Chapter Twenty-Eight

Levi

Between the two of them, Levi and Tess were able to get the teacher up to the roof. Then Levi clambered up after her, shutting the hatch door.

So far, they’d met every challenge.

Everyone was cold, wet, and tired, but everyone was alive.

Levi did a quick head count to make sure that was true.

Pulling the cans of white spray paint from one of the boxes he’d sent up. On one side of the black roof, he painted V/16, and on the other side of the roof, X/1. It was an international code that, when seen from the air, would be read as, “Sixteen people need help, and for one, it was a medical emergency.” With that, rescuers would know how to proceed.

Hopefully, this information would stay current.

The water pounded down like it was Armageddon.

The children had climbed under the tarp, sitting in a circle around the teacher, who lay in a fetal position. The lightweight plastic could keep the rain off them and not fatigue their arms as they held it over their heads.

They may need that energy later.

Even with that many little hands holding the tarp in place, the wind could easily snatch it from them. A rope threaded through a corner grommet was attached to the stove pipe. That had to be Tess’s foresight at work.

Levi pulled a dry bag from his kit and handed it off to Tess. Then he pulled another for himself. They opened them and put their day packs inside. He assumed everything inside was already damp, but that wasn’t the only point of these dry bags. Tugging the mouth wide, Levi swung the bag through the air to fill it before rolling the top. This way, their survival gear should stay watertight and could possibly float. The neon orange might signal someone as they moved about the roof.

As soon as the bag was in place across her chest, Tess grabbed his arm. Her eyes were wide and rigid. “Levi, we're floating.”

He stopped his chores and held his hands wide. Sure enough, the building bobbled.

“Velocity and debris,” her words barely whispered past the wind. “This is a cement building.” She stared out at the water as it rushed around them. Then, seeking out his gaze, she leaned in so her words weren’t whipped away by the wind or drowned in the deluge. “Parts of the school were sealed with paint, but this building is cement blocks. It will absorb the water. We’re going to sink.”

Levi reached for his binoculars to see if there was a possibility for escape up ahead. But nothing sprang into view.

How was it that he and Tess had been apart for so long, and as soon as they found each other, they were put into one life-or-death scenario after another?

As the school bobbled in the water, the children screamed and clung to the edge of the tarp. The teacher, still stunned by the blow to her head and near-drowning, could do nothing to calm her students.

Tess grabbed two of the jugs and squat-walked to the edge of the roof. She opened the top and poured the contents into the flood waters. After recapping the empty jug, she moved to the next.

“Get away from the edge,” Levi called. “The rapids can tip you in. “

“I have to do this here. The contents are caustic.”

But with a nod to safety, she lifted the rope, still attached to the stove pipe, and knotted it around her waist.

Levi made his way to her, bringing three jugs in each hand.

“I counted,” Tess said. “You all did a great job finding this many. I think we have two for each child, three each for us adults, and one for Mojo.”

“You’re making floatation devices?” Levi wrapped his legs around the stove pipe and crossed his ankles, and then he joined Tess, emptying bottles. “Is this a theory, or have you seen this work before?”

“We did this once when it was rainy season. For months, at that point, we had been playing hide and seek in our survival game. Well, for us, it was hide. The tribesmen did the seeking. We were living in a flood zone, hidden in the grasses. We had been doing all right finding food there. The bark and the fruit from the trees and bushes. But this huge rainstorm came up. It was very similar to this. Abraham took the gallon jugs we used to store fresh water and emptied them. Mama Ya was screaming at him that was all the water we’d been collecting. He ignored her. Then, using ropes, he tied the jugs together for each of us. I didn't know how to swim. Because of the wild animals in Ghana, it wasn't safe to get into natural waters. And there were no swimming pools where I was.” As she spoke, she took the spool of thick cotton roping, cut off a length with her knife, then configured a life preserver,

“So the construction that you're tying, that’s how Abraham did it?

“To the best of my memory, yes.”

“And you survived the flood, obviously. Was the water as roiling and difficult as this flood?”

“I was nine years old. I remember being in the water. I remember having jugs on my chest and the rope running under my armpits and between my legs, keeping everything snug. I remember clinging to the handles to save my life, lifting my chin over the swells of the flash flood. I remember that Abraham had jugs on his chest, too, and that we made a line, Abraham, then me, then Mama Ya, then Moses, all floating along, all locking arms. Abraham yelled for us to kick. I didn't know how to kick, but I tried my best. As I kicked, there were things in the water—animals, tree limbs. Eventually, I remember that Abrahan shoved me onto a branch of a tree. He tied me in place so I could rest for a while. And after that, I don't remember how we got out of the flood. I don't know how long I was in the tree. But Abraham's creative thinking gave me a shot at survival. And I don't know how else to protect these children.”

“It's a good idea, Tess. It's a very good idea. But this mess is like white water rapids.”

“If they can keep air in their lungs, they can survive. I want to give them at least a chance. Look, their teacher is sitting up again. That’ll give them hope.”

“She really needs to see a doctor and get to the hospital so they can take a look at her lungs. The amount of muddy water that poured out of her was crazy.”

“She was drowning?”

Yeah, Levi hadn’t had time to catch Tess up, and he could see the incredulity in her eyes. “A few rounds of CPR, and she woke up. Right now, she seems fine. But a near-drowning always needs a doctor.”

“I didn’t know that. Why?” she asked as her hands busily worked.

“Secondary drownings happen when there’s water in the lungs, and there isn’t the proper exchange of oxygen.”

“How soon can that happen?” Tess hadn’t stopped her pouring and capping, knotting and tying. Every two jugs, she signaled a child to her. “How fast do you have to get them to a hospital?”

The wind whipped away her question, but Levi was good at reading lips. “Fast, a couple hours is the most I’d give it.”

“As if we have any control.”

“Surviving the fight means you can stay in the battle. We need to keep racking up the wins.” He lifted an empty jug. “This is the last of them.”

As Tess stood up to tie her flotation device into place, the corner of the school dropped to the side.

The children released the tarp and grabbed at each other as they slid.

Levi, pressing his foot against the stove pipe, got his hand around one of their legs. As long as the children could keep a good grip on each other, they might be able to stay on the roof.

Tess screamed, “Hold on. Hold on to each other.”

But one of the little ones slipped by.

Tess scrambled after her, yelling, “Mojo!”

Mojo leaped toward the child as Tess doubled over with both hands and feet on the roof, bear-crawling her way as fast as she could.

Levi couldn’t release the children until the school righted itself—if the school ever did right itself.

The child slid over the side.

Mojo too.

And all Levi could see of Tess was her bottom and legs as she bent over the roof's edge.

Another wave righted the floating school, and Levi released the child’s leg as he followed Tess’s lead and bear-crawled to her side. Draping his weight over her thighs to give her added weight, he peered over the edge.

Tess had shoved her hand through the handle on the back of Mojo’s tactical vest.

Mojo was dangling off the side of the school. The child was in the water, clutching the handles of the floatation jugs.

Mojo held the rope from the child’s make-do life vest in his teeth.

Bracing one hand on the lip that formed the roof's tray top, Levi prayed the decorative embellishment would hold.

Calling, “Good boy, Mojo. Hold,” Levi saw the determination of the locked jaw and bulging muscles of Mojo’s jowl.

Levi had no idea how they were going to get out of this. Tess couldn’t release Mojo because there wasn’t enough space on the handle for their hands to grip side by side.

With a single hand, Tess held about a hundred and twenty pounds between the child and Mojo’s weight.

While Levi could wrap his hand around hers, moving a good amount of that weight to his own shoulders, bunching up like that meant that if the building tipped again, the child, Mojo, Tess, and he would end up in the flash flood waters.

As the school bobbled and shimmied, the water crept up the sides. All Levi could do at that moment was hold on. This felt very much like the rodeos when he had been a teen riding a bucking bronco.

Tess was taking the brunt of this. The roof apron was grinding into her hips.

“Tess, here we go. I’m going to lift my body. You need to slither backward. Every inch is a win. You can do it.” He bent his arm to give her limbs the slack it needed for her to move.

If the school popped and slammed the way it had been, and she was between joints, she could easily break her arm.

Losing her limb capacity could be the difference between surviving or not. It was up to him to keep the weight off her so she was safe. “Keep going, Tess. Get the edge at the crook of your elbow.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.” Once she was there, Levi wished he could reach for the child and fling him up onto the roof. But his grip and body position wouldn’t allow it.

“Okay, Tess, on the count of three, you’re going to move to get your hand on this side of the apron. One. Two. Three.” He lifted his weight onto his toes into a plank. One hand on the apron, the other lifting the rescue.

“I can’t. I … my body won’t move that way. You’re still too heavy.” But then she yelled her surprise. Levi felt her sliding toward the center of the roof.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure the new angle of the school wasn’t making Tess slide over the other side, he saw that the children had Tess by the legs and were heaving her backward, their bare heels pressing into the gravel as they scrambled.

The child in the water hugged the empty bottles to himself. It was his one possible lifeline should the grips of strangers fail him.

As Tess slid to the center, Levi dragged Mojo over the edge, the rope still tight in his teeth. “Hold Mojo, good boy! Good boy! Hold!” Levi released Mojo’s handle, reached for the child’s elbow, and flung the boy back onto the roof.

Still clinging to the jug handles, the child scrambled into the circle, where the other students surrounded him protectively, petting and patting him to calm his nerves, his eyes wide and unblinking.

Levi looked over to see blood flowing from the grazes on Tess’s legs. There was no point in first aid. Everything was wet.

For the moment, though, the rain had stopped.

Would it hold?

There was nothing else to prepare. There was no action to take other than to keep an eye out for some possible point of safety up ahead.

So far, miraculously, they’d stayed afloat.

Levi had been on boats that hadn’t traveled as fast as this schoolhouse had.

Tess’s assessment at the very beginning was accurate. The cement that was sealed with paint might be what allowed this structure to be so buoyant. But in short order, the unpainted cement would absorb too much water, and it would sink.

With nothing else to do to secure the roof, this was the part of the fight that Levi always hated—hunkering down.

That was when his life didn’t exactly flash before his eyes, but it was certainly a time for introspection. Possibly even some self-condemnation. If this was the end of his life, had he spent his time wisely? Was he doing what he could to add something good to the world?

On the battlefield, those questions centered around Tess.

Levi beat himself bloody, trying to figure out what he might have done that would drive Tess into Abraham’s arms.

And now, after last night, he had closure. They were able to love each other again.

It had felt like a miracle to have her in his life again.

But then today happened.

And though this was a reprieve of sorts, they hadn’t survived the day yet.