“So, what happened?”

“There’s been an earthquake just off the coast of Indonesia.”

“Indonesia. A big one?”

“Really big. I’m worried about your parents.”

“No need to worry, they’re in Thailand.” How could he get those two confused?

“I know that,” he said.

“Yeah, well, the two places are about a thousand miles apart.”

“I know that, too. The earthquake was in the ocean off the coast of Indonesia in a place called Banda Aceh. It’s fifty miles north of Sumatra.”

“It would have to be big to bother Thailand.”

“It isn’t the quake. It’s what it caused. There was a tsunami.”

“A tsunami…you mean, like a tidal wave?”

“It hit Indonesia and Malaysia and Sri Lanka…and Thailand. Just put on the TV. Really. Just do it, please.”

There was something about his voice, like he was pleading, or begging—or scared. That wasn’t like Tad at all.

“There have been deaths…a lot of deaths. Please put on the TV.”

“Okay. I’ll call you back when—”

“No!” he snapped, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “I’ll stay on the phone,” he said. His voice was back to being calm, but that didn’t make me feel any more relaxed.

I jumped out of bed, holding the phone by my side, and looked for the remote. Where had it gone? I started to search and—never mind, I didn’t need the remote to turn in on. I reached over and clicked the power button. MTV was on, the station I’d been watching when I turned it off last night.

“What channel?”

“Lots of them. CNN or any of the news channels.”

Lots…that wasn’t good. I pushed the “up” button and the TV started to surf through the channels. As it was heading up the dial for CNN, I caught a glimpse of something. I stopped and started back the other way. There it was.

The scene showed a wave quickly rising up and over a cement seawall, and then shooting over, racing up a beach and into some houses. There was screaming and yelling and the sound of objects smashing, and then people overwhelmed by the wave, caught up, spun around, finally vanishing beneath the water. It was awful, just awful! Those poor people!

The images changed. An unseen speaker yelled, “Get inside! Get inside!” and then a wall of water practically engulfed the photographer, and the image died. Next there was a bus lying on its side in the water, spinning, almost completely submerged. People were clinging to it, standing on the top, as all around them flowed a river of scraps and garbage.

The image was replaced by that of an anchorman, sitting at a desk. Behind him was a large graphic, a map of the area.

“Those images, shot by tourists on vacation,” he said, “document the terrible tragedy that unfolded. This catastrophe began when an underwater earthquake, fifty miles north of Sumatra and five and a half miles below the surface, struck at 7:58 a.m., local time. This quake was one of the most powerful ever recorded and registered 9.3 on the Richter scale.”