I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906

The alley is now barricaded in by a wall of fire; Morris and Fletch are trapped. Leo tries to see a way out, but Wilkie tells him there’s no use. Leo scrambles to remember the story of his Grandpop and the wildfire, a story that scared him so much when he was young that he only heard it a few times.

The wildfire happened when Grandpop finally got to California. The land was dry with “hardly a speck of green anywhere” (61). He was out trapping rabbits when he heard thunder crack above him, with the promise of much needed rain. Instead, a large bolt of lightning struck a dead tree that then collapsed, setting off multiple fires that soon surrounded Grandpop at all sides.

Grandpop got down on the ground and began to crawl, doing his best to keep his face low and away from the ash and smoke. He eventually landed in a mostly dried up stream, with just a few inches of water. It was enough water, however, to soak his clothes. Grandpop put water all over himself, then soaked his kerchief. He put the wet kerchief over his head, took a deep breath, and made a dash through the flames. When he came out, he fell to the ground and rolled to put out the fires on his pants and coat. After that, “he ran for his life” (63) away from the fires.

When he got out, he was unrecognizable with his blistered fingers and red face, and his body covered in ash. However, he was alive, thanks to his quick thinking. Now, to save Morris, Leo needs some quick thinking of his own. He looks around for any water he can find, and his eyes land on a horse’s trough. There is also a horse blanket near the trough, and Leo begins to run toward it.

He climbs in the trough and soaks all of his clothes and body in the dirty water, then does the same with the horse blanket. When Wilkie asks him what he’s doing, he explains that this will protect him when he runs through the fire to get into the alley. When they get back to the alley, Wilkie places a hand on Leo’s shoulder; he’s going in with him. Leo shares the blanket with Wilkie and on the count of three, the two boys run into the fire.

While the jump through the fire doesn’t last long, Leo knows that he’ll “never forget the feeling of that scorching heat. The fire seem[s] to pull at the blanket like a beast hungry for Leo’s flesh” (67). Wilkie’s leg is on fire, and Leo pats it out. The boys look at each other in disbelief: They made it into the alley. The smoke and ash clogs the air, making it difficult to breathe. Leo, remembering Grandpop again, tells Wilkie to get low to the ground. The boys stumble through, knowing that the time they have to find Morris and Fletch is very short.

Amidst the roar of the fire and the shouts of people in the street, Leo can barely make out a weak voice calling out his name. It’s Morris, and he’s stuck in a hole in the ground with only his head and his hand visible from the street. Leo and Wilkie rush to his side and pull him out, slowly but steadily, until he’s free from the pile of debris that fell on him.

The boys look around for a way out, and Wilkie spots a heap of garbage they can climb to get into an open window. He tells them that’s how Fletch escaped when Wilkie was trapped under the chimney. The boys all go to the garbage heap and begin to climb, eventually finding themselves in someone’s bedroom. Above them there is a “giant hole in the ceiling. Luckily it seem[s] that the person who lived here had escaped” (72). The heat is growing rapidly, and Leo prays that the three of them will escape before the entire building erupts in flames.

They find the stairs and start to walk down, careful not to move too quickly or heavily in case the stairs cave in from under them. They are almost to safety when Leo sees a body on the ground. It calls out Wilkie’s name and Leo realizes who it is: Fletch.

Fletch smiles up at Wilkie, relieved to see his former partner in crime standing above him. He tells him that he was going to come back for Wilkie once he got the flour sack of money. Wilkie just stares angrily down at the boy who was supposed to be his friend, and who left him for dead in the rubble. Wilkie snatches the flour sack from Fletch and gives it to Leo, telling him to pull out his gold nugget. Leo finds it, safe and sound, and returns it to his pocket.

Wilkie turns back to Fletch and confronts him about abandoning him. Leo watches as rage spreads all over Wilkie’s face, “as though the heat and fury of the fire [has] taken control of him” (76). Without another word, he grabs a piece of wood and raises it above his head, ready to bring it down and strike Fletch. Morris stands between them, stopping him. He tells Wilkie they don’t have time, and almost as quickly as the rage took over Wilkie, it leaves him. Wilkie yanks Fletch to his feet (which is no small task given Fletch’s horribly injured leg) and drags him into the street. Wilkie leaves Fletch outside near several police officers, and walks away with Leo and Morris.

All around them, the damage is unimaginable. They pass a woman crying in the street with her children; her husband and home were both taken in the fire. Wilkie takes the flour sack and hands it to her, walking away calmly. The woman opens the sack and is overwhelmed with gratitude.

The boys keep walking through neighborhood after neighborhood, each of them destroyed by the earthquake and fires. They walk past “all the streets south of Market, Rincon Hill, downtown, Chinatown. City Hall [is] gone. So [is] the library, with its one million books” (79). The only thing that keeps Leo from feeling completely lost is that he isn’t alone in this. No matter what, he has his friends by his side.

Three days later, Leo, Morris, and Wilkie find themselves on the train platform in Sacramento, surrounded by other San Francisco refugees. It is a mix of people who made it out alive: “fancy ladies and street kids, Chinese families and scruffy gamblers, businessmen and very old people” (83). Despite their differences, the one thing in common is their grief over the destruction of their cities and the thousands of lives that were lost.

The boys had spent three days in Golden Gate Park before boarding a train to Sacramento, where they had been given free tickets to get out of the city. The park is now a tent city, where soldiers try their best to distribute food and water, but there simply isn’t enough to go around. The fires didn’t dissipate until the fourth morning after the earthquake, and the air was still filled with smoke. However, even amidst the collapsed San Francisco, some are already discussing rebuilding their beloved city. Leo is reminded of Grandpop, who “had helped build the city the first time, when it had been turned from a bunch of shacks in the woods into one of the most beautiful cities in the world” (84). Leo had no doubt the spirit of San Francisco would live on, and rebuild. He, however, needed a new start.

Originally, the three boys planned to share a room in Sacramento together. They could sell papers and save enough money to survive. However, Leo decides to make a sacrifice so that Wilkie can have an even better life. He sells his gold nugget so that he can afford a train ticket to Seattle for Wilkie, so he can go play football at the fancy school. Wilkie offers for Leo and Morris to join him, but they have plans of their own. They are headed for New York City, to be with Morris’s cousins.

As Wilkie’s train leaves from the station, Morris asks Leo if he misses his gold. Leo pats his pocket and replies that he doesn’t, because selling it means he and Morris get to start a new and exciting adventure. He may not have the gold nugget anymore, but he has something even more valuable, something that could never be sold. He has the stories of his Grandpop and his Papa’s words: a promise that Leo will have a remarkable life.