Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16 TWO MONTHS LATER SUNDAY, JULY 20, 1980 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Jess was cleaning up her room. She checked the clock. Ten o'clock. Better hurry.,

She and Mom were having visitors today, and they'd been working nonstop all weekend to get the apartment ready. They'd been in their new place for only a week, but already they were unpacked. Jess loved her new room, which was bright and sunny. She was still getting used to the Seattle noises and the crowds of people. But she liked it here more than she'd expected to. She moved carefully — the burn on her back still hurt if she turned too suddenly. But it had healed well. She was glad she couldn't see what it looked like. Mom popped her head through the doorway. "Let's not forget our camera," Mom said. "I have it ready," Jess said. Their new camera. Jess had finally worked up the courage to tell Mom the whole story about losing Dad's camera. "It was Dad's prized possession," Jess had said, fighting tears.

Mom had put her arms around her. "No," she'd said. "You were." Mom looked around Jess's room now and smiled. "It looks great in here," she said. Jess agreed. The walls were covered with photographs of trees and birds and of Mom — pictures that Dad had taken. His dream had been for his photographs to hang in a Seattle gallery, and now that dream had come true — almost. "And I really do love the red," Mom said, admiring the freshly painted walls. Jess loved the color, too. She knew that for the rest of her life, red would be her lucky color. Dr. Morales had helped them paint the room. Jess was glad to see that their friend was starting to smile again. He'd been safe at his lab here in Seattle when St. Helens erupted. But like many of the scientists, he blamed himself for not being able to better predict the eruption. And he'd lost one of

his close friends, a young scientist who had been near the mountain when it exploded. That man was one of the fifty-seven people who died in the eruption. Some people were killed instantly, in the pyroclastic surge and blast of rock and ash. Others died in the floods and mudslides that raced down the mountain in the hours afterward. Dr. Morales had been right when he predicted that Mount St. Helens would erupt with terrible violence. But not even he had imagined just how powerful the eruption would be. It was one of the most powerful in history, more explosive even than Pelée. The entire front of the mountain shattered. Millions of tons of rock and ice and volcanic debris crashed down the mountain. The pyroclastic surge instantly destroyed everything within its five-mile path. If Jess and the twins had been much closer, they would not have escaped with their lives.

A mudslide swept down the mountain, picking up trees and logs and trucks and houses and bridges. The downtown of Cedar was spared. But some people lost their homes, including Missy. She and her family were with relatives in Iowa now. Jess was thinking about writing to her. She wanted to tell Missy the news: that Skeleton Woman really did exist! In a way. Jess had discovered this about a month after the eruption. By then Jess's burn had mostly healed. She and Mom had been helping serve meals at a shelter for people who had lost their homes. There was another volunteer working that day, an older woman with a long gray braid and bright blue eyes. "I know you," the woman had said to Jess with a smile. And Jess remembered her — she was the woman with the white pickup who they'd seen in

the Loomis Lake parking lot, the day of that first earthquake. Her name was Gretchen Livingston. She worked for a group that had been trying to save the big old trees near Loomis Lake. Gretchen and Mom had hit it off. And a few nights later at Clive's, Gretchen had told Mom and Jess her secret — that she was Skeleton Woman. "What?" Jess had gasped. Gretchen smiled slyly. "For years our group had been trying to find ways to stop the lumber company from chopping down those beautiful old trees," she'd explained. "But nothing we did worked. And finally the company was going to cut them all down. I was ready to give up. But one day I was at a restaurant over in Cougar." That was a town across the valley. "I overheard some loggers in the booth behind me. They were talking about the old Skeleton