Free Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing Page A

and alive, that had water put on them. These trees had not been near enough to the flood to get any water.
    Now all the crowd stopped on the crest of the rise and waited for four of them to catch up. Again Mara was surrounded by the Rock People: these big, strong people, with their great balls of fuzzy hair that she could see, now she was so close, was not always the same paleness but sometimes almost white, and sometimes a deep yellow. If they wanted to they could kill Dann and her, just like that. But they hadn’t killed Daima, had they? And Rabat was Daima’s friend…No, she wasn’t, Mara thought fiercely. She was not Daima’s friend, but only pretending to be.
    In front of them the grass was covered with the brown dirt from the flood, which had been mud but was quite dry now. This was the slope down to where the water was – but surely this could not be the same river, for that had been so wide and this was just a little valley.
    There were some trees marking where the water was, and a lot of animals of every kind clustered by the water, and that is why the villagers had to go to the water all together: for protection.
    It was quite a short walk down, and the people in front were shouting and yelling to scare away the animals. They were mostly of the kind the People used for meat and milk – rather, had used. Some were smaller furry ones that tried to hide themselves in the grasses; and there were cart birds too, though Mara could not see if the one she thought of as her cart bird was there. All the feathers and fur were dry and you could not see how thin the beasts were.
    And now Dann was tugging at Mara’s hand: ‘Water, water,’ he was shouting.
    â€˜You’d better be careful,’ said Rabat to him, ‘or you’ll get yourself eaten up by a water dragon.’ She said this with a smile, but it was not a real smile and Dann shrank away from her.
    Now everyone was standing around the biggest pool and beating it with sticks, and there were all kinds of wrigglings and heavings under the water, and dark shapes appeared and sank, and then out came an enormous lizard, a water dragon, that lived in water and pulled smalleranimals in to eat. The people stood back as it hissed at them, darting its tongue and banging its tail about, and whipping it from side to side. Then it turned and was off into the grass. ‘They are all going off to the big river,’ said Rabat. ‘There is a lot of water there and it is still running.’
    And Mara could see how the different kinds of animals were making their way from this smaller river up on to the ridge opposite and over it. She understood now. This was not the big river she had crossed – how long ago? it seemed a long time – but a smaller one that joined it.
    The water of this pool was still being beaten, the sticks flailing about over the surface, and then there appeared a water stinger. Mara had never seen one, though she knew about them. It was very big, as big as the largest of the Rock People, and it had pincers in front that could easily crush Dann, and a long sting like a whip for a tail. This beast came straight out of the water at the people, its pincers opening and closing and its little eyes gleaming and cruel. The people did not run away but stood around it, so they were brave, and they beat the stinger with their sticks; and in a moment it had rushed through a gap in the crowd left for it to run through, and it went into a nearby pool with a big splash. The animals still around that pool sheered away. And now Mara saw that another water stinger, a smaller one, was by that pool and its tail sting was holding a quite big, furry animal – which was still alive, for it was bleating and crying as the pincers tore off bits of meat and stuffed them into the stinger’s mouth.
    The crowd were now all standing around the pool they had beaten. And then they all fetched their jars and containers and bent