Warning: Language
Haynes, Beltzer, Rabbit, and everyone else pulls out boxes of sensors, now with the fans attached. Box, after box, they dump them back into Dorothy 3 and Dorothy 4. I watched as they did this. After that, I climbed into the truck, for the last time, maybe.
"Half a mile more?" Mom asks Dad as we drive along the road. It was the 2nd day Dad has been back with us. But, I really didn't expect him to stay.
"That's sounds right. I figure we'll put it right in the middle of the road." He tells her.
"Unless you think somebody will hit it." Mom said, not thinking. Who'd be on a road with an F5 tornado? Oh right, us!
"Nobody will be there." I told her. She nods understanding.
The F5 tornado approaches the road that we are on. We're in Dad's truck, Dad is driving. The roar of the tornado is deafening. Dad stops the car, and Mom and Dad get out. I stay in the car, because Dad made me promise to stay in here since my head isn't fully healed. The tornado is on the road, directly in front of them. He goes around and he and Mom take Dorothy # 3 out of the back of the truck.
"Hurry! Let's go, common'!!!" I heard Dad shout. They both get back in the car and drive a distance away. While Dad is doing that, Mom talks into the radio. "Dusty, you in position?"
"Yeah, we're prime, ready for contact!" Dusty screamed.
"This is it. Bill: It's gonna work." Mom said. Then I realized DOROTHOY was too light. She only tip over and make a mess.
"It's too light-" Dad said but Mom interrupted him.
"NO IT'S NOT!!"
"We're losing it!" I shouted.
"No we're not! She can still fly!!!!" Mom said not believing that DOROTHOY was too light. Just like me and Dad told him.
Suddenly an uprooted tree tips Dorothy over, and the tornado decides to change direction...... towards us.
"Let's go!!!" Mom yelled.
"My God!" came Dad's response.
We try to drive away, but the car gets stuck on the uprooted tree in the middle of the road.
"Oh my God...."
"Common'!" Dad grunted trying to get back the tree,
"Get us off this thing!"
"Comon'!"
"Bill, kick it!"
"DAD!! Let's go! Right now! Hurry!!!!"
"What is that?!!" Mom yelled. We both see something metallic flying around in the tornado. It is a tank truck!
"Bill, hurry! HURRY! HURRY!!!!!!" Dad floors it again, no success.
"HURRY!!!"
He throws his whole body weight onto the gas pedal. "Hold On!!!!!" Suddenly the car snaps forward as it's nudged by the tank truck coming right at us.
"LET'S GO!!" Mom shouts. Suddenly the tank truck falls to the ground right in front of us, exploding. We drive right through it.
"Son of a bitch!" Dad yelled.
"Natalie, Jo, Bill, You all right?!! Fact, can you guys hear me? You okay?" Dusty shouted into the radio.
"We're okay." Mom said.
"Did you see that explosion?" He asked excitedly.
"We saw it." She said humorlessly.
"This one, she's still moving northeast on 80, you copy?" Rabbit said.
"This is it." Dad said
"Last one." Mom smiled a little but I could tell she was sad.
"Last Time." I finished.
"They have to be there somewhere." Dad said talking about Jonas' crew. "They have position. They could make it."
"Not unless they anchored the pack." I said.
Mom said into the radio, getting on the same frequency as Jonas. "Jonas? This is Jo. Can you hear me?"
"Not now, Harding." Mom smiled a bit about having the same last time as Dad before the divorce.
"Jonas, listen to me. The pack is too light, the twister will toss it before it reaches the core, you'll have to anchor it."
"Oh, sharing valuable information, Jo? I'll consider that, thank you." I rolled my eyes.
"Jonas, what's your position?" Dad said into the radio to Jonas.
"Oh, howdy, Bill. We are heading northeast running parallel and about to pull ahead of it on the left, why?"
"Hang back a minute; we've got a pretty good view from back here. She could shift her track, and if she does, she's gonna come right at you! D'you copy?" Dad was being nice. He never wanted anyone to die, no matter if he hated them or not. He was right though. If it did shift, Jonas' team would die or be severely injured.
"Jonas, listen to me. This is not-"
"Get off this frequency, Bill!!" Then, Jonas switched off his radio.
"She's shifting." I said slowly. It was heading right toward Jonas' team.
"Oh my God. Jonas, I'm telling you…. Eddie, I know you can hear me! Turn around now!! Get out of there!!!" Bill yelled into the radio.
The tornado shifts direction and spins over Jonas' crew. We watch as the black Windstars fly through the air. Suddenly a radio tower slams through the windshield, killing Eddie and Jonas. We watches Jonas' car crash and explode. Mom flinches at this. In a fit of rage, Dad throws down the radio mic.
"Damn it!! Stupid."
"We tried. There's nothing we could do." Mom told him. And she was right. Jonas got him and his own team killed.
"Bill, Jo, ground speed is increasing. Get ahead of it as fast as you can or she's gonna bury ya!" Beltzer screams into the radio.
"Debris!!! DUSTY, WE HAVE DEBRIS!!!" Mom shouts as debris flies past the truck. The debris consists of cars, tractors, road signs. It's falling everywhere. Mom directs Dad as it all falls around them.
"RIGHT!!!!!!"
"LEFT!!!!!!"
"RIGHT!!!!!!"
"LEFT!!!!!!"
Suddenly a house comes rolling along and stops on the road.
"Oh my God." I said without thinking.
"I think we're goin' in!!" Dad states.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Mom screamed.
"Maybe we should get off of this road." He says after we went through the house.
"I think you may be right." She said breathless.
"We're goin' in." Dad states. "You ready?" He says to me. I nod. Carefully, I open the back window of the truck and crawls through. DOROTHY # 4 is loaded up in the back; quickly I switch it on and crawl back inside.
"She's up." I told them. Mom looked out her window and I climbed over the seat to sit in the middle of them.
"You ready?" Mom asks Dad.
"Yeah. Let me just set the cruise control. Okay we're good."
"On three?" Mom asks.
"On three. Go." They open the doors and stand, the truck is still going 50.
"One." Dad says.
"Two." Mom says after him.
Then, I shout, "Three!" Once they jumped out, I jumped out the passenger seat and landed beside mom. We stand up and watch the truck continue into the twister. As the truck and Dorothy are lifted up into the twister, and the sensors fly up into the air, we hear the haunting sound of the wind chimes. We all get in a group hug.
"Oh no! RUN!!!!!!!!" Dad shouts. The tornado shifts and starts coming toward us. We ran as fast as possible which meant: Me in front, Dad behind me, running while holding Mom's hand. "The barn, common'!! Look out!!!"
We run to the barn. Fence boards slam and stick in the barn walls. They get inside. Sickles, knives, and saws hang from the ceiling.
"Stay down!!" Dad warned us.
"Who are these people?!" I asked.
"I don't think so!! Common'! Let's get out quick!!" We run out of the barn, and then duck as the roof of the barn flies over their heads. "Oh my God! Common''! Run for it!!" Dad shouted. If everyone keeps shouting, my ears are going to start bleeding.
We continue to run until they get to pump house. The door to the pump house won't open. "COME ON!!!!" He finally opens it.
As we got inside, a piece of a roof flies past her. She screams. They go inside. The well is a "U" shaped pipe coming up out of the ground.
"Here! These pipes go down at least 30 feet. We anchor to 'em, we might have a chance!"
"Bill!" Mom said.
He Grabs a rawhide strap, ties it first around them, then loops it on to the pipes. "Hold on!!!"
The tornado looms overhead; we were lifted up in the air, however still attached to the pipes. Then, I get a major flashback.
I ran through the hallways of Nana's house. Bobby had just told me that daddy left because of me. Tears ran down my face. He was my older brother. He was supposed to be nice and caring but no! He had to blame me!
'The reason that daddy left was because you were born! I remembered him yelling at me. Nana found me and was scared.
"Get Bobby. Hurry!" She pushed me toward the room he was staying in. Mommy sent us to her Mommy for the summer. Auntie Meg was sick so she couldn't watch us.
I almost decided to get Bobby from his room but then I remembered what he said to me. So, I ran downstairs away from him and towards Nana.
"Where's Bobby?" She asked me once I got down there.
"He decided not to come." I lied to her. She took my hand and ran into the basement.
"Stay here. I'll be right back." But she never came back. Neither did Bobby. I went upstairs and saw something dark and moving. It was really big and was heading toward me.
Before I could move, I was in the air. Something kept slamming into me. I couldn't breathe. Finally, I was let down. My whole body was hurting. Strange people came up to me and questioned me.
I saw two bodies being moved out of the house. Nana and Bobby.
We were looking at the inside of the tornado. It looked amazing! Lightning circles around the light, which was at the top of the twister. It suddenly goes away and we are now under the pipes. Everything was silent for a while.
"That was fun. Let's do it again." I said, jokingly. Mom cracked a smile and Dad chuckled.
"You all right?" Mom asked Dad, already forgetting me. When the team comes up I walked over to them, as we watched my parents talk. Not argue, but talk.
He nods. "Wow, look at that. It didn't take the house."
"We did it." She said amazed.
"Yeah, we did. Dorothy really flew."
"It was a good idea."
"Yeah, well I...."
"We've got so much to do." Mom said.
"Yeah."
"I've got to get grant approvals for a new warning system, we need a bigger lab, you've got to do an analysis of all that data...."
"I do?" Dad asked.
"Yeah, we've got to generate models out of all this data; and I need to run the lab-"
"Oh, no, no, no. You're doing the analysis, I'm running the lab." It amazed me that they didn't realize we were watching and listening to their talk/
"You're running the lab? I don't think so!" Mom said like he was insane.
"I'm running the lab! G- Do you always have to do things the hard way?" When Dad said this, we walked over to them.
"You got it guys, the sensors worked! The computers went crazy; we've got data coming out of our ears!" Haynes stated, smiling. Beltzer had his arm around her.
"Biggest twister ever recorded!!" He said.
"Awesome, man!" Dusty said. Laurence laughed at him and hugged me from behind.
"Hey, Jo, Bill, check out that sky!" Sanders yelled. I felt Laurence rest his head on my shoulder. The sky is clear.
"You know what; I think we've seen enough!" Mom says. Dad smiles at her and leans and kisses her. I feel Laurence kiss my neck. Everything's good.
Thank for LTML and JenD10 for your reviews! You reviewed on every chapter and I wanna thank you! This is the last chapter of the story. I wish I could have gone on, but I decided that I would wait a day or two and let you vote on whether or not I should write a sequel.
The poll is on my page so please vote. I wrote most of them from the twister script. I do NOT own Twister.
This is the website:
You found out about Bobby and how Jo's mom died. Yes, they probably would still be alive if Bill didn't leave and Natalie wasn't so mad at Bobby but things happen. Please read my other story, One Thousand Miles Closer To You. It's a Chronicles of Narnia story. About a girl named Savannah. You don't have to read it though.
Hope to be able to write the sequel to Learning To Fall. And Warning: I know what's happening between Laurence and Natalie and if you care to guess, go ahead, but I ain't telling.
CHENNAI