Part 1 (1/2)

Cloudy with a Chance of Boys.

Megan McDonald.

I used to think weather was boring.

Something old people talk about to fill an empty room with conversation. Just look at my nana and papa - they're permanently tuned to the Weather Channel.

Weather was one of those things I never really paid attention to.

That was before.

Before the lights went out during the Storm of the Century. Before the frogs appeared. Before I got my first detention.

Before the tsunami.

But that comes later.

I guess you could say I have weather on the brain these days. We're doing a serious weather unit in Earth Science, and I am like a semicloud expert now. I've spent a lot of time watching clouds from the third-story attic window of our crooked old Victorian. Some days I climb up Reindeer Hill to observe clouds and look for unusual cloud shapes. Then, I take pictures to doc.u.ment them. I'm making a cloud chart, which is like a mega-poster filled with cool photos of all kinds of clouds - c.u.mulus, cirrus, stratonimbus.

At first, it was just a school project I had to do to get a decent grade. But the more I watched, the more I began to think clouds have . . . personalities. One minute they look like happy puffs of cotton candy - marshmallow castles in the air. Then you blink, and right before your eyes that same cloud has morphed into a snake or a dragon.

Come to think of it, clouds are like sisters. I should know. I have two of them - Alex, my older sister, and Joey, who's two years younger than me.

Alex, I would have to say, is a thunderhead: dark and mysterious, quick to anger, as if there's a storm gathering inside her. Joey is a c.u.mulus: a happy cloud that comes out on a bright, blue-sky day and looks like a bunny wearing fuzzy bedroom slippers.

Me, I'm more of a cirrostratus, what the science book calls ”uniform clouds, hardly discernible, capable of forming halos.” They look like light brushstrokes across the sky. You know, the even, steady kind. Always there, but sometimes you don't even notice.

I never thought much about clouds, really, till now. Suddenly, they're everywhere. In Shakespeare, Hamlet looks at clouds and compares them to a camel, then a weasel, not to mention a whale. In Language Arts, a poem we studied by e. e. c.u.mmings had a locomotive spouting violets, which I think must be clouds. There's even a local chapter of the Cloud Appreciation Society, right here in Acton, Oregon. They have a logo and everything.

But the most important thing about clouds is that they give you a hint about what's to come. All you have to do is see the signs. Read the sky.

Right after we started our weather unit, I noticed trees were leafing. Somewhere, frogs dreamed of hatching. Joey told me once that frogs can actually smell danger before they hatch. All I could smell was rain.

And then, for three days, we were under a mackerel sky - a sky filled with cirroc.u.mulus and altoc.u.mulus clouds. Think b.u.t.termilk. Think thousands of tiny fish scales. A mackerel sky means three things: precipitation, instability, and thunderstorms.

So, for all I know about weather, you'd think I would have seen it coming. I should have known that something was about to happen. Something that would change me. Us. The sisters.

You can smell rain. You can hear thunder coming. But there's not a weatherman on the planet who could have given me this forecast: cloudy, with a chance of boys.

One minute we were just talking and being sisters. The next minute, we were in the dark.

Here's what happened. Alex, Medieval Fas.h.i.+on Designer, was stretched out on the floor, surrounded by twenty-seven thousand colored pencils scattered like Pick-up Sticks. She was designing a fancy costume for Juliet (”Romeo's better half,” she says) instead of drawing a self-portrait for Art cla.s.s.

Joey was making animal sculptures out of colored marshmallows. She found an old cookbook of Mom's from the 1960s with marshmallow animals, and she's working on a whole zoo, complete with lions, elephants, and giraffes.

I was way into pasting pictures of clouds on a giant three-fold poster board for Mr. Petry's Earth Science cla.s.s.

”Since when did the Sisters Club become the Homework Club?” I asked.

Just then, a giant boom of thunder shook the house. Rain pelted the windows, rattling them in their frames. A crack of lightning lit the room with an eerie flash.

”Wow. It's a real weather freak show out there,” I said.

The lights flickered. On-off. On-off-on.

Alex looked up from her sketchbook.

”Uh-oh,” said Joey.

In a blink, the whole house went dark. We're talking pitch-black, can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-you night.

Joey ran to get a flashlight, bouncing it off the walls like a light show. Ahh! She s.h.i.+ned the light right in my face just to bug me.

”Okay, Duck,” I said, holding up my arm to s.h.i.+eld my face.

Mom burst through the door, smelling of pine and mud and bark. ”Wind's really wicked out there,” she said, plunking down an armload of wood, her wild hair studded with wet leaves.

”Mom. Hair,” Alex pointed.

”You wouldn't believe all the branches that have come down,” she said, pulling leaves from her hair. ”Dad's trying to clear the sidewalk. Power could be out for a while. I'm going to build up the fire. The heat may not come back on right away, so we better keep the fire going.”

”Just like Victorian times!” said Joey. Ever since Joey's Little Women phase, she thinks old-timey stuff is way cool. Me, I like my electricity. Not to mention soap.

Mom poked at the logs in the fireplace until the fire blazed bright orange.

The back door blew open. Dad came in and set a flashlight on the counter, shaking rain from his hair like a dog after a bath. ”Phew. It's a real tempest out there.” Dad's an actor and owns the Raven Theater next door. He's always spouting Shakespeare and stuff.

Dad dried his sleeves and warmed his hands in front of the fire. Wind whistled down the chimney.

”'Blow winds and crack your cheeks. Rage! Blow!' You know, girls, in Shakespeare, when there's a wild storm like this, like in King Lear, it means something big is about to happen.”

”Yeah, like murder!” I said. Joey clutched my arm.

”The storm can't be all bad. Maybe something different and exciting is going to happen to us,” said Dad.

”Dad, you're such a Drama Queen,” said Alex.

”Look who's talking,” I said.

”I love storms,” said Joey.

”No, you love frogs,” I said.

”Duh. After a storm, millions of frogs come out.”

”Girls, help me with the candles,” said Mom.

Alex helped Mom light tea candles inside tuna fish cans. Spooky shadows like wolves and flying birds flickered across the walls.