An air-raid siren echoed through the night, growing louder with every second until it was impossible to ignore. Pete scrubbed sleep from his face as the girls screamed. The tornado siren was a familiar cry, but as the howling wind yanked and tore at the house, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Hail pinged off the windows. Pete didn’t need to check the sky this time. He scrambled out of bed and towards his panicked daughters.

Like most houses in the South, theirs didn’t have a storm shelter, and the best he could do was huddle with them in a closet, bathtub, or stairwell. In the hall, he scooped up Lilly, his youngest, her brown eyes wide as she continued sucking her thumb. Molly, the eldest, grabbed her squealing guinea pig, Fred, out of his cage and tucked him close to her chest as Pete hustled all three girls halfway down the stairs. 

The emergency radio crackled to life as his phone screeched with an emergency weather warning. They were in for a long miserable night. Kimmy dropped her beloved pink axolotl and clamped her hands over her ears. He couldn’t blame her.

He opened Spotify, selected a playlist, and joined in singing off-key to “Beautiful Things”. Lilly pulled her thumb out of her mouth and shook her head, frowning. Molly whispered to Fred before covering his delicate orange ears, but Kimmy burst into song with him. 

“Ugh, you guys are so embarrassing,” Molly said.

Word: shelter | Action: huddle