By this time, there was an odd silence in the van, broken only by Patty's sniffles and the sound of gasps every time a bolt of lightning lit up the world outside the van. The kids needed to be distracted from the storm. "Hey, how about if we all sing?" I suggested, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Let's do 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame,' okay?" I launched right into it. "Take me out to the ballgame." But nobody joined in. I looked around at the scared little faces. "Don't like that song?" I asked. "Okay, how about another? Jackie, you choose."

"I can't think of any songs," said Jackie quietly. He was gazing out the window.

I gave up, and decided just to sit quietly.

"Hey, Charlie," said Bart. "Maybe we should go back to that little general store we passed awhile ago. They might have a phone, or maybe we could ask for directions."

"Good idea," said Charlie. He slowed down and turned the van around. "How far back was it?" he asked.

"Not too far, I think," said Bart. "It was near that big barn."

By this time we were really in the country.

The woods were deep along the sides of the road, and I hadn't seen another car pass us in quite awhile. I hadn't seen many houses, either. At least the rain had let up a little, enough so we could see out the windows.

"Take a right here!" said Bart, when we came to a crossroads. "I'm pretty sure the store was down this road."

"Okay," said Charlie. "But I don't remember —”

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a loud clap of thunder. Karen put her hands over her ears, and Patty wailed. Charlie just drove on.

We crossed a little bridge that I didn't remember seeing before, and everybody stared out the windows at the swollen stream that ran beneath it. The water ran up over the creek's banks, wild and wavy and full of foam. I saw a couple of good-sized branches being carried along and realized that the water was moving very fast.