Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret

Author:Peg Kehret
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-09-02T21:00:00+00:00

12

The sound of a vehicle approaching woke me. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was growing light. I saw a pair of headlights coming toward me.

Snickers stood and shook, making his ears flap. I stood, too, and walked toward the road, waving at the lights.

A large black pickup truck, the kind with a backseat, pulled up next to me. The driver, a man in a baseball cap, leaned out the window. “Need a lift?” he asked. “There’s temporary housing and food available about ten miles up the road.”

“Is it okay to bring my dog?”

The man laughed. “They may not let him inside the building, but I don’t mind giving him a ride. Hop in.”

I hesitated briefly, wondering if I should ask him for identification. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of getting in a truck with a man I didn’t know. Then I saw that he wore a white smock over his shirt; the smock said AMERICAN RED CROSS VOLUNTEER in big red letters.

He opened the passenger door. Snickers scrambled in first and sat between me and the man as if he had ridden there a hundred times.

“My name’s Jake,” the man said.

“I’m Kaitlyn,” I replied, silently congratulating myself for having chosen the pseudonym ahead of time so that I could answer without hesitation. “My dog’s name is Snickers.”

“Where do you live?” he asked. “Should I drive you home instead of to the shelter?”

“I’m not from around here. I’m on my way to my sister’s house, but I missed the bus yesterday. Snickers and I were walking a while and got caught in the tornado.”

“You were outside?” he asked. “With no protection?”

“We sat under a tree to try to get out of the hail, and it ended up shielding us from the wind.”

He looked at me as if I were the eighth wonder of the world. “You are one lucky girl,” he said, “and your dog, too. Half the trees in the county were uprooted. The wind hit one hundred and fifteen miles an hour in some places. The next town east of here is gone, every building wiped out.”

“I know,” I said. “I saw it. I tried to dig out a boy who was buried in the rubble, but I couldn’t get everything off him. I told a man in a helicopter where the boy was.”

“That was you?” Jake said. “You’re the one who saved the boy from Alabama?”

“You know about Randy?”

“They airlifted him to the hospital and he couldn’t stop talking about a girl who he had been mean to, but she tried to help him anyway. The TV station is having a field day with the story. According to the reporters, you saved the kid’s life.”

I hoped that was true.

“They’re trying to locate you, for an interview.”

I immediately regretted saying anything about Randy. I certainly did not want a reporter interviewing me and broadcasting my picture.

“Please don’t tell anyone else it was me,” I said. “I don’t want a big fuss.”

Jake smiled his approval. “Well, that’s refreshing,” he said.

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