Children of the Storm

of thing, not forever but for as long as it takes Greta to pass through.”
        “I hope you're right.”
        “I am.”
        She said, uneasily, “It's now that you expected something to happen-to the kids.”
        “They're not safe in the storm cellar yet,” he said, watching the two cheerful youngsters as they chattered at Bess Dalton, pulling their jeans and shirts on over their pajamas. “But I think I might have been wrong. I hope I was. If we can just get through this storm, until there's a chance of help getting here from the mainland-”
        Henry Dalton and Leroy Mills began to remove blankets from a closet near the storm cellar door, and then transferred these bulky items into that small, concrete room.
        “What are those for?” Sonya asked.
        Peterson said, “If our generator gets knocked out and there isn't any power for the auxiliary heaters, it can get chilly in a damp, concrete room -even in the tropics.”
        Sonya wondered how the kids, who had twice before gone through this, could still look upon it as a valuable and exciting experience, and she wished she had a little of their verve.
        “Sonya?” Helga called, from the table in the center of the room, surrounded by containers of food and the makings for sandwiches.
        “Yes?”
        “Would you help me make some sandwiches and get food ready? We don't want to have to come out of there more than's necessary.” She nodded toward the cellar.
        “Sure,” she said, getting up. “I'm sorry I didn't think to offer help. I guess I'm not myself.”
        “Nor are the rest of us,” Helga said. She had rarely been so talkative. Now, as if realizing her sudden volubility, she silently set to buttering and mustarding slices of bread.
        Bill Peterson came over and helped the two women until, in ten minutes or so, the sandwiches had all been made, the fruit and pastries and other foodstuffs packed into several cardboard boxes which he carried into the concrete bunker. He passed Helga as he came back from his last trip, offered to take the final carton she held, and was amused when she refused. “I'm done out here,” she said. “I'm not coming out again until the sun shines.” She scurried away from the roar of the wind and rain which had picked up noticeably in the last five minutes.
        Besides themselves, only Bess, Rudolph and the children remained in the kitchen and, in a moment, Rudolph went off with the youngsters, down the main hall toward the stairs.
        “Kids!” Bess said.
        “Where's he taking them?” Sonya asked.
        “They were all for the big adventure, tough little warriors and all that. Now, when it comes right down to it, they want all their pacifiers to keep from bawling their heads off.”
        “Pacifiers?”
        “Rudolph had to take them to their room to get their favorite stuffed animals and their games.”
        Sonya smiled. “That makes me feel better. I hated to see the kids being more courageous than me.”
        “And than me,” Bess said.
        Something large and solid was blown against the back door of the mansion, made a booming sound like a cannon.
        “Probably one less palm tree standing in the woods,” Bess said.
        Surprised, Sonya said, “I knew the wind could uproot them-but I didn't know it could blow them around like twigs.”
        “Oh, easy, easy!” Bess said. “And before it sweeps through here and blows me away like a twig, I'm heading for the cellar.” She scuttled across the kitchen and through the heavy, white door.
        As soon as she was out of sight, Bill said, “I don't like this at all.”
        “What?”
        “The kids upstairs at a time like this,” he said, his face a mask of concern.
        “Rudolph's with them.”
        “That doesn't make me feel better.”
        “Everyone's in the cellar, otherwise,” she said. “No one else is upstairs with them.”
        “Blenwell might be.”
        She wanted desperately to prove his fears were foolish. “How could Blenwell have gotten into the house? It's locked up like a drum, with all the downstairs windows shuttered.”
        “He could have a door key.”
        “How would he get it?”
        “How did he, evidently, get one to the New Jersey house?” Bill asked. He took hold of her hands. “Go to the cellar with the others.”
        “Where are you going?”
        “Upstairs. Blenwell could surprise