Read Online Another Kind of Hurricane by Tamara Ellis Smith - Free Book Online

scrambled-egg breakfast in the only house he had ever known, not to play in the tree house his father had built, and not even when Mom finally got into the car and turned it on. She had to lift him up kicking and screaming, hold him back against the seat of the car with her elbow while she wrestled with his seat belt. She surprised him with a bag of cheese puffs for the ride, but even his favorite food didn’t make him feel better.
    Henry remembered believing it was the end of the world. What did he know? He was only four years old. He also remembered grabbing onto one idea and squeezing it until it was blue. If there was a sign at the new house, then he knew he would live beyond that last day in the old brown house.
    So he had walked upstairs, picked his new room, and there it had been. Right on the windowsill.
    The marble.
    And now it was gone.
    The thought made Henry want to lie down again, this time in front of the car or pickup or eighteen-wheeler or whatever had driven off with the marble. He lay down in his driveway instead, beside Brae, who was chewing on the rubber ball.
    “What am I going to do?” he asked Brae. Brae leaned in to sniff Henry’s nose. “Do you smell an idea?” said Henry, rubbing Brae under the chin. “ ’Cause I don’t feel anything cooking in here—” He tapped the side of his head. Cooking made Henry think of Nopie and his stupid apple pie, and he said, “Stupid!” out loud and then he said, “Oh, not you, Brae! Never you! You’re the smartest dog-cow I know—” He sat up, took the ball, put his hands inside his sweatshirt pocket. “Which hand?” he said. Brae sniffed Henry again, this time around his pocket, and nudged Henry’s left hand. “Right!” Henry said. “You’re right every time!” He threw the ball again and watched Brae as he raced down the driveway.
    Suddenly, his brain was racing too.
    Suddenly, his brain was an oven and he was cooking up an idea fast.
    If Brae could chase a ball, why couldn’t Henry chase a marble?
    The marble was in New Orleans.
    Jake was going to New Orleans.
    Henry could hitch a ride with Jake and find his marble.
    This was a triple-decker cake of an idea!
    Brae loped back up the driveway and dropped the ball at Henry’s feet. He licked Henry. “Do I taste sweet, Brae?” said Henry. “Cake sweet?”
    And right there at the top of the driveway, under Mount Mansfield, Henry felt the heat of a tiny bit of hope.
    “I’ll ask Mom if I can go,” said Henry. “She’ll let me go.” He paused. “No, she won’t. Shoot.” He paused again. The heat-spark flickered dramatically. Hope, no hope, hope, no hope. “What am I going to do, Brae? I need to get that marble. But how? What would Wayne do?” Brae stared into Henry’s eyes. “You’ve got the answer, don’t you? What is it?” Henry stood up fast, almost knocking Brae in the nose. “Right! He’d sneak onto the truck! That’s what he’d do. And that’s what I’m gonna do.” He took a deep breath. “Who am I kidding? I can’t sneak onto Jake’s truck.” He looked into Brae’s eyes again. “Okay, yeah, you’re right. I’m just going to have to talk to Jake. I’m going to have to get Jake to convince Mom that I can go.”
    With that, Henry turned up the heat on his cake, on his triple-decker, perfect cake of an idea.

marble journey part II

CORA KRISHNASWAMI
    Marble cake! That was it! She couldn’t wait to go to the kitchen in the back of the Salvation Army and bake it.
    Cora wanted to try making a marble cake with three flavors swirled together. The usual marble cake was two. Chocolate and vanilla. But that was a little too ordinary for the occasion, Cora thought.
Two
ordinary. Cora laughed at the joke inside her head.
    “Pardon?” The woman at the counter looked up from writing her check.
    “Hmmmm? Oh, no, nothing—something I just thought of—” Cora unclipped her hair and let it fall across her shoulders.
    Like toilet paper tucked in the waistband of a