14 C14
created: 2023-06-04T10:39 updated: 2023-06-04T10:
Hannah sighed as she sat at her desk and looked at her math homework. It wasn't that it was hard for her, but more time consuming. Standing, she stretched and went down stairs for another glass of water. The TV was on, showing the video feed of CNN, the sound muted. The images shown were those of devastation and utter ruin. The ticker along the bottom of the screen displaying the words 'Large, violent tornado strikes Lubbock Texas, Catastrophic damage, injured rushed to area hospitals that are still standing, No deaths reported yet'
"Mom!" Hannah shouted, reaching for the remote to turn the sound on. Hannah head her mothers footfalls rushing into the room.
"Oh my God..." Emily said, her voice barely audible.
"---Have Doctor John Peterson, one of the worlds leading severe storm researchers with us via a video feed from just east of Lubbock. Doctor Peterson, what can you tell us?" The anchor, Thomas O'Brien asked, the screen split to show both him and Dr. Peterson.
"Well Thomas," The man with a sharp chin, dark brown hair with hints of grey and striking blue eyes started to speak. "About twenty minutes ago, this storm sat a tornado on the ground that set it sights on Lubbock. My team and I are out here to try and gather scientific data to help figure out why some storms will create a tornado and others do not. The data that we gathered from our fleet of four vehicles mounted with sensing equipment indicates that this tornado might have been an EF-4, with wind speeds topping out at 200 miles per hour." Dr. Peterson looked away from the camera for a second and then back into the lens. "Thomas, I'm going to have to get off of here, we have some data that we need to pull out of a probe." The screen that had shown her father's face a few seconds before when black.
"You think they got a hit?" Hannah asked.
"Sounds like they either got a hit or got really close," Emily said. "Either way, it sounds like the mesonets on the cars got some data, even if a probe didn't..."
"That it does..." Hannah said, turning away from the TV and heading into the kitchen to get her glass of water, the folks at CNN having moved on to some new crisis in the middle east before returning to Lubbock. After Hannah grabbed the glass of water, it was back upstairs to her homework. She quickly finished the problem that she was working on, moved on to the next and was almost done with it when the front door slammed and she knew that Lexi was home from spending the evening over at Lizzys.
"Hey, girls!" her mother shouted from the office on the first floor. "Come down here, I have your dad on video conference." Hannah jumped up, knocking the empty glass over and headed for the office. When she got there, her dad's face was displayed on both the monitor on her mom's laptop and the twenty seven inch external monitor. The larger monitor had a little green light on the top of it so Hannah knew it had the active camera.
"Hey Girls!" Dr. John Peterson said, his expression pleasant, a smile on his face. "Hannah, I'm about to put you in charge of forecasting... Every time you have suggested somewhere, it's panned out... The scorecard for today stands at three successful probe deployments as well as mesonet data for seven tornados. I'll upload the data as soon as we get to the hotel."
"Alright, I'll pull it down as soon as you get it uploaded and get the computers chewing on it." Emily said. When you get settled in, can you give me a call. I need to talk to you about Hannah."
"Everything ok, Pumpkin?" John asked.
Hannah looked at the little green light on the monitor that indicated that the camera was on, blushed and looked away. "It's a little private, daddy." Hannah said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"She's been wearing diapers..." Lexi said.
"Lexi!" Emily scolded, glancing at Hannah. The older girl didn't seem phased by younger sister's statement. It was a simply matter of fact at this point.
"Lexi, I'll talk to your mother about it." John Peterson said glancing up briefly as the convoy of vehicles passed under an over pass. "We're almost to the hotel. I'll call you on the phone in a little bit, Honey. Love you girls, you two be good for your mother."
"Bye Daddy." Both Hannah and Lexi said at almost the same time. Hannah went up and finished her homework and then decided that she should get on the internet for a bit and see if she could come up with a better way to diaper her self. When she got down stairs, she found her mother in the office that her parents had set up and she was talking to someone.
"I know. It's been a rough couple of weeks for her. This isn't going to be cheap, but I was looking at both cloth and disposables... She can wear cloth at home and the disposables if she's at school or will be gone for more than a few hours." Hannah heard her mom say; there was, however, not an audible response so she assumed that she was talking to her father on the phone. Hannah knocked on the door to the office. "Yes?"
Hannah pushed the door open and walked into the office, closing the door behind her. "I wanted to know if I could get on the internet and search for a better way to put a diaper on my self."
"Yeah, but go grab the iPad and bring it back in here, I want your father to be able to talk to you about this too..." Emily said, smiling. It was a sad smile, and Hannah suspected that it was because her mom thought that she wouldn't be able to live a normal life because of her new 'problem.' Hannah wasn't going to let something like a diaper to stop her from doing what she wanted to do. Walking back into the office, she smiled at her mother and sat in the chair across from the desk.
"I heard what you were saying to dad," Hannah said. "I'm not going to let something like diapers stop me or slow me down."
Emily chuckled and smiled at her daughter. "Then you'd better get good at changing your own diapers..."