“You were inside the house—you were in there when…” My voice trembles. They crawled out of that mess. Mom and Dad and Cammie, they were trapped under all of that. When Mom was calling me, again and again, were they under there?

Dad rests his hand on my shoulder. “We’re all safe, Maddie. That’s the only thing that matters.”

I hear a dog barking from up the street. “Is Hank at the Manoukians’, too?”

“Maddie.” Now it’s Dad’s voice that does the breaking.

I clench my hand into a fist. “Where’s Hank?”

“He never came when we called him for supper, honey.”

I start toward the debris. “We need to look for him.” I turn on my phone’s flashlight, but it’s not enough. “Dad, do you have a flashlight?”

I grab at pieces of wood with my bare hands, pushing some aside. I can barely see what’s in front of me, never mind what’s under all the rubble. “Hank?”

Dad pulls me back. “He wasn’t in the house during the storm. He’s not in here, Mads. We already did a sweep when it was still light out.”

“Hank!” I yell. He can hear me, right? He always comes when I call. Almost always. “Hank!” I try my best to whistle, but chain saws are still buzzing down the hill and there’s no way he can hear me unless he’s close by. “Hank!” I shout even louder. “Hank, I’m here! Hank, come on. Hank!”

“We need to get inside,” Dad says, “or somebody’s going to get hurt out here.”

“But Hank could be hurt. He’s all alone.” In my head, I picture Hank’s tail sticking out from under a fallen tree. “What if he’s trapped?”

Dad rubs my back. “It’s not going to help to get hysterical about it. For all we know, Hank is in a neighbor’s house up the street. There’s broken glass and power lines down everywhere, hon. It’s not safe to be out here. We can look more in the morning.”

I suck in a deep breath, remembering what Avery said in the car.

“Maddie!”

This time it’s Mom calling out my name. She’s at the edge of the Manoukians’ yard. I run as fast as my fancy shoes will let me until she’s wrapping her arms around me, lifting me onto my tippy-toes, hugging me close to her chest.

“Oh, Maddie.” She doesn’t try to be careful with my hair. It’s all smooshed and messed up now. “We tried calling and calling you.”

“Me too. It kept going to voice mail.”

“We found each other and we’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

“But Hank,” I say.

Mom squeezes my shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll find him in the morning.”

Together with Dad, we walk back toward the Manoukians’ house. Inside, their mantel is lit up with candles. Every flashlight and camping lantern in the house has been put to use, scattered around the floor or in somebody’s hand, lighting the room.

“That’s only three,” Cammie says. He’s playing Connect Four with Greta and the Germ on the living room floor.

He leaps up when he sees me. “Maddie!” He hugs my legs extra tight. “You missed it, you missed the tornado. It was so scary, Mads. Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t let me go upstairs to go to the bathroom and I had to pee in a bucket. We hid in the basement. And the tornado”—he rolls his hands one over the other—“went right over our house. It was so scary.”

“It sounds scary.”

“So scary,” he says again. And this time I see it in his fingers, the way he taps and taps them against his legs. I want to grab his hand, tell him to stop tapping, but I stop myself.

Maybe I’d be tapping, too, if I’d been here when it happened.

I sit down on the floor with him and the other kids.

“We hid in our basement, too.” Greta twists a strand of hair between her fingers, her eyes still extra wide, like the shock of everything that happened hasn’t worn off for her either.

In the kitchen, Mom and Dad are both talking on their cell phones. I wonder where we’re going to sleep tonight.

Mrs. Manoukian comes into the living room. “Do you want something to eat, Maddie? I’ve got a whole fridge and freezer’s worth of food that’s about to spoil if we don’t get the power back tonight. Ice cream? Glass of milk? Yogurt? You’re not lactose intolerant, right?”

Cammie’s head pops up. “Ice cream?”

“I think you’ve already had enough for tonight, kiddo.”

“Maybe just a glass of milk.” I follow Mrs. Manoukian into the kitchen.

“On hold again? I’ve been on hold for over an hour!” Mom sighs as she puts her phone on speaker, allowing staticky elevator music to fill the quiet. “Unbelievable.” She runs her fingers through her hair.

“Who are you calling?” I ask.

“Just the—”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Dad mouths something to Mom.

Mrs. Manoukian hands me a glass of milk. “Sure you don’t want anything else? I’ve got some leftover tuna salad.”

I take a sip from the glass. “I’m fine.”

Back in the living room, Greta, the Germ, and Cammie keep playing Connect Four like nothing even happened. Like we lost power because of a snowstorm and all we have to do is wait patiently for the electric company to get it back on. Like the snow will melt and everything will return to normal. It’s so dark outside you can’t see anything, but I can’t pretend it’ll look better in the morning.

Greta leans against the side of the couch with her eyes closed and her mouth hanging wide open. She’s probably exhausted from all the excitement.

Cammie sticks another black piece through the slot. It clinks when it hits the bottom. “One, two, three, four. I win!” He looks up at me. “Maddie, I won!”

“You did,” I say. “Good job.”

He’s smiling so wide. He can’t tell that Jeremy let him win, scattering reds all over the board on purpose. Cammie’s only six, and when you’re six, winning is everything.

“You want to play, Maddie?”

“Sure.” I stretch my legs out on the floor, since that’s the only way to sit in a dress this short.

“Black or red?”

“I don’t care. Whichever color you don’t want.”

The music coming from Mom’s cell phone stops playing in the other room. I try to listen to what she’s saying.

“Maddie, it’s your turn!”

I plink a black piece through the slot.

“I wanted to put mine there,” Cammie says.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes.”

He thinks extra hard about where to put his red piece and chews on his bottom lip. This one time, Dad and I were playing Connect Four when Hank was still a puppy. It was my job to pick up all the pieces and put the game away, but somehow I left out a piece and Hank ate it. We didn’t know until later that day when he started acting all funny. It turns out you can’t digest Connect Four pieces.

It was a red piece, the one he ate.

I run my fingers over the ridges of the black piece in my hand.

My mistakes. It was my turn to feed Hank tonight and I didn’t. The only thing on my mind was Avery and the dance, not feeding Hank his supper. I should have kept looking for him.

“Maddie. Come on, it’s your turn.”

I put my piece in.

“Three in a row. Oh no! Oh no, oh no.”

I glance at the board. Cammie’s right. Without trying, I have three black pieces all in a row, with open slots on either side, and he only gets one turn before my next one. No matter what he does, I’m going to win.

He slides his red piece in with a quiet sigh, and I pop in my final black piece.

Cammie counts them out. “One, two, three, four. Maddie wins!”

I reach over to slide the bottom of the board and let the pieces all come crashing out.