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"Twister! " Pete yelled. "Twister!

I ran for the house.

"Twister!"

He pointed.

I looked over my shoulder. I could see it--a long, black funnel cloud in the west. It pointed from the dark sky right down to our farm.

Pete opened the doors to the storm cellar and beckoned with his straw hat.

"Twister!" he shouted again.

My two brothers ran from the barn. Pete helped my grandmother down the steps.

"Hurry up, boys," she called. Then she said to my mother, "Come on, Beth."

My mother was standing outside the door. She was worried about my daddy.

"Link! Link!" she called. My daddy had been named for a president. "Lincoln!"

"He's in the cornfield," Pete said. "He can't hear you, ma'am."

Still my mother hesitated. The cornfield seemed to be directly under the funnel.

"He'll be all right. He can get in a ditch. You come on now."

She ducked into the cellar, and Pete pulled the doors shut behind her.

The storm cellar was dim and cool. It smelled of potatoes and pickles. My mother kept sacks of root vegetables here along with boxes of eggs and jars of tomatoes.

My brothers and I sat on the dirt floor. My grandmother sat on a pickle barrel and my mother on an orange crate.

We sat for a moment, silent. We listened to the storm and worried about my father in the cornfield.

Something that sounded like gravel was thrown against the cellar doors.

"Hail," my mother said', and bowed her head.

Pete cleared his throat. "You know what this brings to my mind?" he said.

We knew, and my brothers and Iturned to him gratefully. We saw a flash ofteeth as he smiled at us.

"It brings to mind a dog I had one time."

"Tornado," my brothers and I said together.

"How'd you know his name?" he teased. "Yes, I did call my dog Tornado."

Pete settled his straw hat on his head and began. "I remember it was an August day, a whole lot like this one."

At breakfast that morning, I remember my mother looked up from the stove, took a breath, and said, "I smell a storm."

I shivered a little, because my mother's nose was always right.

My daddy said, "Well, you kids better stay close to the house."

The morning went by, slow and scary. We did stay close to the house. Folks didn't call our part of the country Tornado Alley for nothing.

Along about lunch, it hit. Only there was no warning like we had today. No funnel cloud, no nothing. One minute we were eating beans and biscuits at the table. Next there was a roar--worse than a train--worse than a hundred trains. And then there came a terrible tearing sound, like the world was being ripped apart. I can still hear it in my mind.

I looked up, and I saw sky. The ceiling was clean gone. There was the sky! The tornado had torn the roof off the kitchen and left the food on the table and. us in our seats.

My daddy was the first to be able to speak. He said, "Well, I'm surprised to find myself alive."

That was how we all felt. We looked at our arms and legs to make sure they were still hooked on us.

Then my father pushed back his chair and said, "Let's go see the damage."

Outside, the yard was not our yard anymore. The tree with the tire swing was laid flat. The tops of all the pine trees had been snapped off. A doghouse I had never seen before was beside the well. A piece of bicycle was here, the hood of a car there. I stepped over somebody's clothesline that still had some clothes on it.

The roof of the kitchen lay at the edge of the garden. It was folded shut like a book. We walked over there.

"It was about time for a new roof," my daddy said. He always tried to find the good in something.

I was just walking around, looking at other people's things, when I heard a rattling noise.

I kept listening and looking, and finally I realized the sound was coming from that doghouse. I went over to it.

The doghouse was trembling. You could see it. It was trembling. It was shaking. It was doing everything but having a fit.

I looked inside, and there was a big black dog. He was panting so hard, I could feel his breath. He was shaking so hard, the doghouse was in danger of losing its boards.

"Daddy, there's a dog in here!"

My daddy came over.

"Look, Daddy. It's a big black dog."

My daddy leaned down and took a look.

"Well, you can come on out now," he told the dog. "The storm's over, and you're among friends."

The dog just kept shaking.

"Maybe I can pull him out," I said.

"Don't you put your hand in there," my mother said.

"Yes, leave him be, Pete."

All that day, all that night, all the next day that dog shook. I brought him water, but he wouldn't drink. I brought him food, but he wouldn't eat.

Then that night my mother leaned, out the kitchen door and yelled, "Supper!" as she usually did. The dog heard her and stuck his head out of the doghouse. He must have been familiar with the word.

He came out, stood there, looked around for a moment, and then gave one final shake, as if he were shaking off the past. Then he came over and joined us at the back door.

I said, "Daddy, can we keep him? Please?"

"If we don't find the owner."

"Can we call him Tornado?"

"Until we find the owner."

"We'll have to ask around," my mother reminded me.

"I know."

My daddy bent down. "Let's see what kind of manners you got, Tornado. Shake!"

My daddy put out his hand. Tornado put out his paw. They shook like two men striking a bargain.

Then we all went in to supper.