which of a wind The deadly F-5 tornado of April 3, 1974-destroying a good part of their town and highlighting the shortcomings of their mothers-leads to a possible friendship between two barely acquainted Xenia Ohio girls who are unaware they share some of the same worst fears, including the dread of ending up in a foster home. Willa Wampler, crammed with her family into a small house in the north end of town where she shares one tiny bedroom with her four siblings, has no idea her Central Junior High School classmate, Brianna Crawford, is secretly living alone under an assumed identity in a solitary little house south of town. Emotionally abandoned by the older sister who was once as close as a twin, Willa-lying in bed awake with worry-listens to the sleeping sounds of her brothers and sisters while feeling almost as alone as Brianna who goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning to the sound of nothing but her own breathing. Trying to protect the mothers who have fallen short of protecting them, both girls have taken on the lonely charge of keeping family secrets as they enter their teen years deprived of an honest attempt at learning how to deal with the world. Surviving the tornado physically unscathed but still caught up in the maelstrom of family turbulence, the two seventh graders struggle to hang on to emerging feelings of personal worth as they realize that their mothers may never change.
About the Author: Marietta Ball lives in Xenia, Ohio where she was a teacher at Central Junior High School when the tornado of April 3, 1974 ravaged the town. As the town came back together and the schools resumed, the many kinds of heroism she witnessed inspired her to create the characters who are at the heart of this novel, two 13-year-old girls for whom that fateful day adds one more storm to the daily emotional uncertainty they already face. Forty years later she has finally written the story of the two girls who, barely acquainted, have no way of knowing they share the same kind of despair as an outcome of their mothers' shortcomings. Also available on CreateSpace, Amazon, and other online sources is the author's novel, HORSES CAN SEE IN THE DARK. Her prize-winning short stories and poems have appeared in various publications, including, The New Southerner, Kentucky Her Story, and Calliope. Her poetry is sometimes featured on Conrad's Corner, a poetry-reading spot hosted by Conrad Balliet on WYSO Radio out of Yellow Springs, Ohio.