This morning I found my sister’s little pink radio hidden in a shoebox under Momma’s bed. I was looking for Momma’s old walking stick. I thought I might need it if that snake I seen laying on the porch decided to come inside. I don’t like snakes, ’specially them black ones with the big white mouths. Anyway, I turned the radio on looking for some music but all I could find was a couple places what had people talking. I listened for a while just so I could hear somebody else talk besides me. But when them people kept saying it was a crisis and everybody should leave, well, I got mad and turned the thing off.

Leave? That’s some kind of crazy talk. I don’t care what them people say, I ain’t leaving and they can’t make me. Oh, I guess they could if they could find me, them being bigger than me and all. But that’s why I ain’t going out, at least not unless I have to. I hardly even look out the window except when I hear one of them helicopters fly over real low with the wind whipping the roof like it’s going to blow the shingles off, if they’re even any shingles left after that hurricane hit.

As far as I know I’m the only one left on this block, except for Mr. Perry, my next-door neighbor. But he’s dead so he don’t count. I think it was two days ago when one of them helicopters flew over the house and I ran to the front window to look at it. When I couldn’t see anything out the front, I ran to the side. But all I saw from there was Mr. Perry sitting on the couch in his living room with what looked to me like a newspaper or a magazine on his lap.

I thought it was kind of odd the way he didn’t move, ’specially with all them flies crawling over his face. If it had been me I’d at least have rolled up some of that newspaper and chased them nasty little things away. But I figured what with Mr. Perry being so old and all it was just easier for him to sit there and let them flies have their fun. It wasn’t until the next day when Mr. Perry still hadn’t moved that I decided he was dead: not even Mr. Perry would swell up like he did unless he had died.

Anyway, ain’t nobody here but me so I don’t got to worry too much about being tattle-tailed on. Momma made me leave once already. That was after the hurricane. By then the streets and most everything else had filled up with water, and Momma said if we were going to die it wouldn’t be without a fight. So she rounded my brothers and sister and me up and started us for the door. I said I’d just stay at the house and look after Jimmy, my pet turtle. But what with me being the youngest Momma said she didn’t want to hear any talk like that. On the way out she turned Jimmy loose on the front porch and promised he’d be OK. I knew I’d be OK, too, but only if I could sneak back to the house.

After Momma let Jimmy loose we stood on the porch for a few minutes while she looked up and down the street, or at least the water in the street because that’s all there was. Finally, she turned half around and told all of us to hold hands and to come with her. “Stay strong,” she said as we locked hands, “And whatever you do, don’t let go. Just hold on tight.” It was easy to see the worry in her face, and I could tell she was scared by the way she kept looking back at us like something in that water was going to steal us away. But even though Momma was scared, I never got scared at all. Even when we had to walk through water that was nearly to my armpits. Though after a while, between the smell of what Momma called sewage and the water what looked more like something you’d find at the bottom of a garbage can after a hard rain than plain old canal water, I almost threw up. But I didn’t. I was proud of myself for that.

Anyway, we walked for what I figured was maybe a half hour and had nearly made it to where we all go to school when Danny, my oldest brother, he’s twelve, pointed across the street and said, “Hey, ain’t that Harold Meyers?” I looked over to where Danny was pointing and saw the overalls and the tennis shoes with holes in them and the backwards-brown hat and that old red rag Harold always carried in his back pocket. He was face down in the water so we couldn’t see much but his clothes and that piece of rope wrapped around his waist and tied to a stop sign. But it looked enough like him that I said, “Yeah, that’s him.”

I didn’t like Harold. He always threw rocks at me. One time he punched me in the head because he said I was staring at him. So it didn’t bother me none that he was dead. I just figured that’s how God punished mean people. But then I remembered how that little Vickers girl got run over by a car and she wasn’t even old enough to know how to be mean. So I got to thinking that maybe God makes mistakes sometimes, like Santa Claus made a mistake last Christmas. That’s why I had to sneak back to the house, because Momma promised me that Santa would never make the same mistake twice.

See, all I wanted for Christmas last year was one single thing: that silver and blue Stingray bike I saw on TV. Momma curled her lip when I told her about it. She said Santa was real busy what with it being so close to Christmas and all. She said, “How about a puzzle instead, and maybe a few coloring books and some new crayons and whatnot?” But I said, “No, just the bike will be enough.” I thought I could count on Santa. I thought if I asked for just one single thing that surely Santa wouldn’t let me down. But he did.

Momma said, “Don’t blame Santa.” She said sometimes them last-minute orders get mixed up what with all the other things he’s got to remember. Then she said I should just enjoy what I got, promising that it’d be different this time around. Momma is most always right. Still, I figured it wouldn’t hurt none if I wrote Santa a letter every week and put our address and a map to our house inside it. So that’s what I did. I wrote, “Dear Santa, please don’t get me mixed up with somebody else this year. Just bring me that silver and blue Stingray bike you forgot about last Christmas. That’s all I want. Thank you. Your friend, Gerald.”

Then I took the coloring crayons Santa gave me and drew a map with an X on it to show him where our house was. After I colored it in real nice, I wrote our address on it then put it in an envelope and mailed it.

I figure I’ve sent Santa maybe twenty letters so far. So how would it look if he comes by here on Christmas and there ain’t nobody home? Ain’t nothing on the whole block but some empty houses and stinking water and Mr. Perry sitting dead in his living room? Santa won’t like that. He’ll think we all just up and forgot about him. And then it’ll be another year without a Stingray bike.

What I hate most about all this is that by now Momma knows I’m missing and I’m sure she’s awful sad. I just hope that every time she closes her eyes she don’t see a picture of me floating in the water like Harold Meyers. That’d make me sad, too. But then I think how happy she’ll be when I catch up to all of them and she sees me ride up on my new Stingray bike. I know she’ll forgive me then.

So anyway, when I saw some people coming down the street on one of them boats what has an airplane propeller on the back of it, I knew that would be my chance to get away. I waited until the boat was right next to us and the wind blowing out the back of it made all of us let go of our hands so we could cover our faces; I don’t think any of us wanted to get sewage water blowed into our mouths. We were standing next to a hardware store what had all the windows broke out. And soon as I felt my hands go free I got inside the store real quick and went all the way to the back where there was a door what let out into an alley. From there it was easy to find my way home.

So here I am. I know it’s still a long ways off till Christmas but I ain’t too worried about it. What with everybody on this whole block gone it won’t be hard to find food and maybe even some soda, too. All I have to do is watch out for them people on the radio who keep telling everybody to leave, but I ain’t worried none about them neither because as long as I stay out of sight I figure everything will be OK. Besides, if they don’t even care enough to come get poor old dead Mr. Perry—what with him being a grown up and all—why would they bother with a little kid like me?