My Family Wants Me Gone, I Take Their Luck With Me novel · Chapter 12 of 32
Chapter 12: The Storm
By four, the wind had teeth.
Arlo was already pulling sandbags off a pallet behind the bait shop.
"How many do we have?"
"Sixty. We need two hundred."
The old man from the bait shop came out in a yellow slicker with a shovel over his shoulder.
"There's sand on the beach," he said. "Last I checked, it's free."
The fishermen came back without being asked. So did the night nurse, in rubber boots. Two cannery workers pulled in with a truck full of empty feed sacks.
Nobody made a speech. They just started digging.
I held sacks open while the old man shoveled.
Marigold's school bus dropped her off at four thirty. She ran down the pier with her carousel backpack bouncing.
"Can I help?"
"You can hold the twine," Arlo said. "Don't let it blow away. That's the most important job."
By six, it was dark and raining sideways.
We laid a wall of sacks along the diner's front step. Another around the bait-shop door. Another across the arcade's broken window.
The waves were hitting the pilings so hard the whole pier hummed under my shoes.
Then we heard the carousel.
A sound like a sail tearing.
At the end of the pier, the blue tarp had ripped loose on one side. It cracked in the wind.
Under it, the canopy groaned.
"If the wind gets under the roof, it'll lift it," Arlo shouted. "It'll take the whole top off."
He ran for the end of the pier.
I ran after him.
"Noelle, stay with Marigold!"
"The nurse has her!"
The nurse had Marigold by the hood of her raincoat, steering her into the diner.
At the carousel, Arlo dragged a ladder from the shed and set it against the housing.
"Hold the ladder!"
I grabbed it with both hands and planted my feet.
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