Nena sat near the window indoors at 467 Pine Tree circle. It was Saturday afternoon, it was Nena Cribler’s favorite day of the week because it was the day she would ride her bike around the neighborhood with her friend Alana Nederhopper. But of course her luck, Nena always had bad luck in the morning in the night and of course in the afternoon, it was raining, and Nena hated getting wet but Alana didn’t, and of course Alana rode to her house. At first Nena was confused because she didn’t know why someone would ride their bike when it was pouring outside but then she remembered how Alana loved the rain.
“Hi Alana, I’ll come out in a second!” Nena couldn’t just leave Alana out in the rain and say that she didn’t want to come so she put on her raincoat and ran outside.
Alana was the type of person who liked to keep her head in books and loved to study. Her raincoat was indigo with sequins and her rain boots were glittering gold with rainbow butterflies. Alana’s sweet brown eyes staring into hers, she knew that Alana was eager to start so Nena took out her bright red bike and started to ride.
Nena was shivering so much that she thought that she may fall off her bike. Water was dripping off her hair and onto her glasses. Nena couldn’t see at all! She twisted the handle bars left and right until she hit a big rock.
“Ahh!” Nena yelled and just in time she jumped off her bike.
But it fell down with a big “thud!” Nena looked down sadly to see that her brand new bicycle was scratched.
“What are my parents going to say about this?” Nena whimpered under her voice. Alana turned around and walked her bicycle back.
“What happened?” Alana asked. Nena was still cold from the rain.
“My-y bike fell d-down,” Nena whined.
“It’s OK,” Alana said with a smile. “Let’s keep going, I’m starting to feel cold and Rose is waiting inside the house.”
“Rose is here!” Nena shouted with surprise!
5 minutes later they finally reached Alana’s house and it had just stopped raining.
“Now it stops!” Nena yelled, very irritated. They could see through the windows coral Nederhopper and Rose Trasy. Rose was the kind of kid who always had a big smile and, like Alana, kept her head in books ! And she was wearing a beautiful lilac dress which almost touched her feet and it had a red polka dot print on it. Coral, Alana’s little sister, was there too. She had a little blue hair band that matched her dress. The two girls ran towards Nena.
“Hi Nena,” Coral said with a nice smile.
“Hello Coral!” Nena happily replied.
A few seconds later Alana came back with a brand new soccer ball and announced, “Let’s play soccer together.” Nena’s smile slowly faded away.
“Sorry guys but I have dance class.” Everyone frowned and looked down. “I’m sorry but I can’t stay,” Nena slowly repeated.
Nena slowly started to ride away as she cycled, It started to rain again, drenched from head to toe. She finally reached home and took a bath and changed into dry clothes. After a long hour of dancing, Nena finally came back home. As she stepped in, her baby brother Nowa jumped on her, almost making Nena fall backwards.
“Hello Nowa!” Nena sweetly replied. But all he said back was “NEEWA.” That’s how Nowa pronounced “Nena” because Nowa was only two years old and didn’t know a lot of words and how to pronounce them. But Nena thought it was cute. Nena carried Nowa to his crib and put on his favorite lullaby, “twinkle, twinkle, little star.” One by one his eyes closed and soon enough he was deep asleep. Nena tip towed out of Nowas dark bedroom and rushed down the tall stairs where her mom was all ready to go to the library. She was carrying a large book bag which had a huge pile of books in it. But then at the tip of the bag the corner of a thick book was sticking out. Nena immediately dashed down the stairs and snatched the book out of her moms bag.
“Hey, I’m still reading this book!” Nena said with a stern voice.
“I am sorry Nena,” Her mom apologized, “I didn’t know that you weren’t done.”
Nena took a deep breath, and calmly replied, “it’s okay mom, mistakes were made.” A small smile spread across her mom’s face and she walked out the door.
Later that day the wind began to stop and water stopped pouring from the sky and the weather reporter said that it wouldn’t start to rain again today but a hurricane would happen next Saturday morning again, And possibly a family tornado could strike. As Nena’s parents heard this their eyes widened. The place Nena lived, tornadoes happened every now or then, but none were so powerful that they had to go in a tornado bunker!
“What’s a family tornado Mom?” Nena questioned.
“That’s when a storm produces multiple tornadoes one after another!” Her mom replied in a way that sounds like she was very worried. This made Nena super scared. Luckily their house did have a basement that would keep them safe from tornadoes but they had no tornado bunkers but it was still safe enough.
The next week before the tornado struck Nena’s family crept into their basement suddenly the doorbell rang, outside it was Nena’s friend Sasha Willow and her family.
“Hello Ms. and Mr. Willow, ho! and you to Sasha, what in the world are here for right before a tornado is coming, please come inside!” Nena’s mom kindly asked.
“Thank you very much Ms. Cribbler!” announced Mr. Willow with his loud booming voice, “the basement in our house got flooded with the rain and we have no tornado bunker of any sort.” With a very worried expression, Nena’s mom led them to the basement, and a few minutes later they were all in the basement safe and sound.
“When will the tornado strike?” Sasha asked in her high pitched voice that had no similarity to her dads.
“It’s a family tornado,” Nena corrected her first, “and I really have no idea when it will and if we are lucky, it might completely miss Pine Tree circle.” So they waited, suddenly Nena heard a loud roar of swishing wind and felt the floor vibrating, sweat started to bead on everyone’s head. Nena hugged her mom as tightly as she possibly could, she didn’t care if she looked like a baby. Nowa started to cry. He couldn’t take the loud noise, so Nena covered his ears so that he could calm down and it seemed to have worked for a little bit, but a few minutes later he swatted off Nena’s hands and he started to cry again. Nena started to breathe heavily. She could sense this heavy pit in her stomach. She almost felt like something bad was going to happen very, very soon.
Suddenly, the rumbling had stopped, and it was completely silent… a little too silent, Nena’s mom got the radio out. It was a bit hard to understand, but if you listened hard enough, it was understandable.
“As you know we were expecting a family tornado, but due to tremendous wind changes, the tornados have completely shifted west!” The weather forecast explained. Everyone in the room took a breath of relief, Sasha was as red as a tomato, Nena bet that Sasha was holding her breath the entire time. But in a few moments they all knew that they had celebrated too soon. Nena heard a splashing water sound. She looked down and saw lots of water soaking her feet, and it was getting higher. Had their basement got flooded with the rain water, and why was the water getting higher by the second? Suddenly Nena felt a jolt on her arm and she was being dragged up the stairs by her mom and dad. It was getting so high it was up to her dad’s knees and that meant to Nenas chest. As Nena managed to get to her feet she saw something glow in the deep water and it oddly looked like all the water was coming from it, so she swam for it.
“NENA!!!” Her mom and dad cried at the top of their lungs in unison, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!”
As Nena got closer to the glowing object it started to glow brighter. Nena was running out of breath, her face was red from holding in air and the glowing object was right in reach when Nena noticed it was a key, eyes stinging from the water lungs feeling like they are about to explode and key making so much light it was burning Nenas hand Nena grabbed the key with all her might. The key became bright blue and had a beautiful swirling pattern on top, rainbow sparks and butterflies danced around Nena hurdling Nena into a tight ball, and suddenly all the water vanished without leaving a single drop, and not just the water vanished, so did the key… and Nena.
TO BE CONTINUED…