Hurricane Power by Sigmund Brouwer Page B

this little girl. And your family. There’s a nurse who will help us too. She and her family have faced the same problems you are.”
    Same problems? I wasn’t sure what Dad meant. But I didn’t get a chance to ask.
    Carlos finally nodded.
    â€œOkay,” he said. “We go. We have to save Juanita.”

chapter eighteen
    Carlos and I sat in the emergency waiting room of the hospital. It was so quiet we could hear the electric hum of the clock on the wall. Like all hospital clocks, it was big and ugly, designed only to show the passing of time as clearly as possible. Time of hope or nervousness or fear. Time that people spent waiting for news—good or bad.
    We had already spent half an hour alone while Dad worked with other doctorssomewhere down the hall. Carlos had said nothing in that half hour.
    I decided I wasn’t going to break into his silence. I had plenty of questions for him, but this wasn’t the right place. Not with him so clearly worried about his baby sister.
    I stared at the hands on the ugly white clock. I was thinking about life, about how it didn’t seem fair.
    Why had Carlos been born into a family that had to share just two rooms? A family that couldn’t even get medical help and had to send their oldest son to the hospital with a sick baby because he spoke English and his parents didn’t?
    Why had I been born into a doctor’s family? A family where my brother and I had our own rooms? A family that could afford to send us to university?
    Dad had once explained that the answer was less about what was or wasn’t fair. It was more about life not always being fair and about helping people whenever we had the chance and...
    â€œThat was a funny thing,” Carlos said,interrupting my thoughts. “You with that pistol.”
    I blinked in surprise. That was the last thing I had expected him to say.
    â€œFunny? I nearly got thrown in jail. And that wasn’t the worst of it.” I explained the part about the crap that I had rolled into.
    For the first time, I saw Carlos smile. “Crap, like from a dog?” he asked.
    â€œA big dog,” I assured him. “A big dog that had eaten way too much.”
    He made a face and laughed. Long and hard. It was like once he got started laughing, he was using it as a way to get rid of all his worries. Even if just for a few minutes.
    When he finally quit laughing, I spoke again.
    â€œYou run fast,” I said. “You really should think about what Jennifer said. About running with the Hurricanes track team.”
    I thought about Carlos’s family and how Dad had said Carlos was the one in charge. And I knew his family needed help.
    â€œMaybe,” I said, “you could get a track scholarship and go to university.”
    His face brightened. “That’s what a person needs in America. Education. People who are born here think life is so easy. They don’t take advantage of what they can do. People who are born outside, they would die for a chance like that.” His face saddened. “And sometimes they do.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked.
    â€œYou probably figured it out by now,” he said. “Me and my family, we’re illegal.”
    Illegal. That’s what Dad had meant when he said the nurse had faced the same problems Carlos faced. The big smiling nurse had told Carlos not to worry about the paperwork for now.
    â€œIllegal,” he repeated. “From Cuba. Even with the worst job, living here is ten times better than living where we did in Cuba. But some people don’t make it across. I had a friend...”
    His voice drifted off. His face got sadder. It didn’t feel right to push him to finish.
    He took a deep breath. “See, there are these people who promise to be guides, to take you across the ocean. They make you pay plenty.Sometimes they take you across. Sometimes they just take your money. My friend and his family, they