The afternoon had been hot and still, the kind of summer afternoon when even the grasshoppers seemed too tired to jump. Ginger was sitting on the back steps, drawing pictures in the dirt with a stick, when she noticed something strange along the western horizon. Beyond the yard where the distant hills usually stood against the blue sky, a wide brown cloud was beginning to rise.

At first, she thought it might be rain. She stood up and shaded her eyes with one hand, hoping to see the dark blue clouds that sometimes brought relief from the summer heat. But this cloud was different. It was brown, thick, and growing taller by the minute. Worse yet, it seemed to be moving across the land rather than through the sky.
Ginger hurried into the house.

"Mama, there's something coming!"

Her mother stepped onto the porch, took one look toward the west, and immediately began gathering the cushions from the porch chairs. "Dust storm. A big one, too. Help me close the windows, Ginger."

Ginger had seen little dust devils dancing across yard before. They spun around like skinny brown ghosts, picking up leaves and bits of paper before disappearing almost as quickly as they had come. But this was nothing like those. This looked as though someone had lifted the entire desert into the air and was pushing it toward their house.

They hurried from room to room, pulling windows shut and closing the curtains. Outside, the wind began to whistle beneath the eaves. Ginger's older brother came running from the yard, carrying a baseball glove and squinting against the blowing grit. He slammed the screen door behind him just as the first strong gust rattled the house.

Then the storm arrived.

The sky turned a strange yellowish brown. The trees bent beneath the wind, and loose branches scraped against the windows. Dust swept across the yard in great rolling sheets, swallowing the fence, the road, and finally the houses across the street. Ginger pressed her nose against the window until her mother gently pulled her back.

"Stay away from the glass, sweetheart."

Something banged against the side of the house. Ginger jumped. A moment later came another bang, followed by a long, terrible scraping sound. She imagined the storm dragging its enormous fingernails along the walls, trying to find a way inside.

The daylight disappeared so quickly that Mama switched on the kitchen light. Even then, the room seemed dim. Fine dust began slipping beneath the back door, gathering in a thin brown line across the floor. Ginger watched it creep forward, wondering how something so small could find its way into a house with every door and window closed.

"Can a dust storm blow a house away?" she asked.

"Not this house," Mama answered, although she glanced toward the rattling windows.

Ginger wasn't entirely convinced.

The wind roared harder. Somewhere outside, a metal trash can went tumbling down the driveway, making a tremendous racket. Her brother tried to look through the front window, but there was nothing to see. The world beyond the glass had vanished into a swirling brown darkness.

For the first time, Ginger understood what it might feel like to be inside a cloud. Only this cloud wasn't soft or white, and there was certainly nothing heavenly about it.

She thought about the birds that had been hopping around the yard earlier. Where had they gone? And what about the little lizard that lived beneath the porch steps? She hoped he had found his way deep into his hiding place before the storm arrived.
A particularly fierce gust shook the house, and the kitchen light flickered. Ginger moved closer to her mother.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the wind started to weaken.

The terrible roaring faded into a low whistle. The windows stopped rattling, and the brown darkness outside slowly began to lighten. Ginger waited until her mother said it was safe before following her onto the porch.
What a sight!

Everything had changed color. The porch chairs, the windowsills, the flowerpots, and even the leaves on the bushes wore a coating of fine brown dust. The yard looked as though someone had sprinkled cinnamon over the entire world. A tumbleweed had lodged itself against the front gate, and the missing trash can lay upside down beside the neighbor's fence.

Ginger stepped carefully into the yard. Each footstep left a little print in the dust covering the walkway. She ran one finger across the porch railing and discovered the clean paint beneath it.

"Look, Mama! I can write my name!"

With one finger, she carefully traced GINGER across the dusty railing.

Her brother appeared beside her, examined her work, and promptly drew a crooked mustache underneath it.
Ginger gave him a shove, and he ran off laughing.

That evening, the family swept the porch, shook out the rugs, and wiped dust from places Ginger hadn't even known dust could reach. Mama complained that they would be cleaning for days. Ginger suspected she was right.

But just before sunset, she wandered back outside.

The storm had left the sky unusually clear. Far to the west, the sinking sun glowed enormous and red, turning the remaining dust in the air into a beautiful copper haze. The distant mountains had reappeared, and a few birds were already returning to the yard.

Ginger sat on the steps and watched a little lizard emerge from beneath the porch. He paused beside her shoe, looked around, and darted away as though nothing remarkable had happened.

She smiled.

The desert had disappeared that afternoon, swallowed by a storm that seemed big enough to eat the whole world. Yet here it was again, with its mountains, its birds, its lizards, and its dusty little girl sitting on the back steps.

Ginger looked down at her bare feet, now covered in a fine layer of brown powder. She wiggled her toes. Then she called toward the kitchen,

"Mama, I think the desert followed me home!"

And judging by the dust she left across the kitchen floor, it certainly had.