The ref waves a warning hand, insisting we get into our spots despite the clouds overhead, ones I recognize a little too well. It’s not just education that gets you to that point, it’s experience: seeing it all overhead as a child, knowing when it’s time to bring the horses in and start moving down to the cellar. I take classes with students from the city, and they have to start at square one to pick up that kind of intuition. My dad always insists that even if the university tries, they can’t teach it the same way farm kids in the South pick it up. Right now, despite the fact that a ton of them are probably wasted, said farm kids in the crowd are starting to look up, grabbing their stuff, their friends, and their bottles of beer.

I set up for the draw opposite the midfielder from Austin, and she gives the rumbling sky the same uneasy glance that I do as the ref blows her whistle. We get right into it. I win the draw, flinging the ball straight to Maddie.

‘HUSTLE!’ Coach Dillon calls from the sideline. ‘YOU GUYS GOT IT!’

We’re about to have it, with a play from the attack taking us through Austin’s layer of defence, Jordan right at the net with what’s going to be a sure goal …

The sirens start with a slow, eerie wail that increases in pitch as I count one, two, three Mississippi. Jordan drops the ball, and takes one peek at the clouds before she yells, ‘GO!’

No one needs to be told twice. In a town like Prosperity, we know the drill all too well. The stands file out immediately. The warning flashes across the digital scoreboard screens, and the announcer repeats the spiel. ‘Folks, that’s a tornado warning. A tornado’s been spotted a city over, and we advise you all to seek shelter now. Let’s clear the stadium.’

‘MAY!’ Colt’s voice cuts through the chaos. I’m in a sea of players and audience members. I look this way and that, my two braids slapping my cheek, but I can’t find him. My pulse picks up, sweat from my palms slickening my crosse. Shit, shit. People are starting to head through the tunnel on ground level to funnel out and into the stadium basement. Has he already been swept up in there?

‘Colt!’ I shout back. There’s a panic to my voice that I don’t recognize. I’ve experienced so many of these things, but the last one …

In the moment, May. In the moment. But my ribs feel like they’re closing in on my lungs, and every breath is shallower than the last. The wind whips up around us, creating a tinny whistle when it cuts through the bleachers. ‘COLT!’

‘Hey! Hey, May, come on!’