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Rain Dance
hearts’ content they would finish the night with a rain dance.
Although everyone knew it wasn’t going to stem the drought, they
would throw all their effort into it. It started with a stomp on both
feet, left then right. As all the people combined their power the
ground would shake and thick plumes of red dust would erupt like a
volcano into the night sky. They continued stomping, waving their
hands around in the air until everyone was exhausted and the old
people had to creak their bodies into awaiting chairs. Then they
would cheer and laugh, a stampede of jubilance shaking the earth.
The summer that Lizzy turned eight marked the fourth year of
no rain. Lizzy’s birthday was on a Friday this year, but there would be
no rain dance tonight. At breakfast her Papa was silent. She was at
school when she heard the news. The business that ran the trucks
fromDarwin had gone broke, and Abercourt couldn’t afford anyone
else to bring the water. If rain didn’t come right now, they would all
have to leave.
That night she found her Papa sitting on the ground outside their
peeling weatherboard house. Gently, she lifted his chin to look into
his dark eyes. His beautiful eyes, that were once full of joy and
wonder, were now lost, a black hole sucking happiness out of the
universe. In that moment she saw something she had never seen in
her Papa before. She saw it in the wrinkles in his forehead. She saw
it in the way his eyes couldn’t quite meet hers. Fear. Her unbreakable
father, who had always kept everyone together, was reduced to a
small piteous man.
‘It’ll be alright.’ Her muffled whisper was no more than a pathetic
lie.
Johnny shook his head. Slowly she wrapped her tiny body around
him, a lost butterfly interlocked in an eternal embrace. Tears fell
from her cheeks and gently rolled down her Papa’s face. And then
there were tears everywhere. Upon her, upon her Papa, upon the
ground. All around her tears fell, plopping onto the parched soil.
With every drop crimson dust catapulted into the air before greedily
soaking up the liquid. But these tears weren’t from Lizzy’s puffed
eyes. They were tears from the sky.
Rain.
And as these tears fell wracking the silent night, Lizzy stood and
began to stomp, left then right. All around her people were emerging
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