Jennie grimaced as they got outside and saw the true magnitude of the storm on the western horizon. The window in the kitchen looked north, while this “boomer” was coming straight out of the west. Huge black thunderheads loomed thousands of feet up in the air, their tops forming the “anvil” formations that meant dangerous weather to come. The roofs of the houses hid the bottoms of the clouds, but they wouldn’t for long, and the angry growl of thunder was testament enough to the amount of lightning hitting the ground at the leading edge of the storm.

“You’d better go turn on a radio,” Jennie advised, as she got into her little truck. “Keep the TV off though, and stay away from the windows. This looks like it could brew up a tornado, and there’s going to be a lot of lightning, for sure. You might want to get the kids ready to duck into the bathroom if we get a tornado alert.”

“I’ll do that,” Toni said, just as the wind picked up, with three chilly gusts that sent garbage cans flying into the street and flattened her clothing against her. The air was full of rain-and ozone-smell. “You’d better get going!” she added, over the distant growl of thunder. “This may flood the underpasses!”

Jennie pulled out, with a backward wave.

She hurried into the backyard to gather up the kids; Ryan and Jill were only too happy to come inside, but Rod sassed her. “I want to watch!” he said. “It’s not here yet! You think I’m gonna melt if I get a little wet?”

Toni gave his rump a little smack for the sass. “You get in that house when I tell you to, mister,” she scolded, shagging him inside after the other two. “You’re not too big for me to spank; you better remember that!”

Ryan and Jill went to their rooms, and she assumed that Rod followed. She went straight to the kitchen to turn on a radio; they didn’t have cable anymore, and she didn’t trust the television in a thunderstorm. Jennie was right to warn her. The antenna that Rod had put up before they got cable was too high and he had never taken it down; it was on a tower that made it the tallest thing in the neighborhood, and whenever there was lightning, she was always afraid it would get hit. Rod laughed at her for her fears, but she would never allow the set on during a storm if he wasn’t there to insist on it.