I wake up in darkness, roll onto my stomach, and listen to the breathing. Slow, even breaths with a bit of snore. Dad. That’s when I remember where I am: on the floor of the Manoukians’ living room. Cammie is asleep upstairs in the trundle bed in the Germ’s room. Down here it’s just me and Mom and Dad.

A red light glows from the corner across the room. The power must have come back on while we were sleeping. The fridge hums in the kitchen. The light must be from their DVR.

Now everything that was on our DVR—all the shows I was going to catch up on this weekend—is gone.

I flip onto my other side so I can’t see that little red light anymore. But when I close my eyes, it’s still there. I can see it inside my head, taunting me.

How could a tornado hit one house but then leave the one next door untouched?

Why did it have to hit ours?

I hear Mom roll over, and I wonder if she’s awake, too. Slowly the red light behind my eyelids fades away, until it’s just me and the darkness and Dad’s little snores.

—

I wake up to the buzzing chain saws, the hiss of the Manoukians’ espresso machine, and helicopters. There are no shades in the living room, and the bright sunshine is as harsh as the noise outside.

Mom and Dad are already up and dressed and in the kitchen. Mrs. Manoukian’s clothes are so baggy on Mom, but Mr. Manoukian and Dad are about the same size.

“You ready to help?” Dad asks me as he finishes off his piece of toast. “It’s going to be an all-hands-on-deck kind of morning.”

“Do you have your phone charger? I need to charge mine and then I can start calling around about Hank.” I pour some milk in my bowl of Cocoa Krispies.

Dad points to a phone charger on the wall. “Mads, we’re going to need your help today. We need everyone busting their butts outside with cleanup. There’s a lot of work to do. Folks are still assessing the damage.”

“But—”

“I want to find Hank every bit as much as you do, honey. It’s early still. I’m hopeful we’ll hear something by the end of the day.” Dad takes a sip of his coffee. “Hank’s got his tag on, so whoever finds him will know to call us.”

The chop-chop-chop of the helicopters overhead makes it hard for me to think.

“What’s up with the helicopters?”

“News coverage,” Dad says. “We made the Today show this morning, and I think I saw a CNN van drive up the street.”

“We’re on TV?” I wish my phone were still working so I could text Kiersten. She’s always wanted to be on TV. Not like this, though.

I hurry to finish up my cereal, then change into a pair of shorts and T-shirt Mrs. Manoukian lent me and head outside. I wiggle my toes in my borrowed sneakers. There’s an extra inch beyond where my toes end, but they’re still better than the shoes I wore to the dance. One, two, three, four helicopters fly overhead. Two of them stay in the same place, straight up in the air from a few houses past ours. The other two roam the sky.

“Oh my God.”

When you see disasters on the news, they always throw a splashy headline at what happened, like DEVASTATION IN THE MIDWEST. I wonder what they’ve chosen for this news story. The only words I can come up with are the kinds of words Mom and Dad don’t want to hear me say. But I can get away with “Oh my God.”

It’s not just our house that’s gone. With all the trees, you used to be able to see only one house at a time as you drove up my street. But not anymore. I can see past my yard to our other next-door neighbors, the McKinstrys. The top half of their house is gone, along with all the trees. Across the street, the Garcias’ house is totally flattened.

With all the trees down, I can see forever in the direction the tornado went. Right across our street and down the hill behind our house.

There’s a part of me that wants to cry, but the rest of me doesn’t know what to do. Mr. and Mrs. Garcia are as old as my grandparents. What if they didn’t get to the basement in time? The helicopters overhead—are they looking for survivors?

“Maddie!” Mom yells from over by our house—no, our yard. It doesn’t feel right to say “house” anymore.

I run to her. “Did you check on the Garcias?”

“Everyone in our neighborhood is accounted for.” She speaks so calmly.

Our neighborhood. That’s all she said.

“How far did it go? The tornado? Did everyone make it?”

Mom sighs. “You know the campground, over by the lake?”

There’s nowhere to hide in the campground. No basements. Just trailers and tents.

“Oh no, Mom…”

“I know, honey. I know. Everyone we know is okay. We need to focus on that for right now. You’re okay, your friends are okay, our family is okay. We have to take things one step at a time for the next few days.” She’s using that tone she probably uses with patients all the time when she has to tell them something they don’t want to hear.

I’ve been holding my breath in again. “Okay,” I say, letting it out.

“First things first.” Mom hands me a pair of gardening gloves. “Let’s see what we can recover.” I stare at the wreckage of our house strewn all over the yard. Recover what?

I slip my hands into the too-big gloves—they must be Mr. Manoukian’s—and follow Mom over to our garage, which has collapsed in on itself.

“Where are the cars?”

Mom shrugs. “Somewhere under here, I’m afraid. Don’t tell your dad, but if one good thing comes out of this tornado, it’s the fact that I’m finally getting a new car.”

“Mom!”

She turns around, holding her index finger to her lips. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

—

Dad passes me an open bag of chips he snagged from the Manoukians’ while we break for lunch. “Find anything worth holding on to?”

“Not really, but I did find this.” I pick up the painted clay elephant that I made in Mrs. Stokey’s third-grade art class. “It must have been in my closet, on that shelf that was too high for me to reach.” Kiersten made one, too, that day. Does she still have hers?

Dad takes it from my hand. “I always loved that guy. Mrs. Stokey sure knows how to bring out the inner artist in everyone. Anything else?”

“A lot of what I found wasn’t even ours.” I hand him a pile of papers, with an envelope on top. The person it was addressed to lives two towns away.

“Jeez,” he says. “You know what this means?”

I shake my head.

“Your diary’s going to end up in somebody else’s yard. Hope you didn’t write anything in it you don’t want the whole world to know.” Dad raises his eyebrows.

“Good thing I don’t keep a diary,” I lie. My palms begin to sweat a little. I kept mine tucked under my mattress, which used to be a pretty reliable hiding spot. Well, not anymore! If someone’s mail from two towns over ended up in my yard, that thing could be anywhere.

Please don’t end up in Avery’s yard. Please don’t end up in Avery’s yard. Please don’t end up in Avery’s yard.

Dad pulls out his phone.

“Have you heard from anybody about Hank?”

He shakes his head. “You’ll be the first to know, kiddo. Promise.”

I try to think of a plan as a silver SUV speeds up the hill. “Can we go for a quick drive up the street?”

“In what car, Mads?”

Dad has a point.

“If someone has Hank, they’ll call us. Pretty much everyone on our street knows Hank. They’ll stop by with him when they have a chance. For now, let’s focus on something else. I’m sure Mom could use your help.”

I wonder if Dad’s thinking what I’m thinking in the very back of my mind. Anyone who knows Hank would have him back here already. Hank would be sprawled out on the nicest patch of grass with his head resting on his paws, watching us dig through the mess. Hank always knew—no, Hank knows—how to take it easy.

Cameron runs up and tackles Dad. “Can I use the chain saw?” He looks at Dad with hopeful eyes.

“I don’t think so, buddy. Chain saws are only for us tough men.”

Mom clears her throat. “Ahem?”

“And super tough ladies,” Dad says, extra loud.

“Hey, Maddie, can you help me with something?” Mom yells over the buzz of the chain saw.

I stuff the wrapping from my sandwich into the bag of chips and look around for a trash can. Except, of course, there isn’t one. My whole yard looks like the inside of a trash can, so I end up leaving the trash behind and jog over to Mom.

There’s dirt smeared across her forehead from all the times she’s wiped the hair out of her face. “Hey, sweetie,” she says. “I’ve been looking for our photo albums all morning and I’m not having any luck at all. I think another set of eyes would help. Younger eyes.”

I don’t know how Mom’s able to think we could actually search for something specific in all of this. All morning, I’ve just been finding what was there and deciding if it was trash or not. Most of the time, it was. Everything I found was broken or something I stopped caring about years ago, like the clay elephant.

But looking into Mom’s eyes, I see something I didn’t catch earlier. Maybe she was really good at hiding how she felt, at saying everything was okay, but not believing it herself.

“Okay, Mom. Sure,” I say. “I’ll find ’em.” My voice comes out steady and clear. Like I believe it, too.