Night of the Twisters

The remaining few who didn’t get on the bus are driven in patrol cars. Arthur, Stacey, and Dan pile into the back of one car. The officer driving introduces himself as Kelly. Dan is anxious for more information about his father and tries to listen to the messages coming in on the police radio. He realizes “with a shudder” (103) that he’s hearing “sounds of panic—the sounds of disaster” (103). Information is being passed about potential gas leaks and trapped occupants. Dan turns his thoughts to being reunited with his mom and Ryan. He thinks his mom will be able to get information about what’s happening in Phillips. But then he starts panicking that there will be so many people he won’t be able to find her. The police officer tells them they may not even be able to get through because all the businesses on the town’s main strip—South Locust—were levelled. Kmart is the only one to have survived.

Just then, a message comes through the police radio about people trapped at Meves Bowl. Dan realizes that’s where Aunt Goldie was headed when they last saw her. Suddenly, the police car does a U-turn. Dan thinks they are headed to Meves Bowl but officer Kelly yells at them to get down. They hide under the seat as the car starts bouncing up and down and the windshield shatters. Kelly presses the accelerator, but the car is unable to move. He gets the car moving and they realize they’ve barely escaped another tornado. Kelly tells everyone they’re going right to headquarters instead of Kmart. However, his glasses are broken, and he’s taken some glass to his face. He tells Dan he’s losing his vision and asks him to come up to the front to drive. Dan doesn’t know the way to headquarters, but Arthur and Stacey do. Dan is shaking but he drives the car steadily and Kelly instructs him to go slowly. Dan wishes his dad could see him driving because they were both “born on wheels” (111), as his dad once told him.

Kelly steers Dan and Arthur by the shoulders into the police station. In the light, Dan can see Kelly’s face is covered in cuts. Several cops come rushing over to help Kelly, and take him into a back room. Dan observes that the place was a “zoo” (113). There are people everywhere, phones ringing, and radio messages coming through. A woman who initially greeted them at the front desk asks them if they need shelter and if they’re separated from their parents, to which they nod yes. She calls on the intercom for someone to help and a “heavyset man” (114) comes to take them upstairs. Dan tries to get an answer from the woman about Phillips, but she says she doesn’t know anything and that there have been tornadoes everywhere.

The man leads Dan, Arthur, and Stacey upstairs to a common room with couches that has bedrooms connected to it. He explains that there are currently no female prisoners, so they can stay in one of the open units. Two of the other bedrooms are occupied. They sit down on a couch and survey some of the other survivors seated around them. They include some children and their mother and father, who are both explaining to Mrs. Minetti, the matron in charge, that their trailer flipped over, and they immediately smelled gas. Another woman comes out of a bedroom with her baby and explains that the gas got to them as well. Dan also learns they lost their house and their dog.

Eventually Mrs. Minetti shows Dan, Arthur, and Stacey to their room, which has two cots. Arthur goes to the bathroom and Stacey asks Dan if he’s okay. He tells her he’s upset that they’re at the police station because they won’t know what’s happening. She asks him if he’d rather be on the cold dark floor of the Kmart, to which he replies yes. When Arthur comes back, Stacey goes to the bathroom and the two boys jump around on the cots, calling each other “jailbird” and “juvenile offender” (119), which lightens the mood. The siren goes again and both Dan and Arthur are getting “edgy” (120). Arthur complains that it’s too hot and tries to jump up and open the window. When Stacey returns, she tells them to stop complaining because they’re all lucky to be alive. Just then, Arthur admits that he’s scared for their family of nine and how they will survive, but Stacey corrects him and tells him there’s going to be 10 of them. Arthur becomes excited at the news that his mom is pregnant, hoping it will be a boy since he has only sisters.

They push cots together and Mrs. Minetti brings them some graham crackers and soda, which is all she can find. She announces that she’s turning the lights off and they should all try to get some sleep. As they’re finishing their snack, Arthur wonders to Dan why the tornado happened and whether his bull-roarer might have caused it. He tells Dan the Hopi tribe doesn’t allow their children to play with them indoors because they’re believed to cause “death and destruction” (123). He says he played with it despite knowing that. Dan reassures him that it didn’t cause the tornado. Meanwhile Dan thinks in similar terms—that his attitude towards his little brother may have been a factor. He feels like he is “being punished with a tornado” (124) for resenting his brother. But he tells Arthur that no one is to blame, and Arthur agrees.

Dan and Arthur pick their spots on the beds and Arthur immediately falls asleep, so Dan watches what’s going on in the main room. The men are smoking and talking through the propped door and one of the mothers is washing her baby with a cloth. Stacey is playing with the other baby. Dan closes his eyes and thinks about his mom and Ryan and what they’re doing at the Kmart. He decides it might be fun if they live at the Kmart for the summer. Since he can’t sleep, he gets up to go to the bathroom and discovers the water is no longer running. He tells Stacey and the two moms, then heads to back to bed. Stacey joins him. As they lie in the dark, Stacey tells Dan not to worry and they recite Scripture, with Stacey holding Dan’s hand. In the middle of their prayer, the lights in the building go out. Stacey tells Dan she’s scared. He lies and tells her he’s not. He drifts off to sleep and is suddenly awakened by the roar of helicopters.

The helicopters hold the National Guard, surveying the city for the first time. The mayor, police chief, city engineer and two civil defense chiefs are on board, and they are “stunned to silence” (131) by the scene below them. Dan, Arthur, and Stacey get out of bed and go downstairs. Mrs. Minetti gives them money to call their parents and offers to drive them. When they get outside the weather is gray and oppressively humid. Dan finds it hard to breathe.

They get to the armory and Dan, Arthur, and Stacey reunite with Mr. Darlington, who works there. He gives them enormous hugs and kisses his children. He asks where they were, and Mrs. Minetti helps them explain. He also tells Dan he hasn’t seen Dan’s father or Aunt Goldie, which upsets Dan. Dan says goodbye to Arthur and goes back to the car with Mrs. Minetti to head to Kmart. As they get close, the National Guard almost doesn’t let them go through, but Mrs. Minetti shows her I.D. and they let her pass. Once they get to South Locust, they see that the street is packed with bulldozers, ambulances, and National Guardsmen. They try to approach from a few different directions, but there are downed wires and water everywhere. Mrs. Minetti finally pulls over and tells Dan he must come home with her or go back to the armory. Dan asks if he can just walk to the Kmart and before she can stop him, he gets out of the car.

Dan runs to the Kmart, crying the whole way. When he gets there, he sees a scene like the one on South Locust, with the addition of TV news cameras, a Salvation Army van, medics, and portable toilets. There are people everywhere and sounds coming through radios and walkie-talkies. As Dan tries to enter the building, a man stops him and tells him its now a Command Post. All the civilians have been moved due to water damage in the building. He says they’ve scattered everyone to various places.

Dan sits down in frustration but decides he needs to pull himself together. He looks up and sees that everyone is busy doing jobs like loading ambulances and trying to gain a sense of order over the situation. He decides he can get to his house, even though there’s no real home to go back to. He smells some coffee wafting in the air, and it reminds him of mornings at home. He gains a sense of hope that “things would be normal again” (139). As he’s running towards his house, he hears a truck behind him. By the sound of the engine behind him, he knows it’s his dad’s pickup. When it reaches him, he discovers his dad is driving and his mom and Ryan are with him. Everyone gets out and hugs Dan, with his dad lifting him off his feet.

They all get back in the truck and head to their house. Dan’s dad tells him that the tornado missed his grandparent’s farm, but flooding is going to be an issue. He explains to Dan that after he’d gotten back to their house in the early hours of the morning and no one was there, he’d gone in search of everyone. He went to several locations and finally found Dan’s mom at a church with Ryan and Belle Smiley. Belle Smiley had tried to reassure him that Dan and the other kids were okay. When they pull up to the house, Dan can’t bring himself to look at first. His dad proclaims that they’ll all have to live on the farm for a while.