water story

“Guess what?” questioned Dad.

“What?” Ben, my little brother, asked.

“We’re going to buy a water tank.”

“Yay! Is that like a water gun except it is an army tank?”

“No, silly,” I interrupted, “It is a big round thing that holds water. Why are we getting one Dad?”

“So we can have water if there is a drought, David. It will be connected to the roof so the rainwater will not be wasted.”

Three days later a van from a company came and set up a system for us. It even had solar panels that heated up the water! Dad learnt about it from the internet. Mum said, “Now if there is a drought we will be able to have a bath!” I think that we won’t because it wouldn’t leave water to drink, but my brother was terrified about that idea. “I don’t want to have a bath!” he wailed. Dad had to explain that they wouldn’t be able to have a bath in a drought because there wouldn’t be enough water. “But it’s almost winter and we will be able to keep having baths for a long time yet.”

Two months later and there was a huge flood. The water on the roads were almost up to the car doors, and the school was flooded so school was cancelled. Cars got stuck at the bottom of gullies, their engines drowned by the water. Where we lived the water was half a metre high and all our neighbours were getting their kayaks out. We got our kayaks out and paddled around, treating the street like a lake. I loved going down the hills, letting the water whisk me away, and trooped back up the hill, my mind filled with excitement. As I trooped up for the hundredth time, I heard mum call “come up for lunch!”

While eating lunch, we heard on the radio that the mains tank was broken, and the water was polluted. “You will have to use stored water until the mains tank is fixed. All people with rain harvesting tanks please share your water with your neighbours as much as possible. Your tank will be refilled by all this rain we are having- the rain is drinkable. “I was wrong,” said dad, “we will have to use this tank a lot earlier than expected.”

We told our neighbours that they could use our water tank. Some of them needed it, some of them had bottled water that they could use, and a couple of people had a water tank already. All the people with a water tank put a sign on their property that people could go and get water at their house. Every hour another couple of people came to refill their drink bottles. Mum told us that “Though water is an enemy in destroying our gardens and flooding our land, it is important as we need it to live, and is precious even when there is lots of it.” I was just glad that we got our water tank, and could just go to the water tank whenever we needed water.