Vietnam Tim grinned. “And miss all the fun?” He closed the metal doors.

Even with my head buried against my father’s chest, I could hear the tornado. It sounded like a hundred trains clattering on the same track. I heard glass shattering and car alarms and fire alarms and house alarms and then the monkey shriek of Nitpick.

That’s when Mrs. Evans lost it. She tossed aside the radio and raced up the ladder, throwing open the metal doors and trying to get to the barn.

“Fuck,” my father said. He put me down on the floor and looked at me and then my mother. “Do not move.” And then he took off after her.

I screamed for him, but my voice was carried away by the wind. My mother stood up and calmly climbed the wooden steps that led out of the open cellar hatch, like a queen walking to her beheading. She stood half in and half out of the cellar, looking out at Vietnam Tim with his chin pointed to the sky. “That’s the cold front,” he cried. “It’s gonna shift back again.”

Just as quickly as it had started, everything went still.

Between-heartbeats still. Hold-your-breath still.

Vietnam Tim’s hair fluttered to lay flat against his scalp again. The wind disappeared. My mother walked outside, and I followed her, like I was tied by a thread.

The gazebo in the front yard was just … missing. The flowerpots were smashed and all the windows on the first floor of the inn had shattered. The twister was distant, undulating, like it was plotting its next move.

“Is it over?” I whispered.

My mother didn’t look at me. “Yes,” she breathed. “And no.”

The leaves at my feet started dancing as the wind picked up pace. The barn door opened, and my father came out, one arm braced around Mrs. Evans, who was sobbing.

Another tornado siren pierced the silence. My feet felt like they were rising, like I was a balloon.

Vietnam Tim locked eyes with my mother. “Wanna go chase it?” he asked.

“Hannah,” my father cried.

She turned to him, her face wide open, as if we couldn’t already see the parts of her that were missing.

How could you ask me to choose?

She was moving toward the blue Jeep before I could grab for her. My father bolted into action, snatching me into his free arm and dragging me and Mrs. Evans to the cellar again, even though the wind had risen so fast that it felt like we were pushing against an invisible wall.

We tumbled inside to safety. As my father struggled to close the hatch, I saw the Jeep drive off , moments before the entire barn was flung into the sky.

•

It took four minutes for the world to be destroyed again.

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