- Chapter 1: The Dust Bowl
The summer had been long and brutally hot in the rural town of Kurnai. The land was cracked and dry, and the sky was a hazy white. For the first time in ten years, the large dam on Mr. Peterson’s farm was almost empty. The local paper called the situation a severe drought.
Riley and his older sister, Sophie, spent their afternoons sitting by the dam’s edge, watching the water line drop a little lower each day. They worried about their family’s few remaining sheep and the small garden. Their parents looked stressed and tired. Everyone was conserving every drop of water.
- Chapter 2: A Forgotten Structure
As the water receded, a strange structure began to appear near the centre of the dam floor. It was a ring of old, large, smooth river stones, almost completely covered in thick silt. “What is that?” asked Riley. Sophie, remembering an old local story, squinted at the stones.
“Gran used to tell a story about an old well that got covered up when the dam was first built, nearly a hundred years ago. They thought it had a spring feeding it,” she whispered. Riley was skeptical. “An old well? Here?” The silt was like concrete, baked hard by the sun.
- Chapter 3: The Effort to Clear
The idea that there might be a forgotten water source was too important to ignore. Riley and Sophie told their Dad. He was hesitant; he didn’t want to waste energy on a mere legend. But the look of hope in their eyes convinced him to try.
The next day, the family went to the exposed dam bed with shovels and picks. Digging was slow, backbreaking work. The ground was hard and the air was thick with dust. After an hour of digging around the stone ring, their Dad stopped, exhausted and disheartened. “It’s too much work for a story, kids. It’s just a pile of rocks.”
- Chapter 4: A Glint of Silver
Riley felt his throat tight with disappointment, but he refused to give up. He took a pick and hit the silt directly in the centre of the stone ring. CLANG! The sound was different. He hit it again, harder. CLANG! CLANG! A small patch of dark, wet silt broke away. Below it, something shimmered.
Sophie and Dad rushed over. They worked together quickly now, clearing the area. The “something” was an old, rusty metal pipe, about ten centimetres wide. As the pressure was released, a tiny, slow stream of clear, cool water began to bubble up from the pipe. It was the forgotten spring, dormant but still active.
- Chapter 5: Hope Returns
It wasn’t a sudden flood, but it was fresh water—and it was constant. Dad found an old pump and a long hose, and for the next week, they carefully pumped the precious water into a large storage tank for the sheep. The immediate crisis was averted.
Riley and Sophie were hailed as heroes by their parents. They learned that the most valuable resource isn’t always obvious; sometimes, the solution to a huge problem is hidden beneath layers of obsolescence and doubt. They proved that local knowledge, combined with persistence, can bring hope back to a land suffering from drought.
Exercise: Main Idea and Problem/Solution
- Main Problem: What was the main, non-environmental problem the family faced (the effect of the drought)?
- The Solution: What specific action led to the discovery of the spring?
- Vocabulary Meaning: What does it mean for the spring to be dormant?