We get lots of big storms here in the mountains! The old house we live in has been here for over a hundred years, and it’s seen some crazy winds. They zoom right across the hills!

We’d lived in the house for more than ten years, and nothing super bad had happened. It even shook a lot during a big earthquake! Like my granddaughter Dolly always says, ‘It’s hard to tell which cracks are new and which are old!’

Our house has two floors, and my family and I live on the top floor: my three grandkids and their mom and dad. The roof is made of bumpy metal sheets, and the ceiling is made of wooden boards. That’s how they make roofs around here.

Looking back, it feels like something silly that would happen in a funny story! Like a dam breaking or a silly ghost coming to visit. But I wasn’t thinking about that at the time, even though I was trying to save my books from the super cold rain pouring into my bedroom!

Our roof had stayed strong in lots of storms, but the wind that night was super strong. It rushed at us with a loud, spooky howl. The old roof creaked and groaned. It got banged around for hours while the rain smacked against the windows and the lights kept flickering on and off.

We couldn’t sleep, but we stayed in bed to keep warm. The fire went out a long time ago because the chimney fell apart, and black, sooty rainwater came pouring down.

After about four hours of the wind pushing and shoving, the roof couldn’t take it anymore. My bedroom faces east, so my part of the roof was the first to go.

The wind got under it and kept pushing until, with a loud ripping and groaning noise, the metal sheets slid right off the roof! Some of them fell onto the road below with loud crashes like thunder.

‘That’s it,’ I thought. ‘Nothing worse can happen. As long as the ceiling stays on, I’m not getting out of bed. We’ll pick up our roof in the morning.’

But then icy water splashed on my face, and I changed my mind fast! I jumped out of bed and saw that the ceiling was gone, too! Water was pouring on my typewriter (my writing machine), my radio, and my blanket.

I grabbed my typewriter (I’ve had it for a super long time!) and ran into the living room, which is also like a library. But it was the same thing in there! Water was pouring through the wooden ceiling, raining down on all the books.

By now, the kids had come to help me. Their part of the roof was still on. Their parents were trying to close a window against the super strong rain.

‘Save the books!’ shouted Dolly, the youngest. That’s what we did for the next hour or two!

Dolly and her brother Mukesh picked up piles of books and carried them to their room. But the floor was covered in water, so they had to pile the books on their beds. Dolly was helping me gather my papers when a big field rat jumped on the desk in front of her! Dolly squealed and ran away.

‘It’s okay,’ said Mukesh, who loves all animals, even rats. ‘It’s just hiding from the storm!’

Big brother Rakesh called for our dog, Tony, but Tony wasn’t interested in rats right now. He was hiding in the kitchen, the only dry spot in the house.

Two rooms now had almost no roof! We could see the sky lit up by flashes of lightning.

There were sparks inside, too, as water crackled on a broken wire! Then all the lights went out.

Rakesh is super good in an emergency! He had already lit two lamps. And by their light, we kept moving books, papers, and clothes to the kids’ room.

We saw that the water on the floor was starting to go down a little.

‘Where is it going?’ asked Dolly.

‘Through the floor,’ said Mukesh. ‘Down to the apartment below!’

We heard our neighbors downstairs shouting because they were getting flooded, too!

Our feet were super cold because we didn’t have time to put on shoes. And all the shoes and slippers were wet anyway. All the chairs and tables were covered in books! I didn’t know I had so many books until that night!

We pushed all the beds into the driest corner of the kids’ room, and we huddled there in blankets and quilts for the rest of the night while the storm kept going.

When morning came, the wind had stopped, and it started to snow! I could see snowflakes floating through the holes in the ceiling, landing on the picture frames. Even simple things like a glue bottle and a small clock looked beautiful covered in snow.

Most of us fell asleep.

When the sun came up, we saw that the windows were covered in snow and icicles. The sun shined through the holes in the ceiling and turned everything gold. Snow sparkled on the empty bookshelves. But we had saved the books!

Rakesh went to find someone to fix the roof, and the rest of us started putting things in the sun to dry. By evening, we had put most of the roof back on!

The roof is even better now, and we’re not scared of the next storm!