Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 Barry's stomach did a few nervous flips. The news reports had been warning about Hurricane Katrina for days, but nobody in Barry's house had been paying much attention. Dad and his band had been playing shows in Atlanta. Mom worked full-time at Cleo's preschool. She also had a little business baking cookies for restaurants in the French Quarter, the fancy neighborhood across the canal. As for Barry, he was totally focused on Akivo. A tornado could

have sucked up the house and he wouldn't have noticed. But now Barry's mind started swirling. Like everyone in New Orleans, he understood what could happen if a strong hurricane struck. The city was surrounded by water. The Industrial Canal was just two blocks from their house. Big Lake Pontchartrain was up north. The Mississippi River wormed through the middle of the city. And so many canals and channels jutted this way and that, Barry couldn't keep track of them all. Of course there were levees — big walls of dirt and concrete that protected the city from all that water. But some people said that the levees weren't strong enough for a really big storm. Barry thought of Hurricane Betsy, the storm that hit New Orleans the year before Dad was born. When Gramps was alive, he'd loved telling Betsy stories. He and Gran lived in this same house. The levee broke, and the Lower Nine flooded. Four feet of water filled the living room. It had taken six months to get everything cleaned up. But Gramps was always proud of how the house held up to the winds.

"Barely lost a roof shingle," he liked to say as he patted the wall like you'd pat the back of a loyal friend. Those Betsy stories had fascinated Barry when he was little. But they'd always seemed like ghost stories and fairy tales, stories that could never come true. Now he wondered…. "Barry!" Jay said, waving his hands in front of Barry's face. "Snap out of it!" "Sorry!" said Barry, shaking himself out of his thoughts. "What about Akivo?" They had planned to walk to the post office after school tomorrow and send their package to Acclaim's offices in New York City. Barry had visited New York with Dad the past summer. The president of a famous college there was always inviting Dad to give talks about New Orleans jazz. "I'll mail him tomorrow," Barry said. "From Houston." "Let me have him," Jay said, holding out his hand. "I'll mail him from Birmingham." They stared at each other without budging, until finally Jay blinked.

That settled that. Barry won the stare-out, so he got to mail Akivo. "Don't let anything happen to him," Jay said. "I wouldn't!" They stood there, like they always did before they had to say good-bye. No matter how much time they spent together, it always felt like there was one more idea to talk about, one more joke to tell before they went their own ways. "Barry, honey, we've got to get ready!" Mom called. It was time. Jay raised his hand toward the sky, his pinky pointing up. It took Barry a few seconds to recognize the special move they'd invented for Akivo so the energy from his secret power star, Beta Draconis, could flow from his pinky into his heart.

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Barry raised his hand too, and he and Jay linked their pinkies together in the air. Barry smiled. For just a few seconds, Barry the believer imagined that he had a power star of his own somewhere.