When the Storm Comes

Mali is missing his fiend Shiyoon, who has moved to America, but is unable to articulate his feelings and starts skipping school. Shiyoon had brought Mali out of his shell as they were working on drawing a comic together. The bane of their lives is Petey, who throws his weight around in class and torments Mali about his real name, Amaryllis, but Shiyoon had been there to protect Mali.

To encourage Mali back to school, their heavily pregnant teacher, Mrs Devine picks Petey, Mali and two girls, Jonesy and Fara, to choose the longlist for a new children’s book Award. It has been raining non-stop and while the children are in the library choosing books, the storm becomes much worse until the thunder and lightning fuses the lights, the telephones go down and even worse, the library doors are locked shut trapping the children and their teacher inside. Even the Wi-Fi isn’t working so no-one can send any messages. It is a terrifying situation.

The children all react in different ways and Petey upsets them all by eating the remaining food that was to be shared between the children. They discover there is a janitor still on the premises and he manages to free the library door, but the flood now covers the bottom floor of the school, and they still cannot escape. Then Mrs Devine starts to go into labour. After various failed attempts to escape, Mali climbs up a ventilation pipe to fetch help.

All four children are thrown together as unlikely companions, but throughout their ordeal they begin to forge a friendship and to trust each other and work together as a team, learning surprising things about each other in the process and that they all have their own demons to face. By the end they are determined to do what they can to fight climate change.