Mara and Dann Read Online Free PDF Page A

down, just as they were. Down below, the great plain of brown water hurried past, still carrying bushes where little animals clung, and trees where big animals balanced; but now it seemed that there was less fret and storm in the water.
    â€˜It has reached its peak,’ said the woman.
    â€˜If there isn’t more to come,’ said the man.
    The sky was still a hard, clear blue, like a lid over everything. The sun was shining hot and fierce, and there were no new big waves from the north.
    Dann had gone to sleep holding a half-eaten hunk of the white stuff. The woman took it from him and put it in her bag. She sat down and her eyes closed and her head fell forward. The man’s eyes closed and he sank down, asleep.
    â€˜But we must keep awake,’ the little girl was pleading, ‘we must. Suppose the bad people come? Suppose a snake bites us?’ And then she tumbled off to sleep, but later only knew she had been asleep because she was scrambling up, thinking, Where’s my brother? Where are the others? And her head was aching because she had been lying in the sun, which had moved and was going down, sending pink reflections from the sky across the water. But the water that had covered everything had gone down and was a river racing down the middle part of the valley. Dann was awake and holding the hand of the woman, and they were standing higher up where they could see everything easily. This hill was now surrounded by brown mud, and the yellow grasses were just beginning to lift up.
    â€˜Where are we going to cross over?’ asked the woman.
    â€˜I don’t know, but we’ve got to,’ said the man.
    Now the rocks around them did not have animals all over them, for they were carefully making their way back towards the high ground on the ridge. Mara thought that soon they would all be thirsty again. And then: We’ll be thirsty too, and hungry. They had slept all afternoon.
    â€˜I think it would be safe to have a try,’ said the man. ‘Between the waterholes there will be hard ground.’
    â€˜A bit dangerous.’
    â€˜Not as dangerous as staying here if they are coming after us.’
    The dark was filling the sky. The stars came out, and up climbed a bright yellow moon. The mud shone, the tufts of grass shone, and the fast water that was now a river shone.
    The man jumped down off the rocks and down the hill to the bottom, where his feet squelched as he took a few steps. ‘It is hard underneath,’ he said.
    He picked up Dann, who was sleepy and silent, and said to Mara, ‘Can you manage?’
    When Mara jumped down there was a thickness of mud under her feet, but a hardness under that. The moonlight was so strong it made big shadows from the rocks, and from the branches that were stuck in the mud, and sad shadows from the drowned animals lying about everywhere. The grasses dragged at their feet, but they went on, past the hill where they had been first, and where now there were no animals at all, and then they reached the edge of the river. The other side seemed a long way off. The man picked up one of the torn-off branches, held the leafy part, carefully stepped to the very edge of the water. He poked the branch in and it went right down. He went squelching along the edge and tried again, and it went down. He did it farther along and this time the wood only went in to about the height of the children’s knees. ‘Here,’ he said, and the woman lifted Mara up. The two big people stepped into the brown water, which was racing past, rippling and noisy, but not deep, not here. The man went ahead with Dann, poking the wood of the branch into the water at every step, and the woman, with Mara, was just behind. Mara thought, Suppose the flood comes down now? We’ll be drowned. And she was trembling with fear. They were right in the middle now, and everything glistened and shone because of the moon, which was making a gold edge on every ripple.