As our high school drew from two middle schools, half of my class I didn’t know. Last year I’d been first chair clarinet, but now as a ninth grader, I was only the second or third best. I made the freshman basketball team because I’m tall and for the freshman girls, that’s enough. We were the Tornados because we live in Tornado Alley, not that all the other schools didn’t also, but we grabbed the name first. The Buffaloes would make us sound overweight.

Two things that everybody knows about Kansas. We get some big tornados and we play some mean basketball.

Sami was one of the girls I’d not known before, good with the dribble and scrappy. We had geometry together and would talk basketball before Mr. Ellis got into opposite and adjacent angles. She’d once played the clarinet, but dropped it because the others laughed when she squeaked. Everybody squeaks, I told her. Her real name was Samantha, but I promised not to call her that.

I told her when she sees me alone under the basket, pass it in for a layup, my best shot. Her dad said that we were the next Stockton and Malone. They played for Salt Lake. I’m not African American, though, like Malone, the tall one.

It’s cool that Stockton went to Gonzaga, since it’s Catholic. Sami’s family went to another church, but she’d come with me to mine and go up for communion, though it’s against the rules.

Ninth grade is when we’re supposed to get boy-crazy. Lots of girls get that way before then, of course, but middle-school dances have more chaperones than boys, and at parties you play games like Charades. If your youth group goes someplace, the boys pile in the same car where they can fart, or whatever. Unless you’re a total make-out, getting boy-crazy isn’t worth it in middle school.

Maybe you’re not magically mature in ninth, but you can tell jokes about birth control, even if you’ve no need for it. You can talk about after the Junior Prom, even if you know you’ll never get asked. You hear about the girls who leave school and you’re pretty sure why. Even if you’re not doing it yourself, you’re paying attention.

Sami was sitting behind me after class. ““Not the one you had on when your mom dropped you off”

“What?”

“Your bra,” patting where it hooked.

Indeed it was the one Mom didn’t know I had and I’d bent over so Thomas Bevins could see it.

It was at practice that Sami told me that my sports one was cute, too.

“Mom got it for me on sale,” I told her.

“Basketball fashion princesses, us two,” she laughed, lifting her jersey to show me hers, as nobody was looking.

Our dressing room had lockers around the sides, and to change, you’d sit in front of yours and do one thing at a time. Sami’s was next to mine, and not that I looked, but I sort of looked sometimes. If she caught me peeking, she’d grin and turn my way to ask about a homework problem.

As we had individual shower stalls, we didn’t need to share, but after a hard practice and we were the last two in the locker room, Coach said we could take our time if we shared a stall to save water, conservation being a Kansas mantra. Just be sure and pull the door closed when we left. Coach just played JC, but for sure she could have played D2.

“We’re not Stockton and Malone,” Sami joked, once in the shower. “We’re the Bobbsey Twins,” bouncing one of my boobs. I’d never been bounced before, except by the nurse when she was listening to my heart. I bounced her back and agreed we were both still As. When we heard somebody coming back, Sami made it sound like only she was in the stall, her hand over my mouth to keep me from laughing, her boobs sliding over my back.

The way it sort of worked out was that we took turns, Sami and me staying after one practice, Coach and Bridget, the next. Bridget wasn’t going to make a college team anyplace, but Coach liked her attitude.

Sami had a hoop in her backyard and after we made it the right height -- her dad put it up when she was little -- we could practice free throws and jumpers. Not our dribble, though, because it was grass.

When it’s one-on-one in your teammate’s yard, nobody’s reffing. Sometimes we’d end up tackling each other, and stay that way while we argued about who the foul should have been on while we looked at the sky. Kansas clouds are very interesting.

Once, she’d put my hand on her chest to show me how fast her heart was going.

“More than 100?” her question.

“Hard to say,” as I didn’t have my watch on.

“Try here,” moving my hand under her shirt. Eighty, my estimate. “How about yours?” reaching under my jersey the same way, both of us hard because that’s how you get in games.

When on one Saturday it started to get windy and dusty -- the way it does before a storm -- it was smart we quit when we did, as a minute later, it was raining cats and dogs.

We were gulping down some orange juice in her kitchen when Sami said that what she really needed was a shower.

“I’ll wait,” I told her, not having anywhere else to go, anyway.

“Want to join me?”

At school, though, we’d never washed each other’s backs at the same time, which requires reaching around.

“You’re sweet,” she told me, on her tiptoes, her boobs sliding against mine.

My heart took a jump when we slid against each lower, but it was just how we were standing.

That’s when the siren sounded.

Towns in Tornado Alley have sirens on their water towers and fire stations for -- well, it should be obvious -- for tornados. Every year they test them, but always at 12:00 and this wasn’t noon.

When we turned off the water was when we realized that what we’d thought was shower noise was rain and wind. KIds where we live know what to do. We talk about it in every grade.

We dressed in a lick and headed for the basement. Where we live, everybody has them. You don’t stop, except maybe to help a disabled person, but the phone was ringing and Sami picked it up. It was her dad, and I could tell that he was saying that he and her mom were at Sears and she should get in the basement, exactly what we were doing.

Sami said that I was there, and he said me, too. Don’t try to go home.

I ought to call, though, as my folks would be worried, especially Mom. I was lucky to get through, as we later learned that the phone system went bonkers. Dad said the same thing: get in the basement.

Mom was over at Janet’s, Dad assured me, and she’d be safe. Mom and Janet sew things together all year long for the Catholic Relief Service sale. Janet’s sewing room has a bed, perfect, Mom says, for spreading out patterns. If our house got blown out of Oz -- i.e., Kansas, I night note -- maybe they’ll distribute one of Mom’s quilts to us.

Sami bought one of Mom’s potholders to give to her mom for Christmas. It’s funny, seeing your mom’s sewing project in your friend’s kitchen.

Mom and Janet go back to when they were Girl Scouts. Girls didn’t play basketball back then, but the two loved badminton. They were roommates in college, even. It’s great they ended up in the same place. Two peas in a pod, what they call themselves.

Mom thinks that Sami and I are likewise two peas in a pod. Just not in height.

You’re supposed to get in your basement’s southwest corner so things don’t fall on you -- where we live, everybody knows north, south, east and west because of the roads -- but that corner of Sami’s basement had all the canning jars, and it didn’t seem smart to sit under them. The best place looked to be between the wall and the furnace, as if the place crashed down, maybe the heater would hold some of it up.

We sat on a pile of camping equipment and waited for the all-clear: short-long-short. Never, never, we’d learned since first grade, go out before then, even just to peek.

When the lights went out, Sami found a flashlight and we sat some more. Maybe we should have turned the flashlight off to save the batteries, but we liked having it on.

Then there was a crashing sound from above.

“The roof?” I wondered.

“Probably just my bed collapsing.”

“Good thing we’re not under it,” I pointed out.

Another crashing sound followed.

“Probably the one in the sewing room,” her thought.

“Bye-bye, patterns,” mine.

Sami giggled. “Patterns? They haven’t used them in centuries. It’s for after they’re done sewing.”

“What?”

“I get home early and can hear them from the back of my closet. Probably didn’t even sew anything, just got in bed.”