Another Kind of Hurricane by Tamara Ellis Smith Page B

in a way he couldn’t explain.
    Now he knew he couldn’t wait to catch Zavion coming out of the bathroom, or in the front door, or working in the kitchen, unawares, and make some joke about the word
sane
and have the chance to see that small smile again.
    Shared jokes like that were the two-by-fours that kept a house standing tall. They were logs on the fire and a good smell curling out of the oven. They were what Tavius remembered from being a kid with two older brothers and a mother whose laugh he could hear down the block as he walked home from school. They were what had been missing from his house in New Orleans.
    They were what held Skeet’s house together now.
    Even after Katrina knocked them upside their heads.
    And on the top of it all, he had gotten to meet Pierre.
    Tavius whistled louder.
    He couldn’t wait to give Zavion the new clothes.

chapter 23

ZAVION
    Something hard was in the pocket of Zavion’s new blue jeans.
    He stuck his hand inside.
    A marble.
    A big marble.
    Blue like the sky when there’s no rain. Green too, like a mountain. And some red and orange. Like fire? Flashes of light?
    Zavion had other questions. One, really.
    Whose marble was it?
    Then another question followed.
    Where did it come from?
    And the question that bit hard on the heels of the others.
    Did Zavion have to give it back?
    Zavion was used to finding the answers outside of himself like on his Spanish pop quiz, where one side of the paper hadnumbered Spanish words and the other side had lettered English words.
1.
El perro
goes with
E. Dog
2.
El gato
goes with
L. Cat
3.
El pájaro
goes with
O. Bird
    But he didn’t have answers to his questions now.
    The marble felt smooth against the inside of Zavion’s fingers. It felt good to wrap his hand around something whole. It made him feel big. Like he could sweep his other hand across the sky and gather the hurricane up tight, gather all that wind and rain, close his fist hard around it, and blow the dust away.
    The desire for this hurricane-crushing ability surprised Zavion. It pounded over the memories that had taken permanent residence inside him. Snakes. Oily water. A dead body.
    The marble made him feel like he could jump back into New Orleans, jump with his knees bent and his thigh muscles gripping—like he was doing the standing long jump—and land with both feet hard, right into the middle of his street, right next to where his house used to be, with a huge splash that would send the three-feet-deep water into the sky, miles high and miles wide.
    Zavion held the marble up to his eye. He could just make out Papa in the dining room, hunched over another tiny canvas. A blue, green, red, and orange Papa. Like a painting of Papa. A painting of Papa painting.
    That struck Zavion as funny and so he laughed. Which felt strange. He hadn’t laughed in a long time. And something about laughing made him feel…hopeful.
    The door blew open and Osprey ran in. “Zavion!” She flung her cold hands around Zavion’s neck. “What do you have in your hand?” she said.
    She didn’t miss anything.
    “What do you have in yours?” said Zavion. A leash dangled behind her with a washcloth tied to one end.
    “This”—Osprey pulled the leash close to her side—“is Fluffer.” She reached down and patted the washcloth.
    “Where’s Flower?”
    “She ran away. Now, show me what’s in your hand!”
    “Nothing’s there,” said Zavion, slipping the marble back into his pocket.
    “Do you have a secret?” said Osprey.
    “Well, I wouldn’t tell you if I did, right?”
    “Would you tell Fluffer?”
    “Not even Fluffer.”
    Osprey stood on her tiptoes and grabbed Zavion aroundthe neck. She leaned in close to his ear. “Do you have a magic?” she whispered.
    A magic
. Zavion liked that.
    It sounded like his wishing rocks with their white stripes lined up on his windowsill.
    Yes!
    The marble was just like his wishing rocks.
    He squeezed it in his hand and smiled. He could feel the