2,346. Caris decided that he’d counted enough sheep and flipped his pillow over to the cooler side. But this was his 6th time flipping the pillow so both sides were equally warm from his restlessness. After the library, Caris had come home to Ms. Christie sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by a mountain of paperwork. Caris liked to imagine she was like an explorer exploring tall white glaciers in the arctic. Of course, he knew that her head in her hands meant that she would much rather be in the arctic than doing her paperwork. Since the storm, she had been working more and more trying to help her business rebuild. When he’d walked in, Ms. Christie was so buried she hadn’t even noticed him so he assumed he was on his own for dinner. Even though he hated them, the only thing he knew how to make was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He made a sandwich, poured a glass of chocolate milk, and gave Ms. Christie a quick hug before heading to his room so as not to disturb her wor...
There were only 6 other boys besides Caris at Boy Scouts. After the storm, a lot of the parents had gotten worried about being away from their kids for any time longer than the school day. Caris thought they would actually be safer down here in the church basement. The sanctuary had been completely destroyed, pews and bibles were strewn everywhere but the basement had been completely untouched and actually looked cleaner than normal. They had planned to start their whittling badge but there weren’t enough people to do anything meaningful. Instead, they had eaten the snacks one of the moms had donated and talked about their days and experiences in the storm. Mark had waited under a mattress in his bathtub, Andrew lost his cat Fluffy and was still looking for him, Max had been out of town visiting his cousins and had missed the whole thing. Mr. Malone ended the meeting 30 minutes early because they each had already had thirds of the goldfish and apples and they had exhausted their conve...