Ginger noticed the silence first.

It was afternoon at her grandfather's farm, and she was wandering near the barn while the grown-ups sat in the shade talking.

It had been hot all day. The kind of heat that made the dirt hard beneath your shoes and sent the chickens searching for the coolest patches of shade.

Cicadas buzzed in the trees. Flies circled lazily around the barn. Somewhere beyond the fields, a tractor had been working since morning.

Then everything stopped. Ginger stood still. The cicadas were quiet. The birds had disappeared. Even the chickens seemed to know something she didn't. They had gathered near the henhouse instead of scratching around the yard.

There wasn't a breath of wind.

Ginger looked toward the house. Her grandfather was standing now. He wasn't talking anymore. He was looking west.

Ginger followed his gaze. A tremendous wall of clouds was rising beyond the fields. They were almost black underneath, but above them enormous white clouds boiled higher and higher into the sky.

Her grandfather walked out into the yard. “Storm coming,” he said.

Ginger had seen storms on the farm before. Summer thunderstorms could appear quickly, rattling the windows and filling the dry ditches with rushing water.

Usually she liked them. But something about the way her grandfather was watching this one made her uneasy.

Then the light began to change. At first everything looked yellow. The fields. The barn. The old farmhouse. Even the faces of the people standing in the yard.

Then the yellow slowly became something else. Green. Ginger stared upward. The sky was turning green. Not a soft green. Not the green of grass or leaves.

It was a strange, sickly green that seemed to spread beneath the clouds until the whole farm looked as though it belonged to another world.

“Grandpa?” He didn't answer right away.

Then he said something Ginger had never heard him say before. “Everybody to the cellar.”

The grown-ups moved immediately. Nobody laughed. Nobody said they were probably being silly. Her grandmother hurried from the house carrying a flashlight. Her aunt gathered the younger children.

Someone called for Ginger's uncle. Her grandfather pointed toward the storm cellar.

“Now.” That frightened Ginger more than the green sky. Her grandfather was not a man who hurried. But he was hurrying now.

The cellar doors stood a short distance from the farmhouse, two heavy wooden doors slanting out of the ground. Her uncle pulled them open. The smell of cool earth drifted upward. One by one, everyone went down the narrow steps. Ginger hesitated at the top.

She had been in the cellar before. It was where jars of vegetables and preserves were stored on wooden shelves. Usually she thought it was interesting. Today the opening looked like a dark hole in the earth.

A sudden gust of wind swept across the farm. Dust flew through the yard. The barn door slammed.

BANG!

Ginger jumped. Her grandfather put a hand on her shoulder. “Down you go.” She hurried inside. Her grandfather came last and pulled the heavy doors closed above them.

The cellar became dark. Someone switched on the flashlight. Its yellow beam moved across shelves filled with jars.

Everyone crowded together. Then they waited.

At first Ginger heard only rain. A few drops. Then many. Then…

BANG!

Something struck the cellar doors. Ginger looked up. Another bang. Then another.

Hail. Within seconds it sounded as though hundreds of rocks were being thrown against the doors.

One of the younger children began to cry. “It’s all right,” Ginger's grandmother said.

But Ginger noticed that her grandmother had reached for her grandfather's hand.

Then came the wind. It moaned across the farm. The cellar doors trembled. Dust trickled from somewhere overhead.

Ginger moved closer to her grandfather.

And then she heard it. A roar. Low at first. Far away. Ginger frowned. It grew louder. And louder. Until it sounded like a train racing across the fields. Except there were no railroad tracks anywhere near the farm.

Ginger looked at her grandfather. “What is that?”

For a moment he didn't answer. Then he said quietly, “Stay down.”

Ginger's stomach tightened. She knew. Tornado.

The roar grew louder. The cellar doors shook. Someone pulled Ginger closer. The flashlight flickered across frightened faces.

That was when Ginger understood something she had never understood before.

The grown-ups were scared too. Her grandfather was scared. Her grandmother was scared. Her aunt and uncle were scared. They were trying not to show it, but Ginger could see it.

And somehow that made the storm more frightening. Grown-ups were supposed to know what to do. Grown-ups were supposed to know when everything would be all right.

But down in that cellar, with the wind roaring above them, nobody knew.

Ginger squeezed her eyes shut. The roar became enormous. For several terrible seconds it seemed to be directly above them. The earth itself seemed to tremble.

Something crashed outside. Someone gasped.

Ginger buried her face against her grandfather. He wrapped an arm around her.

Nobody spoke. They simply waited.

Then, slowly, the roar began to move away. It grew quieter. And quieter. Until all they could hear was rain.

Nobody moved.

Her grandfather waited several more minutes. Finally he climbed the steps.

“Stay here.” He pushed one cellar door open just a few inches and looked outside. A strip of ordinary gray daylight appeared.

After a moment, he opened the doors. “All right.” Everyone climbed out.

Ginger came up slowly. The farm she knew looked different. Branches covered the yard. Leaves were plastered against the farmhouse. Hailstones lay everywhere, shining white against the dark earth. Part of a fence had blown down. One of the big trees near the barn had lost a limb.

Ginger looked toward the barn. It was still standing. So was the house.

The chickens began creeping cautiously from their shelter. Her grandmother counted them. Every one was there.

Far across the fields, the storm was moving east. The clouds were still dark, and lightning flickered beneath them. But above the farm, the green was gone.

A patch of blue appeared. Ginger picked up a hailstone. It was almost as big as a walnut. She held it in her palm until the edges began to melt.

“Grandpa?” He looked down at her. “Were you scared?” Her grandfather looked toward the disappearing storm. Then he nodded. “I was.”

Ginger hadn't expected that answer. She thought about it for a moment. “But you knew what to do.” “That doesn't mean I wasn't scared.”

Ginger looked back at the cellar.

Until that day, she had thought being brave meant not being frightened. Now she understood something different.

Her grandfather had been frightened. But he had watched the sky. He had recognized the warning. He had gotten everyone into the cellar.

Maybe courage wasn't about feeling no fear at all. Maybe courage was knowing when something was dangerous and doing what needed to be done anyway.

Ginger looked toward the western sky. Sunlight had begun to spill across the wet fields.

Then, from somewhere near the house, came a familiar sound. A cicada. Another answered. A bird flew down onto the fence. And one particularly impatient chicken marched into the yard and began scratching in the mud as though nothing unusual had happened at all.

Ginger smiled. The farm was finding its voice again.

Years later, Ginger would see many thunderstorms. She would hear hail strike windows and watch dark clouds build over distant fields. But whenever the light turned strange before a storm, she remembered her grandfather's farm. The sudden silence. The frightened faces in the cellar. The terrible roar passing overhead.

And most of all, she remembered the afternoon when she looked up and saw the sky turn green.