It was raining harder than ever when they went to lunch. Looking out the cla.s.sroom windows, Baartock couldn't see the trees or the houses across the wide gra.s.s strip next to the school. He couldn't see the street. He could just barely see the gra.s.s outside the window. It was a blowing, dark gray rainstorm. At times, the wind would blow the raindrops right at the windows. Just a little while later, the rain was pouring straight down. Everybody seemed to be thinking of other things. Even Mrs. s...o...b..chner kept losing her place in the story she was reading, whenever the rain would come crashing against the windows.

Finally it was lunchtime.

Baartock bought milk in the lunch line, but the fruit they had were some long yellow things that he hadn't seen before, so he didn't get any. When he sat at the table across from Jason, the red-haired boy asked, "Why do you call that a fire drill?"

"Drill. Make holes same way," Baartock answered, and made a back and forth motion with his hand.

"I guess you could get through wood. But it must take a long time."

"Wood. Stone too," replied Baartock.

"You can drill through stone like that?"

"Use many shafts," said Baartock, making an up and down motion, meaning the straight stick he had used. "Make hole."

Jason was about to say something when there was a sudden flash of light and a tremendous thunderblast right outside the cafeteria. The people sitting by the windows jumped up, and someone knocked a lunch tray onto the floor. One of the women who worked in the cafeteria brought over a mop to clean up the spilled food, and everybody who had been sitting next to the windows moved to different seats. The rain was now squirting against the windows, and some water was coming in under the door to the playground. The woman with the mop went over to clean that up too.

Everybody ate very quietly, as if they were waiting for the next thunderbolt to strike. While they were eating a man came in with a mop and a bucket and some tools to try to stop the leak around the door.

Baartock was watching the man working, when Jason said, "Let's go back to the cla.s.sroom."

"Not go outside?" asked Baartock.

"They wouldn't let us. Not in this much rain. Who'd want to go out in this anyway?"

Baartock had been thinking about going out. It was only rain.

Instead, when he finished his lunch, he went with Jason back to the cla.s.sroom.

Some others were already back in the cla.s.sroom, in groups talking, or just staring out the windows at the rain. Mrs. s...o...b..chner was sitting at her desk, with a lunch tray from the cafeteria, eating, when they got there.

"Mrs. s...o...b..chner, can we get out the games?" asked Jason.

"All right. But you'll have to put them away when lunch time is over."

"All right!" Jason whooped. "Come on, Baartock."

"And please be quiet," she said, as she went back to her lunch.

"Yes, Mrs. s...o...b..chner," Jason said.

They went into the back of the cla.s.sroom, and near the cubbies was a shelf with some large flat boxes and some smaller ones.

"You want to play checkers?" asked Jason.

"Don't know checkers. Show me," said Baartock.

They sat in the back of the cla.s.sroom, and Jason taught him how to play checkers. When some other children saw them playing, they got out other games, and soon there were lots of people playing all kinds of games.

It kept on raining very hard, and there were occasional lightning flashes and crashes of thunder.

Lunch time seemed to be going on longer than usual. Baartock had just lost another game of checkers, and he let Jerry play. He didn't like checkers very much. None of the other games seemed too interesting either, so he walked over and looked out the window at the rain. He saw Ms. Laurence hurry in and go over to talk to Mrs. s...o...b..chner.

"Children." Ms. Laurence had hurried out again and Mrs. s...o...b..chner was walking to the middle of the cla.s.sroom. "Quiet please."

There was a lot of stirring around by the children to listen to her.

"They are going to close school early today, because of all this rain."

She held up her hand for quiet. Some children had started to cheer and talk as soon as they heard the news.

"They say that this could be a bad storm, and there could be some flooding. Since so many of you live on small roads, they decided you should go home very soon. They're trying to reach the bus drivers now.

If it keeps raining like this, there might not be school tomorrow."

The children were still quiet, but they were all smiling and poking at each other.

"You may go on with your recess now, and I'll have you straighten up the games just before the busses get here. Now please be very quiet, while I go to the office." She turned and went out the door.

Suddenly, none of the children were interested in the games.

They all wanted to talk about getting out of school early, and no school tomorrow, and what they were going to do. They started talking quietly, but soon the talk got louder. Then, one of the boys threw a ball of paper at another boy. There was a lot of loud talking, and throwing things, and running around, when Mrs. s...o...b..chner came back into the room.

"Get in your seats! Right now!" She was standing just inside the door, glaring at the cla.s.s.

The children hurried to their chairs and sat down.

"I told you to be quiet while I went to the office."

The children looked at each other, as if to find out who had been making all the noise. "Barbara, Norma, Robert, and Jason, go back and straighten up the games and put them away. Do it quietly and quickly.

Timmy, hand out these worksheets. Since you don't want recess now, I have some other work you can do, until the busses get here."

Timmy walked around the room with the stack of papers she gave him, putting four worksheets on each table.

Mrs. s...o...b..chner walked to the back of the cla.s.sroom to watch the straightening up. The room was very quiet, except for the noises from the back of the room.

Baartock started working, and soon Jason sat down and started working too.

Mrs. s...o...b..chner walked around the room for a while, then she went over and stood in the doorway, looking down the hall. Soon she said, "Put your things away now. If you brought raincoats, or have anything else to take home, get it, then line up."

Baartock hadn't brought a raincoat, but he went to his cubby to get the fire drill and his lunchbag. He decided to take his pencil box home, too.

The cla.s.s was all lined up, waiting for the bell. Mrs. s...o...b..chner said, "If it keeps raining like this, watch the news on TV to see if we're having school tomorrow." Then the bell did ring, and they were all hurrying to get to the school busses.

"See you," called Jason, as they went down the hall. They got to the front door and the wind was blowing the rain right in at them. The floor was wet and someone had put down rubber mats so they wouldn't slip or fall.

When they went outside, everybody ran to the busses. Baartock was soaked as he got on Mr. Barnes's bus, from just that short run. There were lights on the front of each bus, and there were sticks wiping back and forth to get the rain off the front windows. But Mr. Barnes still drove very slowly to the high school. He wasn't talking all the time, this afternoon.

When Baartock got off the bus, he ran to his path to get home. The creekbed was filled with water rushing and splashing down hill. There was a lot of water going through the culvert. Baartock hurried up the hill, next to the stream. He wanted to see what it was like at his bridge.

Chapter 15