That night, after we got all the dishes cleaned up, I was headed upstairs to go to bed when I heard something…

“Keli…” Someone was calling me. The voice seemed no louder than a whisper,
“Keli…we need you.”

‘What? What do you want?”

Then I heard nothing. The voice was gone. “Weird”, I thought to myself. “I must’ve just imagined it. Everyone else was still downstairs. “Oh well,” I said to myself…. “No bother anyway.”

I went to my room which felt unusually cold tonight. I quickly got dressed in my nightgown and got under the crisp sheets and blankets on my bed.

After I started to warm up a bit, I heard it again…“We need you.”

A little freaked out, I stayed still in the middle of my bed with my arms folded around my chest. My eyes continued to dart about the room in an attempt to bring this voice into some kind of visual clarity. After what seemed like hours, my tossing and turning ceased into a quite slumber until…
Rumble… rumble… rumble… rumble. It was an earthquake! Even though I felt startled at the suddenness of the shaking, I was used to the occasional tremors we often got, living in Southern California. My bed was shaking and hopping at the same time. I gripped my pillow over my head and stayed perfectly still. Well, as still as one can maintain when shaken by an earthquake, that is. It was a long one. Longer than the usual earthquakes we felt.

“Boy…” I thought to myself. “I’ll have to have Mom turn on the news tomorrow to see how big this one was.” No sooner had I thought this, the shaking ceased and the room appeared to grow even darker than the usual night’s sky. I heard a long groaning hiss that seemed to come from within the wall behind my bed. All fell very silent.

“Weird!” I thought to myself, “I never remember hearing that after an earthquake.”

The next morning I awoke to another sunny day. The air was still a little crisp which was a constant reminder that spring was still yet to come. It was March and the rains, in the last few weeks, had magically turned all of the rolling foothills a bright shade of green. In another month or so, there would be speckles of yellow and purple flowers all over the hill that our house sat upon. This, of course, meant that lady bugs and butterflies weren’t too far behind. To a little girl, this was a much sought after time of year. Unfortunately, this also meant that a new assembly of gofers would arrive in Dad’s garden and fruit trees as well.

“Keeeeeeeli…come eeeeeeat,” Mom called in her familiar, high pitched squelch.

Mom always had a way of calling us that was distinct from all other moms, not to mention, she had the ability to cast her high pitched calls, which resembled that of a train whistle, clear across the neighborhoods, surrounding our home. We all can recall that first occasion that another mother, from the neighborhood, was having a hard time locating her son, Joey. Joey and my brother, Bill, often hung out together. Next thing you know, Mom was calling the neighborhood kids home as well.

“Coming, Mom. I’m still making my bed!”

That morning, making the bed was no small task. I must have tossed and turned all over my bed that night. Every sheet and blanket was turned every which way. I was finally able to make some sense of the mess by starting all over again. I stripped the bed but the sheets were far too big for my short arms to reach. I straightened them the best I could (hiding the bunchie parts with decorative pillows and stuffed animals) and ran off to eat my breakfast.

“I’m starved! What kind of cereal do we have?”

“Sorry, Honey. Sammy just finished the last of the ‘Sugar Krispies’ and we don’t have anymore dry cereal down in the storage room. Dad wanted a bowl of hot, cracked wheat cereal so I made an extra bowl for you while I was at it. The other kids have all had their breakfast so, they’re all taken care of. Unfortunately, you took so long making your bed, that it is probably a little cold now. Would you like some raisins and brown sugar? Milk?”

You would think that having had two gross, cold meals in a row would dampen my spirits. But not today, for I just remembered that we had an awesome earthquake last night that would be quite the explosive talk all around school today. Surely nobody was able to sleep through that one!

“Mom! Did you feel the long earthquake in the middle of the night, last night? I wonder what it measured on the Richter scale. Can you turn on the TV so we can listen to the news?” I asked, while downing a large mouthful of cold, gloopy muck with stale raisins and hard lumps of brown sugar.

“Gee, Honey. I don’t recall ever feeling an earthquake. Did anyone else feel an earthquake?”

No one looked up or even bothered to answer with more than a head shake. They were void of any expression at all. They were all concentrated on the remains of their breakfasts. It probably didn’t help much that the TV, on the counter, was tuned into another “Roadrunner” cartoon. Surely they have figured out that the dumb bird gets away every time by now, leaving the coyote, plummeting to his never ending dismay at the bottom of a rocky ravine! It seemed pointless to watch something with such a predictable outcome.

“Sorry Dear. No one seems to have noticed your earthquake,” Mom stated. “Let’s flip to the news to see if the rest of us may have slept through one.”

All eyes in the family were watchful and waiting to hear of some report, if any, about my earthquake. The newsman went through the weather, the traffic reports and a local graffiti-bust that occurred that night but no report of any earthquakes. I was so shocked! Never had the news failed to report an earthquake! Especially such a shaker as that one was! What was wrong with these people!

“Come on, Sammy,” Bill said. “Keli’s quakin’ in her head, that’s all. Better get to school. Sorry, Keli,” he softened, as he flung his backpack over his shoulder.

And, out the door they went. I grabbed my shoes and ran through the door myself. I totally forgot to grab my completed homework and spelling book.

Tripping along the path that led down the field, while attempting to shove my shoes on my feet, I called out, “Bill! Wait for me!”