Book 1 of 5
HAROLD and the HORRIBLE HURRICANE
“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts.
Listen to the never haves then listen close to me...anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
Shel Silverstein
Harold Hufferbluss rarely watched the evening news, not uncommon for an 8-year old boy, but this particular evening he had flipped on the television, plopped down with a bowl of Crunchy-O’s and a glass of cold chocolate milk, picked up the remote control and clicked the power button, but before he could change the channel a meteorologist captured his attention, enthusiastically waving his arms at the weather screen.
“...coming at us from the Southeast at 75 miles per hour,” he was saying, “and expect gusts of up to 90! We’re estimating the storm surge to rise as high as six feet, so you better get your lifeboats and paddles ready people, this storm is gonna be a doozy!” Then he laughed.
Harold could not bring the spoon to his open mouth. It hung there motionless, dripping gobs of milk to his shirt. The image switched to video coverage of a rolling grey ocean and choppy whitecaps. Ominous clouds filled the sky and wind gusted across the beach, kicking up sand and debris. The meteorologist’s voice continued off screen.
“Landfall is expected sometime after 2am. It might not look too bad now, folks, but just wait until later. Again, we advise you to batten down the hatches, as they say in ship-speak, and stock up on extra food and water. That’s right, Hurricane Hector is gonna be one HECK of a storm...”
Harold dropped the spoon, his eyes saucer wide. A hurricane was coming? A monster hurricane? Why didn’t his parents tell him? Maybe they didn’t even KNOW yet!
“Mom! Dad! Mooooommmm! Daaaddddd!”
He hurled himself into the kitchen... no one was there. He dashed to the dining room...no one there either. He sprinted upstairs to the master bedroom...nobody. Had the hurricane already gotten them? He was too late! He stumbled back down into the hallway and nearly crashed into his mother and father who had entered from the back deck, potting soil and gloves in their hands.
“Harold, what’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet.”
“Hurricane! HURR-I-CANE! Coming now! It’s big, big, BIG! The weatherman said so, and we have to escape! Now! Come on!” He tried dragging their hands toward the door but his parents gently resisted. Smiling, his father knelt down and held his shoulders.
“Hey, Harold, Harold, you’re overreacting, buddy. We know there’s a storm coming, it’s fine. Your mother and I have been through plenty, it’s not that big, and we’re far enough inland that it’s not a huge deal. Don’t worry about it. Just trust us, we’ll take care of you.”
His mother chuckled. “Maybe he shouldn’t be watching the news. Puts too many ideas in his head. You’ll have bad dreams.” She ruffled his hair.
“I will not!”
Harold glared at them. They smiled back, seemingly oblivious to the doom gathering outside their front yard. He wanted to argue (he actually liked arguing), but they walked away, chatting about the garden and flowers and rainfall expectations. On TV the meteorologist had left too, replaced by the sports guy talking about boring baseball, and he didn’t seem to care about the hurricane either. But how could he not care? It was a superdeathstorm and IT WAS COMING.
Dinner at the table that night was difficult for Harold. His mother made fishsticks, but Harold wasn’t a huge fan and listlessly poked them in the ketchup. Then he built a fishstick fort. He could see the wind and grey skies outside, and already he heard the house creaking as the storm blew closer and closer. He wondered if their home would get uprooted and float away to Oz the way Dorothy’s house had spun off in a tornado. Could you even reach Oz by boat? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to find out.
After dinner his parents watched the weather forecast (they loved watching the weather), and again, the gloomy news horrified Harold. The meteorologist repeated his prediction of high winds, heavy rain and inevitable, inescapable, indescribable widespread destruction. He didn’t actually say those last parts, but Harold knew he was thinking it.
“See?” said Harold. “It’s right off the coast and heading straight for us. Aren’t you scared? I’m scared. I’m like...super really scared!”
His mother wrapped her arms around him. “Harold, honey, there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a big storm, that’s all. It will come and go like all other storms.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be watching the news after all,” added his father, and he clicked the TV off.
“Wait, wait, no!” cried Harold. “Turn it on! Then how will we know when it’s here? We have to watch it! We have to know!”
“I don’t think so,” said his Dad, and he scooped Harold up and tickled his belly, and although this did make Harold laugh, it did not make him forget that somewhere out there in the evening shadows where the wind gusted stronger and louder, and the trees were bent over like stooped old men, something big and black and powerful swirled on the horizon...
That night his father read him a bedtime story and tucked him in.
“But what about the hurricane, Dad? I’m still scared. It’s going to come and wash us away, isn’t it?”
“No it’s not. You’re worrying too much, son. Really.”
His father kissed his forehead and turned off the light. Harold pulled the covers up to his nose. Outside he heard the wind moaning. He thought he could hear the waves too, crashing on the shoreline like a foamy marching band. Raindrops pelted the windows and strummed on the roof, and it was that repetitive drone that finally--eventually--lulled him into a restless slumber.
****
The next morning Harold found himself sitting on the beach building a sandcastle. The sky was dark and misting, but definitely not the downpour from last night. He had an array of colored buckets around him and a plastic shovel, and he had already built the guardhouse, the moat, the king’s palace and worked on digging a dungeon where he would keep political prisoners, the action figures reserved at his side in a plastic sandwich bag.
But something wasn’t right.
He looked up the beach but didn’t see anyone. He looked down the beach but didn’t see anyone. He expected his parents to be nearby, maybe propped under an umbrella. Waves and foam surged closer to his sandcastle estate. The wind picked up and he felt a twinge of discomfort. Yes, something was definitely wrong...
nd then somewhere in the distance, further inland, he heard a sound: the wail of an emergency siren.
Harold stood up, his heart pounding. The siren grew louder, one long, continuous shriek that made his teeth rattle, the kind of siren one might hear before an air raid strike. He suddenly noticed just how DARK the clouds looked, and just how CHOPPY the ocean was, and how the rain was falling harder and destroying his sandcastle. There was still no one else on the beach, and with horrifying clarity, Harold realized that he was the ONLY PERSON LEFT, he was completely alone...
...and Hurricane Hector had arrived.
“Oh, no no no this is bad! This couldn’t be any worse!”
But then...it did get worse.
The wind whipped his hair back, howling around him like a banshee. The clouds grew darker, meaner, and waves smashed to the shore like white boulders. Harold staggered against the wind, shielding his eyes, but nonetheless mesmerized by what was happening out at sea, even though it filled his stomach with knots. Out there the clouds swirled and lightning streaked blue and hot white, and then three small waterspouts appeared.
The miniature tornadoes elongated, and within seconds they had become three enormous waterspouts, sucking up water from the ocean like industrial vacuum machines.
“Aw, nooooo,” moaned Harold. “Now I don’t think this could get any worse.”
But then...it did.
One spout surged closer than the others, just a few dozen yards from the shoreline, and in the swirling mass Harold could see hundreds and hundreds of squishy bodies spinning around like clothes in a washing machine. This wasn’t just any normal tornado...this was a rare, one-of-a-kind, run-n-hide.... squidnado!
Maybe even thousands of squirming squids filled the spout, beaks snapping and arms flailing, and they spiraled higher and higher, spinning a million miles an hour, and one suddenly flew out and slapped Harold across the face!
“Oh, gross!” said Harold. He didn’t like seafood much anyway, and there was a LOT of seafood in the spout. “Now, this really, truly can’t get any worse.”
But then…it sure did.
The squidnado rejoined its playmates as Harold retreated to the base of the dunes. Huge waves crashed in, and then one of the biggest he had ever seen formed out in the deep. Harold gasped and climbed for higher ground. The monster wave washed in, but it was filled with big black spots, and the closer it rolled the more black shapes Harold could see, and then he saw the fins...and the tails...and finally the teeth, and he realized this wasn’t just a normal tsunami wave...this was a super-terrible, shark-infested, pee-your-pants, why-am-I-still-here – TSHARKnami!
This was the worst kind of wave possible, one chock full of ravenous sharks. They were chomping and thrashing, every kind of shark imaginable (and every one he’d seen on Shark Week) all combined into a gnashing wall of teeth and tails and terror, and it slammed to the shoreline, spewing the smaller sharks forth where they flipped and flopped, but the larger ones were pulled back into the water, probably, Harold reasoned, to prepare for another attack. He was glad to be up on the sand dune, but even that might not be high enough.
“I can’t believe this!” What in the world is worse than a tsharknami? Now this really, truly, honestly, absolutely could not get any worse!”
But then...it really, truly did.
The rain fell harder and harder, and the wind suddenly gusted with such force that Harold was whisked off his feet. He rolled down the dunes like a tumbleweed, sand stinging in his eyes and salty grit in mouth. He bumped to a stop against a tree, just in time to see the clouds unleash one more monstrosity -- thousands of angular shapes that plunged from the sky like silvery torpedoes. This Hurricane Hector was not just any hurricane, not just high winds and high water and squidnadoes and tsharknamis...and even if you DID get away from the shore, even if you DID run inland, even if you DID hide and cower, even if you COULD swim away, it was now raining....barracudas.
“A barricudacane? REALLY?”
That’s right, big sharp-fanged fish were falling all over the place with wet splashes, wriggling and gnashing and gnawing. Harold jumped up and ran, dodging left, dodging right, leaping and sliding and diving over pools of ugly monster fish.
He flung open the door of a beach cottage and slammed it shut behind him. The cottage creaked in the wind. Wooden shutters rattled and flew off like broken twigs. Roof shingles rattled and took flight like little square birds. The windows shuddered in their frames and then cracked open, rain pelting inside. Barracudas thumped and flopped on the roof.
“Now I really, REALLY hate seafood!” he screamed.
The cottage was falling apart. Harold flung himself into a closet and pulled the coats down over his head. “Somebody help me!” he cried. “MOM! DAD! Where are you? HELP!”
A big wave hit the house, and Harold knew it was a particularly nasty shark wave, and behind it lurked the squidnado, ready to suck him into the sky, and while up there he’d be swirling around with hungry barracudas eyeball to eyeball. There was nowhere safe, not on land, sea or air, for Hurricane Hector had eliminated all routes of escape.
The house shook again and he heard glass shattering as waves poured through a window. The front door buckled, crushed by debris. The side porch crumbled. Chilly water flooded under the crack of the closet door, and the next thing Harold knew, another huge wave pounded into the room and knocked down his door and even the closet wall! He was outside again and flailing in water up to his neck.
Fortunately, Harold could swim. He paddled hard, and right about then a small dinghy drifted by, its anchor rope snapped. Harold latched on and pulled himself into the boat. And none too soon because a big shark shadow glided by. Water filled the bottom of the dinghy, and a barracuda and jellyfish and squid were already there, but Harold, disgusted, scooped them out with the oar.
He started rowing, not even sure where he was going, just so long as it was AWAY from the ocean! But the ocean was all around him. It had flooded the whole beach, washed into the streets, drowned the cottages, and floated away cars and mailboxes and doghouses. In fact, a dismal looking dog drifted by on a broken door, with a cat clinging to the dog’s back, and a horrified hamster on the cat’s shoulders, and a mortified mouse on the hamster’s head, stacked one atop the other like the layers of a cake!
He saw fins all around the dinghy, circling and circling, and the thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flashed so bright it made his eyes ache, and the little boat heaved and teetered. He rocked unsteadily back and forth, knowing that the little dinghy would sink soon enough, or get sucked up by spout or shredded by shark, and he didn’t know how long he could keep going until...until, until,
until...
...right until he sat up in bed.
Harold didn’t move. Dawn had arrived but it was still drizzling. He went to the window and looked out. There were fallen tree branches everywhere and pools of water and toppled trashcans, but there were no snapping sharks or squirming squids or biting barracudas.
Harold breathed out slowly.
“It was just a dream,” he murmured. “Just a stupid, stupid, scary dream.”
He marched downstairs and heard the meteorologist talking in the living room. His parents were already there, hot coffee cups in their hands.
“Hey, big guy,” said his father, looking over at him. “See, we’re all still alive.” He smiled.
“Did you have bad dreams, honey?” asked his mother. “You look a little frazzled.”
“Hmm,” said Harold. He was thinking of how to answer. “Uh, yeah. I guess you could say that.” He poured himself a big bowl of Crunchy-O’s and cold milk and brought it to the living room and sat on the couch beside his parents. The weatherman was pointing at the map and the swirling Doppler image of Hurricane Hector.
“Certainly not as bad as it could have been,” the weatherman continued. “The eye of the storm veered further north and stayed at sea, so we’re certainly lucky for that. On the other hand we do have some power outages in the following counties...”
Harold looked at his father. “Dad...is there such thing as a tsharknami?”
His father frowned. “A...a what?”
“You know, like a tsunami, that big wave, but instead of just water...it’s filled with sharks.”
His father laughed. “Oh my goodness, not at all, Harold. Did you dream about that? Oh no, there is no such thing as a tsharknami.”
“Or a squidnado?”
“No, not a squidnado either.”
“Hmm. Good.”
Harold brought the spoonful of cereal to his mouth and munched on it thoughtfully.
He was glad there was no such thing as the hurricane he had dreamed about. A regular hurricane was bad enough!
The meteorologist smiled reassuringly, as if he had just shared the best news possible, but then said, “In other world weather-related news, there is a catastrophic volcano brewing in the Indian Ocean. Tens of thousands have been evacuated from neighboring cities, and there is already a plume of deadly ash rising nearly a mile into the sky with a projected fallout radius covering at least-”
His father flipped off the television. Harold had been about to eat a second bite of cereal, but the windowed video clip of a mountain spewing geysers of scalding hot red lava halted him. He glanced sideways at his Dad.
“Ah...I don’t think you need to be seeing anything about volcanoes right now, son. How about you and I go read a book instead? Something...funny.”
Harold finished the spoonful of cereal and chewed, grinning. He did not argue. Secretly, he wondered if there was such a thing as a sharkano, but he could live just fine without ever knowing. And as far as reading something funny...this time he thought his Dad was absolutely right.
THE END
Continued in:
Book 2 – Harold and the Dogs of Doom
Book 3 - Harold and the Ghost From Space
Book 4 - Harold and the Hufferbluss Ruckus
Book 5 - Harold and the Smoke Dragon of Mars