Star barked and barked and pawed at the ground.
“What is it, boy? What’s wrong?”
The grandfather clock gonged 5:30. Star began pacing faster and whining and growling. He scratched at the door, barking frantically, and then pawed at the floor.
All of a sudden, the house started moving. It was like I was on a boat tossed at sea.
I grabbed at the nearest wall. There was a low rumble that grew louder and louder.
“Help! The dishes are sliding out of the cupboards!” Estee yelled from the kitchen.
I was close to the door, but I couldn’t move to get out of the house. “Betzalel!” I screamed. “Help! The house is moving!”
“Duck under the table!” Betzalel yelled from outside. “It’s an earthquake!”
Star was barking and barking.
An earthquake! My stomach was tied into 50 knots. My heart was pounding. Were we all going to die?
“The whole cabinet fell!” Estee screamed from the kitchen.
I wanted to run out of the house to Betzalel, but the house was shaking so much. Bookshelves tumbled to the ground.
Somehow holding onto the howling Star, I made it a few steps closer to the glass door. Outside, right near Betzalel, there was a huge fissure that was widening right in front of the spot where he was standing.
”Betzalel, be careful. The ground is opening!” I yelled to him over the loud rumbling noises.
The dining room table was still standing. I crawled toward it and huddled underneath. Estee tried to come towards me from the kitchen. There was a huge crack in the floor that was growing wider. She froze and pointed.
“Just jump over it,” I said. “Don’t fall in.”
“I can’t!” she was crying hysterically. “The house is falling down!”
“Estee, listen to me. Get down and crawl towards me.”
“I’m too scared!”
“Come on, get down on your hands and knees. You have to get out of the kitchen.”
“I know,” she yelled. “But I can’t. I’m too scared.”
Please, Hashem, help Estee. I couldn’t get to her. There were too many cracks that were widening in the floor and so many things tumbling down. My crutches had flown across the room. I was stuck.
I closed my eyes and said T’hilim.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Estee was down on the floor inching toward me.
The floor creaked and opened wider.
“You can do it!” I yelled. “Quick, before the floor widens too much.”
Somehow, she managed to scurry over the huge crack toward me.
We were both shaking. “Akiva, I’m scared!”
I was petrified but I was the big, almost-13-year-old cousin. I had to be the strong one. “Quakes don’t last forever. It’ll stop.” I wanted to believe it would.
“I wish Ima was here,” Estee cried.
I wished her mother was here, too. Was Auntie Margie all right? There was no way to know. If only she hadn’t gone to shul to get more matzos.
Betzalel yelled from outside. “Stay under the table! Akiva, Estee, stay there. Don’t move.”
“Come in with us,” I called.
“I can’t. There’s like this huge gap. The whole ground is opening in front of me.”
Oh, no. Hashem, please save Betzalel.
Just then, there was a loud, creaking noise. Was it the house collapsing? The rumbling noises mixed with screaming sirens. I felt like I was in a very bad dream, only it was real.
Star was growling and crying. He was a few feet away from me and I wanted to pull him close, but I literally couldn’t move. Everything was moving instead.
There was a loud thud as the grandfather clock crashed to the floor with a gonging that went on and on.
“When will it stop?” There was a loud roaring sound and all the dishes tumbled off the table and crashed onto the floor.
Star barked and whined. “All the Pesach dishes are broken!” Estee cried.
I heard a loud crackling noise. One of the lamps in the kitchen sparked, and then I saw a flame shoot up to the ceiling.
The house was on fire!
Chapter 1: Left Alone (Zevi, 2023)
As soon as I stepped into the living room, my parents stopped their conversation.
“Zevi,” Abba said, “I’m glad you came downstairs. We wanted to talk to you.”
Abba’s serious expression and Ima’s worried glance made my stomach knot. Was something wrong?
“Zevi, you know how we sometimes have to go away for business reasons. We usually have time to make preparations and get ready for a trip, but we received an urgent call from Israel. We have to head there immediately.”
“We made a plan, so you won’t be left here all alone.” That was Ima. “Bubby is on her way. The only glitch is Zeidy has the flu, so she’s got to wait until he’s better to come. So, we thought of someone who could come in the meantime.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. Why did my parents always have to go off on some mysterious mission? Why couldn’t I just have a normal life like everyone else?
Abba stroked his beard. “Zevi, are you comfortable staying here with Jordie Hamil, that Shabbos guest we had last week? He needs a place to stay right now and this way you won’t be all alone. I’ve known his parents for a long time.”
“But, Abba, is he frum? I mean, he didn’t know a lot of stuff.”
“Baruch Hashem, he is learning with Rav Kahan and he knows and keeps a lot. You saw how excited he is about learning when he was here for Shabbos. He is a beginner, but you can help him out if he needs it.”
My parents are always doing kiruv and it’s great and all, but I’m not really so good at it. I think mainly because I’m not so patient like them. And I’m not the outgoing type. I’m just not.
“Okay,” I said, because that was what was expected. I wasn’t really okay with it.
“Rafi will be home for Shabbos, and you can go to Aunt Ellie if you need anything,” Ima said.
I swallowed. “Why do you have to go right away?”
Even as I asked, I knew they wouldn’t tell me. Abba and Ima work for some organization in Israel that is involved with security, and their work is mostly undercover. They don’t talk about it, except once Abba told me that the work that they did was vital for Israel’s safety.
Abba glanced at Ima. “You know we do work that we can’t always discuss, Zevi, but trust us that we have to go. We wouldn’t normally leave you alone like this.”
“Jordie will be here with you,” Ima said. I saw she was trying to smile and erase the worry lines on her forehead.
Jordie was 19, so that meant he was really almost an adult.
“How long will you—”
“It may just be for a week,” Abba said.
“Zevi, do you think you’ll be okay?” Ima asked.
Abba sighed. “Miri, we’ve discussed this. Of course, he will be. He’s a very mature young man. He’s almost 14.”
I appreciated Abba’s confidence. Only, I wished I felt like that.
“When are you leaving?” I asked.
“The flight is very early tomorrow morning,” Abba said. “We have to get packing now. Please set up the extra bed in your room for Jordie.”
I wished the construction in Rafi’s room was done. It would work out much better if he could stay there, but it was still being painted and fixed up. Rafi could sleep in there when he’d come home for Shabbos, but it was way too messy for a guest.
“He’ll be here in an hour or so,” Abba called out, as my parents headed upstairs to pack. I headed up to my room to set up the bed. I really didn’t want a roommate. I like to do things my way, and I like to spend time building my trains and reading. What if he talks a lot?
My room was crowded with LEGO sets spread out, and my electric train set had tracks going all over the place. There really wasn’t room for another person. Unless I only felt that way because I didn’t know Jordie so well. What if he is bossy? What if he doesn’t like air conditioning? I needed it on once June hit, and it was the end of June now. I really wished my older brother, Rafi, were home instead of in his out-of-town yeshivah.
A little while later, Jordie arrived carrying a worn suitcase. I showed him to my room.
“Thanks for having me,” Jordie said to me.
I shrugged.
“Hey, I like electric trains. That looks like an old-fashioned set. Those are the best.”
“My uncle bought it for me. He collects them. When I run it, real steam comes out of the engines.”
“Wow! Can I see?”
I pushed the button and my train rumbled over the track that ran across my room, under my bed and into my closet. The steam came out from the chimney on top of the train, and the train tooted.
“That is really cool!” Jordie said. “Did you ever try building suspension bridges and tunnels?”
“How?” I asked.
“Let me see your set.”
I handed him the box with the extra tracks and gadgets.
He studied the tracks and soon he was building an intricate train track. He ran my train over the new bridge and under the tunnel, and I had to admit it was pretty good.
“How do you know how to do that so well?”
He shrugged. “I’ve done a lot of building.”
He was obviously pretty smart.
“Zevi,” Ima said, as she appeared in the doorway. “Please show Jordie where he can put his things. I hope you made space in the closet and dresser…”
Jordie pulled his clothing out of his beat-up suitcase. There were only a few shirts and pairs of pants and a sweater that looked pretty faded. He unpacked some books. They looked like they’d been read many times. There was an instruction manual for putting together model airplanes and cars. There was also a biography of President Truman and a book of maps.
“Do you have more stuff coming?” I asked.
“No.”
He had such unusual things in his suitcase. That biography was something an older person would read, and he was kind of old for model airplanes.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
He was hanging shirts up and didn’t answer.
“Where are you from?” I asked again, assuming he hadn’t heard me.
There was a beat.
“I’m from Australia.”
“Really? You don’t have an Australian accent. You sound more like you have an Israeli accent.”
“No, no,” he said. His face paled. “I’m from Australia. It’s just we always spoke Hebrew at home.”
While he finished putting his stuff away, I went back downstairs to talk to Ima.
She was in the kitchen, preparing meatballs and spaghetti for dinner.
“Is Jordie really from Australia? He sounds more like he’s from Israel.”
Just then, Abba stepped into the room. He motioned me over and looked me in the eye. “Zevi, listen to me. This is important. Don’t ask about Jordie’s family or where he is from. Don’t say anything about it. It could be dangerous if you do.”
Dangerous? How could it be dangerous for him to reveal information about his family?
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of an historical fiction novel, Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishing, 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers, 2022), A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishing, 2021), Secrets in Disguise (Menucha Publishers, 2020), Denver Dreams (a novel, Jerusalem Publications, 2009), Memorable Characters…Magnificent Stories (Scholastic, 2002), Befriend (Menucha Publishers, 2013), The Road Less Traveled (Feldheim, 2015), fiction serials and features in Binah Magazine and Binyan Magazine, “Moon Song” in Binyan (2021-2022), and Alaskan Gold ( 2023-2024).
