I ran to the window and saw the sky gone green and hazy, the clouds black and billowing like waves, the long mean arc of the tornado swooping down, bent strangely, like an insect leg, mangling the neighborhood. And there in our backyard amidst the chaos stood the Hobo, dancing, waving his arms like he was conducting all the madness, like he was commanding the tornado to come and whisk us all away.

Mom yanked me from the window and dragged me to the hallway, burying us in pillows. The tornado missed our house by half a mile, though it did destroy the Shipley’s Donuts where we went every Saturday morning. And yeah, she grounded me again. But I’ll never forget the Hobo standing there in the yard, directing fate with his fingers, drawing the destruction toward us.

The next morning I woke up achy and sore, like my body had run miles in my sleep. I could smell bacon frying and coffee on the brew. I climbed off my bunk and left Murphy snoozing, curled up in a little ball, a bit of blanket in her mouth. It was how she always slept.

I crept down every creaking stair all the way to the kitchen, where Grandma stood with her back to me, whipping eggs. I started to sit down at the table, maybe grab a cup of coffee, but then I thought better of it. I wanted to see the backyard in the daylight, get a glimpse of what all was out there.

I walked past the kitchen and to the back door, opening it quiet as I could. Grandma still hummed happily in the kitchen in her little birdsong voice like maybe she hadn’t heard me at all. I eased the door shut and walked into the ankle-high grass. A field stretched for maybe a hundred yards with trees on all sides. Just before the tree line in the far right-hand corner of the lot stood an old tall barn. Beyond it was a thin four-wheeler-sized path into the woods, one that looked well traveled. I started to head toward it, but about a third of the way there I got sidetracked.

Because there was a gap in the woods to my left, some kind of orchard with trees all lined up and spaced out evenly and bright red somethings dangling from them. The sunlight cut through the leaves in honey-colored slashes, an impossible sweetness pouring down from the sky. But something was moving in the grove, little flecks of color hovering and dashing in the air.

When I realized what they were, I broke into a run.

Hummingbirds, maybe fifty of them, swarming, a whole foggy haze of them darting between bright red feeders hanging from every tree. They were wild. It was like some kind of strange warfare, the way they bashed into each other, so desperate for the sugar water or whatever it was in those feeders. I went and stood in the middle of them. One smacked into my shoulder, floated around me, wondered at me. I don’t even know if I can explain the thrill of it, all of these birds moving swift as a thought, all this energy and power and the tiny beats of their wings all around me. It was just like Mom had described, just like I’d always imagined it.