back on. It didn’t take weeks after all.

I pick up the telephone and hear a dial tone.

The phone is back on too.

I almost knock on my father’s door to tell him the news, but then I look at the Atlantic City clock and see that it’s only 6:20, too early to wake him.

It isn’t too early to call my uncle, though.

When he answers he sounds sleepy, but not mad.

“Uncle Weldon!” I shout. “It’s me, Rose! Everything is working again.”

“Rose!” Uncle Weldon sounds as excited as I am. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say, since I am not injured.

“I kept trying to drive to your house but too many trees are down. I couldn’t get through town. Even last night.”

“Our bridge washed out,” I say, “so we can’t leave our yard. Uncle Weldon?”

“Yes?”

“Rain is gone.”

“What?”

“Rain is gone.” I tell him how my father let my dog out on Saturday morning during a superstorm without her collar.

“Oh, Rose,” says my uncle. “That’s awful.”

“I don’t know what to do. We can’t look for her because we’re stuck here. And I couldn’t call the police because our phone didn’t work.”

“The police?”

“So they could search for her,” I say.

There is a short silence at my uncle’s end of the phone, and then he says, “The police have a lot to do right now anyway. The roads have to be cleared, and some people are still stranded in their houses, surrounded by water. We’ll have to look for Rain by ourselves.” He pauses. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“We’re a little tired of peanut butter and tuna fish,” I say. “And I had to pee in a bucket because we ran out of water. And also some trees fell down but none of them landed on the house.”

“How are you doing without Rain?”

I’m not sure how to answer that.

“Rose?”

“Well, without Rain I don’t have to fix her meals, and I don’t have to walk her.”

“But how do you feel?”

“I feel that I would like to find her.”

“It sounds like you’re a little lonely,” says my uncle.

Now I understand. “Yes, and worried. And sad. Uncle Weldon, how do you look for a lost dog?”

“I guess we’ll start by putting an ad in the paper. We can put up Lost Dog posters too. But those things may have to wait a few days, although it’s a good sign that the power’s on.”

Since the power was back, my father and I watched television that morning. We tuned into the news. We found out that most of the roads in Hatford were expected to be cleared by the end of the day. We found out that school might open next Monday.

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