Rain Stones 25th Anniversary Edition

by Jackie French

  ‘No thanks,’ said Jacob. ‘They’ll fall off when they’ve had enough. If you pull them off they itch for weeks. Leeches don’t bother me.’

  ‘Don’t bother you!’ Ben shivered. ‘How can you stand to look at them? All black and shiny and filling up with blood.’

  ‘I don’t have to look at them,’ said Jacob simply. ‘Come on, let’s catch up with the others.’

  Simon and Mary were sitting on a rock at the top of the hill. Simon was scratching his leech bites.

  ‘Do they itch?’ asked Jacob.

  Simon nodded, then realised Jacob couldn’t see. ‘Yeah. Come on, let’s get home. I’m thirsty. Hey, what’s the time?’

  Jacob felt for the watch on his wrist, lifted the glass and felt the hands underneath it. ‘Half past four.’

  ‘Hey, come on then. Dad said he’d pick us up at five. He wants to get back to watch the weather report.’

  It was faster going home. Jacob kept his fingers on Ben’s arm, directing them.

  ‘This is crazy,’ said Mary. ‘We saw which way we came. How come you can remember and we can’t?’

  ‘Mum says most people only know what it looks like the way they came, not the other way. I just remember slopes and what the ground’s like. Anyway, I’ve come this way lots of times. I couldn’t remember it otherwise.’

  ‘Hey, why don’t you get one of those dogs?’ suggested Mary.

  ‘Guide dogs,’ said Simon.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘I will when I’m older,’ said Jacob.

  ‘Hey, that’ll be cool. Can we have a turn with it?’

  They came round the last corner at a trot. ‘Hope Dad hasn’t been waiting long,’ said Simon, racing for the steps. ‘Come on, you lot. I could drink a dam dry.’ He turned back for a minute. ‘You know, that was great,’ he decided.

  ‘Except for the leeches,’ said Mary. ‘Let’s go somewhere without leeches next time.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve got a blister,’ announced Simon.

  ‘I’d rather have a blister than a leech,’ said Mary.

  Simon and Mary climbed the stairs. Ben and Jacob paused at the bottom of the steps. They could hear Simon and Mary exclaiming to their father and Jacob’s mum in the kitchen. Ben realised he was used to Jacob’s fingertips on his arm now. The cane swung in front of them.

  ‘Look, thanks,’ Ben began awkwardly, ‘for showing us everything.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Jacob. ‘I liked it.’

  ‘I was thinking. Maybe I could show you things as well. I mean, like describe things to you. So you could see what they were like.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, the Show for instance. It’s on next week.’

  ‘You mean the Show here? Hey, I’ve never been to a show. Would you really?’

  ‘Would your parents let you?’

  ‘Of course. If I’m going with you. Are you sure though? I wouldn’t slow you down?’

  Ben looked for words. ‘No. I think I might see more if I was with you. See in different ways. If I had to see things for you. You know what I mean?’

  Jacob nodded. His face was glowing. ‘I reckon the two of us could see a lot,’ he said. They climbed the stairs and went through to the kitchen.

  Later Jacob watched them leave. He heard the click of the keys in the ignition, the bark of the motor. He smelt the burp of smoke from the exhaust pipe of Mr Harrison’s car. He heard the slide of the window as Simon or Ben or Mary wound it down to wave. He waved back too.

  ‘Hey, Jacob!’ It was Simon’s voice.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We’ll be at the pool tomorrow. Just to muck round. You want to come?’

  ‘Okay! See you tomorrow!’ called Jacob.

  ‘See you!’ yelled Ben and Mary as the tyres bit into the gravel.

  Jacob sat on the verandah. He could taste the moisture gathering in the air. The birds were calling again, feeding quickly now the weight of sunlight was gone, before they roosted for the night. Jacob felt the hands on his watch. Twenty past five. The night noises would begin soon — the scuffles, the peepings, the soft feel of night on his face. Jacob smiled. He sat in his chair to watch the evening settle through the trees.

  Dancing Dinosaurs

  Canberra is a young city, but the hills are old. Golden hills, round bare tops above the suburbs, hills with feathered grass, hills with scatterings of trees like spines, hills with clumps of rocks like rounded tortoise backs. No one builds on the hills of Canberra. They rise above the city and glow in the hot summer sun.

  The largest hill is Black Mountain, hunched above the office blocks, and at the feet of Black Mountain is the Australian National University, where Dr Angela Boardman sat in an office like a broom cupboard, sifting 2030 dinosaur drawings. She was not impressed.

  ‘Look at them!’ she said to Bernie, her research assistant, who had just come in with a cup of tea.

  ‘What are they?’

  Angela sipped her tea. It was too strong. She made a face. ‘They’re the entries in Poppa Pizzas’ Dinosaur competition. They want a drawing to illustrate their new slogan: “Big enough to feed a dinosaur!” I think every schoolkid in Canberra must have entered. I said I’d judge them.’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  Angela shrugged. ‘They’re going to pay me. It’s good publicity. I might even get my photo in the paper with the winner. If I want that overseas fellowship I need all the publicity I can get.’

  She leafed through the pile. ‘See — tyrannosauruses roaring, tyrannosauruses drinking, tyrannosauruses eating apatosauruses, except most of the kids still call them brontosauruses. It’s all the fault of TV. None of these kids seem to realise that Australia had its own dinosaurs. Or that there might be any others beside tyrannosauruses and pterodactyls.’ Suddenly she giggled. ‘Hey, here’s something different.’ She passed it over.

  Bernie laughed. ‘They’re cute. And they’re certainly not tyrannosauruses. Do you know what they are?’

  ‘They’re not quite like anything I’ve ever seen. The closest I can think of are the leaellynasauras. You know, that was the little dinosaur that was named for the kid in Victoria, Leaellyn. She used to help her parents collect fossils. They found a bit of fossilised jaw and teeth on the beach one day in the south of the Otway Ranges, and when they’d collected more bits and found out what it looked like they named it after her. But this is not like any drawing I’ve ever seen of one. The kid’s given them furry feet, for one thing, and coloured them bright red and blue.’

  ‘Did they have furry feet?’

  ‘No one knows. They could have had pink toenails for all we know.’

  ‘Well, that’s Australian enough for you anyway. Give it the prize.’

  Angela smiled. ‘No way. Look again. See what they’re supposed to be eating?’

  Bernie looked, then laughed. ‘It’s a rose bush. It can’t be anything else. How old is the kid anyway?’

  Angela looked at the entry form. ‘He’s ten,’ she said. ‘That’s old enough to realise that dinosaurs didn’t eat rose bushes.’

  ‘Maybe there were roses in the days of the leaellynasaura?’

  ‘They didn’t have that rose,’ said Angela flatly. ‘That’s a Queen Elizabeth and it was bred for the first time about twenty years ago. I’ve got one in my garden at home.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what’s eating our roses then. Dinosaurs.’

  ‘More likely earwigs.’ She looked at the drawing again. ‘We can’t give him the prize,’ she said. ‘I bet it’s not the sort of dinosaur Poppa Pizzas want at all. They want something big and hungry looking, not a dancing figure nibbling at roses. It’s a pity. They almost look as though they’re living. You know, it’s curious. The kid must have got his ideas from somewhere.’

  ‘Maybe he just copied them from a book.’

  ‘That’s just the point. I don’t know of any book that reconstructs dinosaurs like this. No one knows what they really looked like. All we’ve got is the shape
of the bones. We can work out where the muscles may have been, how much weight they must have carried by the size of the feet. But we don’t really know if they had feathers or scales, if they were grey and brown like lizards or all the colours of the rainbow. We don’t know what they sounded like either, though we can guess by the size and shape of the voice box.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Well, yes, it does,’ said Angela slowly. ‘If someone else is working in this area I ought to know about it.’

  ‘Ring the kid up and ask him,’ suggested Bernie.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ said Angela. ‘I think I will.’

  Canberra’s hills shimmered above the road as Angela left the city centre. Round bald hills with grass like short brown fur, long sloping hills baking in the sunshine. The far-off gums on Tidbinbilla Peak and Mt Tidbinbilla shone like blue-green armour.

  The Wallaces’ house was on the outskirts of Canberra, a new suburb with only a few houses finished, backing onto hot paddocks. The long dry grass rippled like feathers in the breeze. The blue ranges rose above the Murrumbidgee River.

  It was a small house, and very new. The grass grew in patches over the clay, a few shrubs were tied to stakes and a couple of roses grew by the front door. They looked stunted and badly pruned. Angela smiled. Maybe they had been nibbled by a dinosaur. She knocked on the door. It opened slightly. A face peered out.

  ‘Hello. Michael? I’m Dr Angela Boardman.’

  The door opened wider. ‘I rang Mum,’ said Michael. ‘She said I could talk to you.’

  ‘I thought you asked her when I rang,’ said Angela, as she walked into the hall.

  Michael shook his head. ‘Mum says to pretend she’s home if anyone rings when she’s at work,’ he said, ‘in case it’s a burglar or something. Then I ring her up straightaway. She doesn’t get home till after five.’ He led the way into the kitchen. Angela followed him.

  ‘What time does your daddy get home?’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ said Michael. ‘He doesn’t live here any more.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Angela.

  Michael Wallace was thin, with wide dark eyes and spiky black hair. He had a habit of watching you closely that Angela found disconcerting. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ he asked. ‘I make Mum one when she gets home from work. Or there’s orange juice.’

  Angela shook her head. ‘I just came to talk to you about your picture of the dinosaurs,’ she said. ‘It was very good, Michael.’

  ‘Have I won?’ asked Michael hopefully.

  ‘Well, no. But I liked them a lot.’

  ‘I didn’t think I would,’ said Michael. ‘It was Miss Watson who wanted to send them. She’s my teacher. She liked them too. But they weren’t real dinosaurs. Not like tyrannosauruses or brontosauruses.’

  ‘Of course they were real,’ said Angela, ‘just as real as the big ones. Where did you get the idea from?’

  Michael looked out the window, then back at Angela. ‘Oh, I just did,’ he said.

  There was a pause. A fly buzzed through the open window, landed on Angela’s face. She brushed it away. It came back again with sticky summer feet. Through the window she could see a new house going up down the street, wooden frame and piles of bricks. There must have been a lovely view of the hills before they started building, she thought.

  ‘Maybe some orange juice would be nice,’ said Angela.

  They drank the orange juice in the living room, Angela on the sofa and Michael in an armchair with a worn fuzzy seat. There was a bookcase made of planks and bricks, but no TV, noticed Angela. Unless there was one in his bedroom, he hadn’t got his dinosaur ideas from there.

  There were paintings pinned to the walls, a child’s paintings. They were really very good, thought Angela. They were mostly of the Canberra hills, long brown hills with grass like old men’s stubble, round green hills with trees like spikes. The dinosaurs were best though. Angela chuckled to herself. Who’d have thought of giving the thickset, tank-like minmi a bright red comb like a chook, or drawing a giant iguanodon with a trailing goat-like beard? She looked at the paintings more closely. The iguanodon stretched in front of parliament house, the minmi scratched itself against the Black Mountain telecommunications tower. She looked at Michael. He looked back at her warily.

  ‘You know, Michael,’ she said, sipping her juice, ‘I’m very fond of dinosaurs. In fact that’s my work.’

  ‘Real dinosaurs? Miss Watson said there weren’t any still alive.’

  ‘She’s right. There aren’t. I work with their fossils, really. The last dinosaur died out about sixty-four million years ago.’

  ‘How do you know? Maybe there are still a few somewhere. Sort of hiding.’

  Angela smiled. ‘Because there are none left,’ she said. ‘All that’s left are fossils. Satellites can see all over the world now. There are no hidden valleys or mountains any more where we can dream about prehistoric monsters. We know how old they are by measuring the ratios of radioactive elements in the rocks where we find them. It’s called carbon dating. Maybe that’s the sort of thing you’d like to do when you grow up?’

  ‘No,’ said Michael. ‘I like animals that are alive. I think I’d rather be a vet. Or a painter.’

  Angela tried another tack. ‘Michael, please tell me where you copied your dinosaur pictures from. It’s the area I’m specially interested in. If anyone else is working on it I need to know.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Michael.

  Angela decided to tell the truth. ‘Because I’m trying to win a fellowship overseas, to study techniques to work out how to reconstruct dinosaurs, to see what they looked like. But there are lots of other people who want the money too, to study other things. If anyone else is working in the same area as me it might spoil my chances. I need to know what they’re doing. I think dinosaurs are important. I think we should know about them. After all, the past is really part of our present. Don’t you think that’s a good idea, Michael? To find out what they really looked like?’

  ‘You really want to know?’ asked Michael. ‘You really think it’s important? You really like dinosaurs as much as that?’

  ‘Of course. It’s my whole life’s work.’

  Michael looked out the window again, at the house construction next door, then looked back at Angela. ‘If you already knew what they looked like,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you wouldn’t need to study overseas, would you?’

  ‘No,’ said Angela, surprised. ‘I don’t suppose so. But no one really knows what they looked like. There’s no way we can.’

  ‘You’re the first person I’ve met who’s really interested in dinosaurs,’ said Michael. ‘In little dinosaurs anyway. Everyone else just likes the big ones.’

  ‘I like the big ones too,’ said Angela.

  Michael was silent for a minute. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you really want to see what dinosaurs look like. But it’ll have to be tonight. We can’t see them now. Can you come out tonight? Not here, down the road. At about two o’clock? I’ll put the alarm on so I won’t be late. Mum never wakes up once she’s got to sleep.’

  Angela blinked. ‘Two in the morning! Who on earth are we going to see at two in the morning?’

  ‘Why, the dinosaurs of course,’ said Michael. A car pulled up in the driveway. ‘That’s Mum. You won’t say anything, will you? She doesn’t know about the dinosaurs. She’d only worry.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Angela.

  The moon was nearly full. It sailed across the sky sending shadows over Canberra. The hills glowed in the moonlight. The ranges by the river were black against a lighter sky. The world seemed to shift as the shadows changed, as the moon drifted through the clouds and away. Angela sat in her car at the end of the road and waited. She wished her car had a radio, or that she’d brought a book to pass the time. She wondered what she was doing there. Finally she saw Michael slip out of his house and hurry down the road.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t find my sneak
ers. Mum tidied them away.’

  ‘Michael, what’s this all about?’ she asked.

  Michael took her hand. ‘Come on. We’ve got to walk. I used to be able to see them from my bedroom window, but you can’t now all these houses have gone up. We’ll have to walk further down towards the river.’

  ‘Can’t we drive?’

  Michael considered. ‘No. The car might scare them.’

  ‘I just hope I don’t wreck these shoes for a wild goose chase.’ Angela grabbed her camera and started walking. ‘How did you discover these dinosaurs of yours?’

  ‘I just woke up one night. I get asthma sometimes and can’t sleep. I looked out the window and there they were.’

  ‘Dinosaurs?’

  Michael nodded. ‘So I went outside. The little ones come right in among the houses sometimes. You should hear the dogs barking! They all seem to howl at once. It must be hard for the big ones in the centre of Canberra. They’ve had to be still since the city was built. Mostly anyway. I think they stretch around a bit when no one’s looking. But I suppose if you’re millions of years old, a hundred years doesn’t seem so long. They have to stay really quiet so no one notices them, though once you know they’re dinosaurs you can always tell. They don’t bother about me though. They know I like dinosaurs. And you like them too.’

  ‘Michael, there can’t be dinosaurs in the centre of Canberra. Someone would have seen them.’

  ‘Not if they don’t want to be seen. They’re really well hidden. I’ll show you,’ said Michael. He turned down a new street, away from the houses. There were no streetlights here, though the road was paved and the gutters concreted, waiting for the houses that would soon be built. A few old trees had been left when the land was cleared.

  Something black brushed Angela’s face and flapped away. ‘Argg! What was that?’

  ‘Just a bat,’ said Michael. Angela shuddered.

  ‘Aren’t you scared at night?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Michael. ‘I like the night. It’s like another country sometimes. It’s gentler. Daytime’s too noisy, too bright. I like the starlight and the moonlight. There are more animals at night too.’