“No problem.” She swallowed, feeling lightheaded. It occurred to her that she might faint. “Is it going to be a problem that I live in a donga?”
“Shouldn’t be, if it passes inspection. The state will send their own person around to do that.”
Numb, she shook the lawyer’s hand, stood up, thanked her again, and left.
She got lost in the hallway, but eventually found the atrium with the indoor trees.
14
CYCLONE
Ronnie ran to her pickup in a downpour and drove home in a gale, wind howling, trees leaning sideways. Wipers swinging wildly barely dented the fingers of light and color obscuring her windshield.
Main Street in Tinaroo was under a shallow oily puddle. Traffic crawled. After the ice cream store she signaled and turned left down a gravel drive.
The sign for her mobile home village flapped in the wind. The shared drive along the back of the chain fence behind the Maccas car park bore a collection of potholes and puddles. Standing water already filled low areas between aluminum dongas, turning couch grass lawns, cement patios and gravel parking spots to blurry grey glass, dark mirrors reflecting storm clouds.
Minor flooding, so far, but if rain continued for days the water levels would rise. Water was the strongest thing in the world. Floods were the most expensive natural disaster in the state, causing billions of dollars of destruction each year. A river that jumped its banks was more destructive than wildfire. The Barron periodically wiped entire neighborhoods off the map, leaving behind nothing but mud scars and broken trees.
This neighborhood would need to be evacuated, or someone’s nan would cark it and be found weeks later sunk into a moldering mattress. Ronnie should have received an emergency text alert from the manager.
Dogs barked as she rolled down Lane B. The lawns between Lane B and Lane C were a pond. Neighbors’ inflatables and kid toys floated up against chain-link fences, queuing like school kids.
Her side lawn was one with the neighborhood puddle. The patio she and Mikey had laid last time her friend visited was under water.
When she opened the door of her truck a wall of water instantly soaked her arm. She heard Matilda and Maya barking inside the donga. Hunched against the rain she fumbled with her keys, then edged through the door sideways so the girls wouldn’t run out. They ran between her and the steel barrel where she kept their food.
“I already fed you, babes, but I know you’ve had a stressful day.”
She scooped dog food into their bowls. Matilda and Maya leapt at their bowls like they hadn’t been fed in days.
A flash of lightning, close, eerie like power flickering, then an ear-splitting crash shook the donga. Electricity hummed in the walls. Ronnie held her hands in the air, careful not to touch anything metal. People had been electrocuted during storms like this.
Where was Rainbow?
The dogs wolfed down their food and licked each others’ bowls. Rainbow must be at school. Kids didn’t get electrocuted at school. Rainbow would ride the bus home and run up the rickety front steps of Maude’s white wooden Queenslander. Rainbow would spend the evening on the couch watching telly or reading in bed. Either way, she wouldn’t be in danger.
Her worrying wouldn’t make the girl safe. She could call Maude, but then what?Please make sure my daughter doesn’t touch any metal countertops or take a bath tonight?
She opened the fridge, staring at the vanilla slice she had bought for Rainbow yesterday. She had meant to send it home with her.
It stared back, sad and lonely. She ate it.
Another eerie flash of white light. The dogs tore through the donga, whining and shrieking like they had been kicked. They knocked over chairs in their hurry to scramble under the table.
The family room was a mess. The dogs had been panicking while she was in Mareeba. She picked up the chairs as she crossed the room. Wet carpet smell. The dogs had probably peed in her bedroom.
Ronnie flicked on the overhead light. Her bedroom carpet was under water.
Huh. Her donga was on cinder blocks. How high must the water be outside? It hadn’t looked that high. Surely the water hadn’t risen while she was feeding the dogs?
Ronnie shrugged into her raincoat. Her cast was too big. She cut the wrist of the raincoat with scissors.
She stuck her head out the back door, then took the plunge and waded barefoot through water up to her ankles. It was cool. Water in the back garden came up to her shins. If it had been moving it would have been dangerous.
She went back inside, threw Rainbow’s clothes in a duffel bag, then loaded the dogs in the passenger seat of the truck, bribing them with strips of bacon. Her laptop, charger and phone she put in a garbage bag.
The office manager at the primary school in Atherton answered on the third ring.
