The Birthday Storm Read online

  I back up, take a deep breath, and walk very slowly toward the security entrance. I can see my family on the other side. But when I walk through, it happens again.

  Bing! Bing! Bing!

  “What did I do?” I ask. I’m getting scared. Maybe everybody will go to Florida to see Grammy and I’ll have to sleep in the airport for a week all by myself.

  The man in the white shirt says to me, “Walk this way, miss. I’ll have to check you by hand. There is nothing to worry about.”

  But I’m worried anyway.

  Mom calls to me from the safe area. “It’s okay, Sassy. This will only take a minute.”

  Daddy gives me a thumbs-up sign.

  Sabin is cracking up, so Daddy bops him on the shoulder to tell him to stop.

  Sadora knows I’m scared. I can see it on her face. She waves and tries to make me smile. I can’t.

  The security man takes me to a little glassed-in area and says, “Please stand here.”

  I see two footprints on a plastic mat. I put one foot on each of the footprints, but my feet are little and the footprints are big enough for a giant.

  I don’t have my shoes on, so the mat feels squishy under my socks.

  “I’m going to use this wand to check you, okay?” he says gently. He sounds nice, but I’m still scared.

  I nod. The only wands I know about are in stories about magic princesses. They are pink and sparkly, and they turn frogs into handsome princes.

  The thing in his hand looks nothing like that. It’s black and wide and it makes a beeping noise like something from one of Sabin’s video games. Ding! Ping!

  The security man and his wand do not touch me, but he runs the wand over my head, down each arm, and behind my back and front.

  It beeps loudly when it gets close to my waist. Ding! Ping!

  “That’s a very pretty belt you’re wearing,” the man says. “Your silver buckle is the reason for the beep.”

  I do not say thank you. I’m too scared.

  The security man moves the wand over my head. Ding! Ping!

  “Is that a metal barrette in your hair?” he asks.

  “Yes, sir,” I reply. I can see my mother on the other side. I want to run to her. She blows me a kiss. I’m too nervous to pretend to catch it.

  “I think that’s what caused the machine to ding this time,” the security guard explains.

  “Should I take it off?” I ask him.

  “No, you’re fine. Have a nice trip.” He walks away.

  I remove the barrette anyway. I don’t think I’ll ever wear it again.

  I hurry to the area where my shoes are waiting for me. Mom gives me a hug.

  “That was horrible!” I tell her. “I felt like a criminal.”

  “You were very brave, sweetie,” she says. Her voice sounds soothing.

  I’m glad my family is close to me. Even Sabin’s Ocean Breeze cologne smells good now.

  “Let’s get to our gate,” Daddy says cheerfully then.

  “Amen!” I say.

  I put on my shoes, the purple ones with the purple sparkly laces, and I look for my Sassy Sack. It’s not there.

  “Where’s my sack?” I ask with alarm.

  Another security person comes up to me then, holding my sack like it was something ordinary. She is wearing blue plastic gloves. “Does this belong to you?” she asks me. Her voice sounds stern and not very friendly at all.

  “Yes!” I tell her. I reach for my bag, but she holds it up so I can’t get to it.

  “I’m going to have to look through it,” she says.

  “No!” I say. My purse is very special to me and nobody is allowed to look in it, not even my mom.

  The woman looks mean. She does not smile. “If you don’t let me examine the contents of the bag, you cannot take it on the plane,” she says in a harsh voice.

  I look to my mother for help. I feel like I’m going to cry.

  Mom walks over to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Sassy. This happens to me all the time when I travel. They won’t hurt your stuff.”

  “But it’s personal, Mom,” I try to explain. “What’s in there is nobody’s business but mine.”

  “I understand, Sassy,” Mom says. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. These people have probably seen a little of everything.”

  “No, you don’t understand!” I tell her desperately. “It’s not like I have anything bad or embarrassing — it’s just that the stuff in my bag belongs to me! It’s supposed to be private and special. Why does she have to go through my things?” I stomp my feet.

  “Just relax, sweetie,” Mom says in her soothing voice.

  But I don’t feel soothed at all. “No fair!” I tell her angrily.

  “Let’s just see what caused the machine to make them notice your Sassy Sack. You have so much stuff in there.”

  * * *

  The security woman takes her gloved hand and starts to dig around in my sack. I feel like she is digging into my body.

  She pulls out my six ink pens, all in different glow-in-the-dark colors. Pansy Pink. Gala Green. Cherry Red. Banana Yellow. Juicy Orange. And Passion Purple. She sets them in one of the little gray bins.

  Then she pulls out my markers, my notebooks, my whistle, my mirror, and my flashlight. I’m feeling like I want to throw up. This is my special stuff, and she’s touching it and looking at it.

  She takes out my bracelets, my earrings, and my special good-luck key ring that Grammy gave me on her last trip to my house. She removes my camera, my book, and even my pink swimsuit.

  “You’ve got quite a bit in here, young lady,” she says to me.

  I don’t answer her, and I don’t smile at her. I want her to stop.

  When the woman gets to little bottles of nail polish, lotion, and hand sanitizer, she sets them in a different bin. “You must place these items in a small plastic bag for them to go through security,” she tells me.

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the rule,” the woman replies.

  “What if I don’t have a plastic bag?”

  “Then these things will have to be thrown away,” the security woman explains.

  “So if I put my nail polish in a plastic bag, it’s safe to travel with, but if I just have it in my purse, it’s not allowed.”

  “Correct,” the woman says. She glares at me.

  “I don’t get it. That makes no sense to me at all.” I glare back at her.

  Mom reaches down into her purse and pulls out an empty plastic bag. “I’m sorry, Sassy. I should have known you’d need this. Here, let’s place these things in the bag.”

  “That’s better,” the security woman says when she sees I have the lotion, polish, and hand sanitizer safely in plastic.

  The security woman keeps digging in my sack. Finally, she finds a fat tube of coconut-scented hair gel. She says, “Here is your problem. You cannot take this on the plane. It contains more than three ounces of liquid.”

  “But how am I gonna fix my hair?” I ask. “This is the only stuff that makes my hair behave.”

  “You can go back out and check you hair gel as luggage,” the woman says. “But then you’ll have to go through the security line again.”

  “No way!” I tell her.

  “Just toss the hair gel,” Mom tells the woman. The lady throws my hair gel into a trash can. I notice the garbage is full of water bottles and cans of soda and hair spray and other items I guess people couldn’t take on the plane.

  “What a waste!” I whisper to Mom.

  The woman looks at me then and asks, “Would you like me to return your items to your purse or do you want to do it?”

  “I’ll do it!” I tell her loudly. Slowly and carefully, I put my stuff back into my sack. Mom seems to understand I’m upset, so she doesn’t rush me, but I can see she is checking her watch.

  “Sassy!” I hear Sadora say. “Come on!”

  “Hurry up, Little Sister!” Sabin calls.

  I know it
’s getting close to the time for our flight to leave, so I toss the rest of the things in my sack and throw the strap over my shoulder. It doesn’t even feel the same against my body. It’s lumpy where it wasn’t before and uneven in places where it had been smooth.

  I’m glad the flight takes two hours. It’s going to take me that long to make things right again.

  The plane is huge. As we walk down the narrow aisle to row twenty-one, I start to relax and feel excited once more. The seats are arranged with three on one side of the aisle and three on the other side.

  Sabin gets to our row first, so he rushes in and takes the window seat.

  “Sabin!” I cry out. “No fair! I never get to sit by the window!”

  He grins at me and says, “Maybe you’ll get lucky on the flight home!”

  I can tell he’s not going to move, so I slide in and take the middle seat, as usual. Sadora takes the seat on the aisle.

  Daddy is sitting in the aisle seat across from us. Mom has the middle seat, just like me. I wave to her as we get our seat belts on.

  We finally get settled and the safety video is shown. The plane backs up, then revs up, then takes off into the sky. I wish I could see more, but Sabin blocks most of the view as he gazes out the window.

  “Awesome!” he says. “Better than a video game!”

  He finally sits back, and when the flight attendant says it’s okay, Sabin puts his earbuds back in, cranks up his iPod, and closes his eyes.

  Sadora puts down her movie star magazine and says to me, “I know you feel bad about the security people going through your sack. I bet you felt like screaming!”

  I hug my bag close to me. “Yeah, I did. How can a little girl’s purse be dangerous?” I ask her.

  Sadora has no answer to that. “Did she put her hands on everything?” she asks me.

  “No, lots of things in the inside zipper pockets she didn’t even see.” I giggle. “What if that lady got my superglue all over her fingers?”

  We both laugh. “Your sack is pretty awesome, Sassy.”

  “I’m going to fix it and arrange it when we get to Grammy and Poppy’s house,” I tell Sadora. “Grammy will help me.”

  “Are you excited about Grammy’s birthday party on Thursday?” Sadora asks.

  “Oh, yeah! Grammy says she’s having hula dancers and a limbo contest!”

  “And Poppy told me he hired a live band that plays beach music,” Sadora reminds me. “We’ll dance on the beach!”

  “And the food,” Sabin adds. “Lots and lots of food.”

  “I didn’t know you were listening,” I tell him.

  “I always pay attention when it comes to eating,” Sabin says with a grin. He takes the earbud from his left ear. “Poppy says he’s grilling hot dogs and hamburgers.”

  “And barbecue,” Sadora adds.

  “And Grammy’s potato salad and baked beans and roasted corn on the cob,” Sabin says.

  “Don’t forget the cake!” I remind them. “Grammy says it’s huge!”

  “I bet it has a million candles on it,” Sabin says with a laugh.

  “Don’t let Grammy hear you say that,” Sadora warns him. “I sure hope it doesn’t rain,” she says with a sigh.

  “Or anything worse — like a hurricane,” Sabin adds.

  “Why do you think they give hurricanes names?” I ask them.

  Sadora tells me, “Hurricanes used to be named after girls, but now they are given names of both girls and boys.”

  “I looked up the names on the Internet before we left,” Sabin says. “They start with the letter A and end with the letter W.”

  “What’s wrong with X, Y, and Z?” I ask.

  “Q, U, X, Y, and Z are never used,” he replies. “I guess there aren’t enough names with those letters.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll never have a Hurricane Zippy,” Sadora says with a laugh.

  “Maybe if we don’t talk about it or think about it, nothing will happen,” I tell her.

  “I hope you’re right, Little Sister,” Sadora tells me as the flight attendant gives us little plastic glasses of Coke.

  I’m still thirsty when I finish my teeny little soda, but I’m afraid to ask for more. Instead, I get a peppermint stick out of my sack. But it just makes me thirstier.

  When a flight attendant rushes past our row, I raise my hand, but since I’m little, and I’m sitting in the middle, she never notices me. She walks past our row six more times. Each time I raise my hand, and each time she doesn’t see me.

  “Did you want something?” Sadora asks.

  “I’m really thirsty,” I admit.

  Sadora gives me the rest of her Coke. That’s pretty cool of her. I drink it all and suck on the ice until it’s gone.

  “You know, Grammy always gives us the perfect gift for our birthdays,” I say to my sister and brother. “Do we have enough special stuff to give to her?”

  “I bought her two new CDs,” Sabin says. “She likes music.”

  “I bought her something really cool,” Sadora says. “It’s an electronic picture frame. It displays lots of pictures of us on a screen. She plugs it in and she can see us even when we are back at home in Ohio.”

  I am starting to feel bad. I didn’t buy Grammy anything. But I did bring her a present. I hope it’s good enough.

  “What did you buy for Grammy, Little Sister?” Sabin asks.

  “It’s a surprise,” I say. “Just wait and see.” I get my book out of my sack and read until it’s time to land.

  When the plane finally touches down with a bump and a thud, I’m excited. We grab our stuff, I make sure I have my Sassy Sack, and we head out of the plane and into the new airport.

  It blows me away that just a little while ago we were in another airport in another state, and now we are here in Florida. The people look different here. They look happy and relaxed.

  I whisper to Sabin, “Everybody here seems to be wearing flowered shirts like Daddy!”

  “He’ll fit right in,” he tells me with a chuckle.

  My grandmother waits for us at the bottom of the escalator near the baggage claim. She is wearing a long, flowing white sundress and white sandals. Her arms are stretched out in welcome.

  “She looks like a grandmother angel,” I tell Sadora as the moving stairs take us to Grammy.

  “Grammy!” we all cry out as we get to her. She swallows us in her hugs.

  “Where’s Poppy?” Sabin asks.

  “He’s teaching a summer class at the university,” Grammy tells Sabin. “But he’s like you, Sabin. Poppy pops up when it’s dinnertime!”

  Sabin nods with understanding.

  “Happy almost birthday, Mother,” my mom says.

  “We have three days before the big day,” Grammy says as she hugs my mom and dad. “I’m SO glad all of you made it safely. How was your flight?”

  “Great!” Sadora tells her.

  “Long!” I reply.

  “I’m hungry!” Sabin says.

  Everybody laughs.

  “Let’s go get our luggage,” Daddy says. “I think we can all use a little unwinding on the beach this afternoon.”

  We head to the huge carousel that goes around and around with dozens of suitcases. Blue and black and red and spotted. All the passengers claim their bags. Amazingly, all of our bags show up.

  Daddy and Sabin pull them off one at a time. My bag is the very last one to come around the circle. And one wheel is missing.

  “What happened to my suitcase?” I shriek.

  “It happens sometimes,” Mom says in her soothing voice.

  “Look at it this way,” Sadora tells me. “You get to go shopping to buy a new one!”

  “But I can’t pull it,” I complain. The bag drags on one side as I try to move it across the carpet.

  “I’ll just pick it up and carry it for you,” Sabin offers.

  “Hmm . . . Wait a minute,” I tell him. I dig down into my Sassy Sack until my fingers reach what I’m looking for. I pull out
a small toy truck that Jasmine’s little brother had tossed in there a couple of weeks ago, and a roll of bandage tape.

  “What are you gonna do with that?” Sadora asks. “We’re in a hurry, Sassy.”

  But I sit on the floor, tape the little truck to the broken place where the wheel used to be, and in a moment my suitcase is wobbly but rolls. “Now we can go!” I announce with pride. “And I still get to buy a new one before we go back to Ohio.”

  Sadora just shakes her head. Grammy smiles at me with pride, however. That makes me feel good.

  Grammy is a professional storyteller and she travels all over the world. I guess she must know a zillion people. Lots of folks in the airport seem to know her. They wave and call out her name.

  “Good to see you, Miss Sahara!” says a luggage handler.

  “It’s Sahara Senegal, Mommy! She came to my school!” a little girl calls out with excitement.

  Grammy nods and waves and greets everyone with a smile.

  Daddy says, “We’re ready to roll, family.” We pull our luggage, including my patched-up bag, toward the door. A couple of people stop and point, but I don’t care.

  “I’m so excited I think I might pop,” I tell Sadora.

  We leave the airport and the hot air hits me in the face like a slap. “Wow!” I say. “This feels like an oven. I can’t wait to get in the water!”

  “How’s the weather, Sahara?” my dad asks Grammy.

  Grammy tells him, “It’s been very hot lately. But the weather people are a little worried about that storm system that seems to be circling out in the ocean.”

  We are almost to Grammy’s car. I’m already sweating. “Is it getting worse?” I ask with concern.

  “A very large tropical storm might be heading this way,” Grammy says. Her voice is very serious.

  “What kind of tropical storm?” I ask.

  “A hurricane,” Grammy replies.

  “There’s really going to be a hurricane?” I say with dread.

  Grammy doesn’t seem real worried. “Well, these summer storms are unpredictable. Sometimes they veer to the west. Sometimes they decide to go east. And sometimes they just fizzle out and all we get is rain.”

  Daddy loads our stuff into the back of Grammy’s SUV and we climb in. Grammy cranks up the air-conditioning and I feel like I can breathe again.