Storm Read Online Free Page B

the boys by dinner!”
    Andrea was caught off guard as her mom suddenly hooked her arm in hers as they continued on the trail. It felt good, though, so she wasn’t about to mess it up with any more questions.
    As they continued on, the mud became something they could no longer dodge, and their legs and shoes were heavy with the goo.
    “I didn’t expect it to be this wet,” her mom said suddenly. “It was so nice when we started out. How did it get chilly so quickly?”
    The trail turned slippery, making their way up even more difficult. Andrea suddenly felt uneasy.
    “Do you think we should turn back?”
    “Let’s keep going,” her mom said between breaths as they struggled on up the steep, slippery trail. “It can’t be that much farther.”
    A turn in the footpath, and the falls came into view—still several miles away but close enough to spur the hikers on.
    The last two miles turned out to be almost treacherous; each time the trail switched over the stream, crossing became harder. The force of the water almost knocked them over. A light rain began to dribble down through the canopy of trees and onto the hikers. Fear coursed through Andrea with almost as much force as the stream. But she pushed ahead, unwilling to admit her fears to her mother.
    Finally, they heard the deep steady roar of water. As they stepped into a clearing, they saw the cascading white water, powerfully hurling down hundreds of feet of cliff.
    They smiled at each other, and for the next twenty minutes under a thick umbrella of trees, everything seemed okay again. They ate a late lunch that Andrea’s mom had packed. Andrea even waded into the shallow side of the large pond beneath the falls for her mom to snap some photos—and then they decided to head back.
    Easier said than done,
Andrea thought, trudging through the rain until they came to the edgeof the stream that ran across the trail. The same stream that they had crossed to get to the falls was now a lot deeper.
    “We need to hurry,” her mom said suddenly, and Andrea glanced over. Her mom trudged on through the water, giving her no further explanation. She didn’t need to, Andrea thought, as she noticed the water level rising with each stream they crossed.
    The last stream they hit had become a raging torrent of water. Andrea saw the beads of sweat on her mom’s brow, and she knew they were in trouble.
    “Mom?”
    She followed her mom’s gaze, knowing she was looking for another way across for them — and then felt a massive chill run over her as her mom stopped and studied a narrow little trail that seemed to hang over the side of the cliff.
    Oh, no way!
Andrea thought just as her mom said, “Let’s try that trail.”
    The narrow little goat trail did seem the way out at first, but after the second hair-pin turn, they were forced to drop down on all fours, and shortly after that, the trail hit a dead end. They both glanced behind them; the way back looked impossible to manage. The trail was too narrow to turn around on, and neither of them felt comfortable going backward.
    Andrea followed her mom’s eyes as she studied what looked like another trail high above them,and she felt whatever strength she had left whoosh out of her.
    “Andrea, you stay put. I’m going to see if there’s a way out up there. If there is, then I’ll help you get up to it too.”
    Andrea merely nodded, too cold and scared to argue. Instead, she plastered herself to the face of the cliff as her mom began to climb.
    Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, she heard a dribble of rock skittering down the face of the cliff and looked up to see her mom on a ledge that jutted out above her. It was getting dark— harder to see—but she was sure that her mom looked like she had been crying.
    “Andrea, it’s going to take me awhile to get out of this.” Her mom said this with such a forced calmness to her voice that it scared Andrea even more. “Just hang on.”
    “All right,” Andrea called out