Eroglu

LEVEL TWENTY

The last two months of 2017 were the scariest months of my entire life’s experience. I’m Allison Summers, fourteen years old. I was adopted by a single woman who had twelve other children, all adopted.
It all started with the news. “Hello, America. This is Layla Marcus reporting the weather. You’ve heard of level three hurricanes, level four hurricanes, even level five hurricanes. But have you heard of a level twenty hurricane? I don’t think so. Level five hurricanes have dangerous winds, many floods, and other natural disasters. But, in a level twenty hurricane, there is lightning 24/7, up to 100 feet high floods, winds that can make you a human kite, tons of tornadoes, hail, snow, and rain, all at the same time. Well, there is going to be a level twenty hurricane from next week all the way until New Years Day. Of course, this hurricane is deadly and dangerous so for the next week, we will be collecting all of you around the world, and taking you all to the moon for the next two months for safety. We have people going around right now in all the continents, so if you hear a knock on your door, turn off the TV and follow any NASA person to a rocket that will take you to the moon. You will have plenty of air, but there isn’t a lot of space on the moon, so some of you will be going to Mars. We may not use rockets that go at the speed of light, but we have been making them, so you will not get stuck on Mars and-”
Angelica, my annoying older sister changed the channel.
“Hey! I was watching that!”
“Loser,” she said. “The news is for old people and nerds. You should be watching the fashion channel, like me.”
I went to the bathroom and took a shower because showers always sooth me when I feel mad, sad, or disappointed. In the shower, I heard a knock on the door. My foster mom answered the door. “Hello,” she said. “We’re here to take you and your family to the moon,” a man with a NASA shirt. He had a small dog with him, a toy poodle. “The moon?” she chuckled as if that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. The man repeated everything the news lady said. “Okay then,” my mom said although she still didn’t seem 100 percent convinced.
She called everyone over and counted one by one. As much as I could scream, from the shower, nobody heard me. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-” “Oh my gosh! That poodle is so cute!” my youngest sister, Ella, said. “Keep going, Ella. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. That’s everyone.” They left the house and locked the door.
I was the only one in the house. I didn’t have a phone or any way to contact anybody. I got out of the shower, dressed up, and started to cry, mad at Ella, mad at Angelica, mad at my mom. I realized that the NASA guys collecting people could still be out there, but when I looked out the door, the entire neighborhood looked abandoned. I was too late. I decided (since I had no money and only a fridge full of food and that would not last for three months) to only eat a few times a week, which was very difficult. I realized that when everybody left, I would have all of Earth for myself so I could get food from the grocery store, so I only had to eat my food sparingly for the first week.
I want to say the first week passed by quickly, but I would be lying. I stayed inside all week because there was nowhere I could go to be safe. A few times, I ran as far as I could go to see if anybody was still there, but no. In the city, everyone was gone, safe on the moon, or Mars, or probably on a rocket to the moon or Mars. Every other day, I ate food for dinner, nothing else.
Starting the next week, my life was going to be in danger for three months.
First Month:
Sunday, I spent the entire day preparing for the start on Monday. I ran to the garage first thing Sunday morning to find nails, a hammer, and every tarp, poncho, or old raincoat I could get my hands on. I never actually learned to use a hammer but desperate times call for desperate measures. I hurried outside with the things I had collected and attempted to attach tarps, ponchos, and raincoats all along the walls to protect myself as best as I could. Then I did the same thing inside but with the floor, too.
When I was four, I memorized where the grocery store was, and I am so grateful of that. I jogged to the grocery store which of course was empty, so I crept inside and stole bags filled with food. I hesitated a bit because I was raised to never steal anything from anybody.
The rest of the month was filled with horrible tragedies. There were many floods which I am very surprised that I lived through, but I did. There were small floods and tall floods and short floods and long floods and I survived them all by climbing. When my feet seemed to be in water, I carefully but quickly walked to my redwood tree in the backyard and climbed. That tree had been growing for hundreds of years. My great grandmother planted it when she was three, so you can imagine how tall it was. Of course, it was scary to be that high up in the sky when there is lightning, hail, snow, and rain falling everywhere, not to mention the wind almost knocking me off the tree many, many times. The hail was literally the size of a mouse, so when I was on that tree, or outside at all, I wore stacked boxes on my head. Unfortunately, the house broke in the first week of the hurricane, but the tree’s roots were so strong, it somehow managed to stay put, luckily for me. But then, the last day of November, my tree was struck by lightning. I had no idea what to do and literally no time at all to come up with an idea. So, I came up with the most crazy idea anybody could ever have. I picked up a grappling hook I found on the ground (surrounded by lots of other stuff from flooded houses), and climbed the Empire State Building. The building was still on the ground because New Yorkers knew it would crumble and couldn’t risk it so they built a wind-proof, water-proof, fire-proof wall around it. New York government is rich.
I had my bags of food, a rain jacket I took when I was water-proofing my house (a big waste of time), my grappling hook, and I was on the top of a super high building while the wind and hail had made me pass out twice already. I’d say that’s basically doomed, but I kept my hopes up.
Second Month:
I had slept about twelve hours in total the past month not including when I passed out. It’s difficult to fall asleep when there’s hail pummeling you, snow and rain working together to try and freeze you, and terrible winds are trying to blow you away. This was the first month of the hurricane that involved tornadoes. I watched my beloved, already flaming tree blow away and sighed. But what startled me from that was that it was coming in my direction. The wall around my Empire State Building was wind-proof, but it wasn’t that tall. The tornado was going to blow me away! I had to get to the ground in under thirty seconds.
I did another freakishly crazy thing. Quickly, I dumped all the food from one bag into the other one. I then used the bag as a parachute and jumped. Next, I sprinted as far from the tornado as I could go and barely made it. By the time the tornado was gone and I had gone back to my spot on the Empire State Building, I was so tired that I didn’t even care about the wind or hail or snow or rain or lightning or floods. I just slept.
The rest of the month was pretty much the same. I got a few cuts from the hail and ate half of my food supply.
Third Month:
The hurricane ended, just as the news lady had suspected. New Years Day, my family came back surprisingly quickly.
“Oh my goodness! I love you so much!” my Mom ran up to me and gave me a hug. “How did I possibly forget you? How did you survive? How did you get these cuts?”
“What did you do with our house?” Angelica asked me.
“Angie, I explained everything to you on Mars! There were floods, tornadoes, lightning. We’re lucky Ali survived,” my mom replied.
We all went into a group hug. Together again.