Ivana Kupala: The Night of the Forest-Spirit (Jayne's Nature) by Louise Jayne

Author:Louise, Jayne [Louise, Jayne]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Surf City Source
Published: 2013-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

Shake, shake, shake some more

We did break for food once. We all had sandwiches, celery sticks and carrots, pretzels and chips, and bottled water or soda, and Angel had brought a tall Igloo with a tap full of iced tea which was gone in like the first hour. After that people were just helping themselves by dashing off to the coolers in the screen room and hurrying back to rejoin the dancing or singing. The chill was easily forgotten– once you are up and dancing it’s not easy to stay cold. In fact most of us were sweating.

They all called for me to dance– I was actually the last one to get up for a first dance, mainly because I had been playing guitar. So I left my guitar to Angel and she and Jem and Sarah played, just plain chords and a few notes, like some kind of country thing. I just did what I had practiced, a kind of jazz/ballet routine I have done for a free dance before, except I added a few things especially about going around the fire. People liked it, which was all I wanted. I am not really a good dancer. Then Jem got up to dance with me, both of us going around at opposite sides of the fire pit, clapping and turning like Middle Eastern harem girls or those traditional men’s dances that the Jews used to do. It was fun for us, so we each started reaching down and pulling other people to their feet, and finally it was Sarah and Angel– not the two strongest guitar players in the world! –accompanying all of us to this eight-girl Jewish hora. The girls on guitars strummed up to this big crescendo and we all ended very dramatically with our hands up in the air and our faces turned up towards the heavens. It was so dramatic and serious that we all cracked up laughing!

So ended the music and dancing. We sat around the fire, quieter now, and told a few stories and drank juice and ate snacks. That was when Jem and Angel sat on the log. You have to watch it in the woods– you can’t brush against just anything and– especially if you are a girl– you can’t just sit down on anything either. Then again I have been dumb enough to sit right on the ground... even Indians don’t do that!

Well suddenly Jem and Angel felt creepy things crawling on their bottoms. Jem shrieked the loudest– the single loudest sound we had made all night. Then they were both hopping around, squirming and crying, ‘Ticks! Ticks!’ and the whole camp was in a panic. Most people were checking themselves, picking at their hair, bending over and pawing around trying to find where a tick could hide. Every single little twitch of sweat or dirt can feel like something crawling on you. Angel ran straight down to the water and plopped bottom-first into it. Jem followed her immediately.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.