There’s a Fire on the Mountain
This book belongs to
There’s a Fire on the Mountain
Illustrated by Julie Smith-Belton
Written by Kirsty Paxton
Designed by Nadene Reignier
Edited by Margot Bertelsmann
with the help of the Book Dash participants in the Virtual Book Dash on 15 May 2021.
ISBN: 978-1-77623-156-0
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There’s a Fire on the Mountain
“There’s a fire on the mountain.
Run, run! Kukh’umlilo kwezontaba. Baleka, baleka!”
My friends and I
have a game we
like to play.
Then one day there was a real fire on the mountain. It was a terrible fire that burned and burned.
Big, old buildings burned, books burned, trees and grasses burned. Helicopters tipped water onto the fire and brave firefighters
blasted their hoses.
And people did run. They grabbed their books and bags and ran away from the smoke and the flames.
After three long days, the
last flames were out.
The firefighters could finally rest.
The slopes of the mountain were black. When we walked on the mountain, all we could see were rocks and burnt bushes.
We were very sad.
Until one day … tiny bits of red
popped up through the black.
“Look, look. What is that?”
The little bits of
red grew
and grew
until they became beautiful fire lilies, tall and elegant with drooping red
bells for flowers.
Then came the big, red flowers bursting through the green like volcanoes. They looked like thick red tubes with yellow-
topped spikes and big, red petals.
Dots of green grew up all over the
mountainside, turning the black
into green grasses and restios.
And the tall
watsonia
in orange
and pink.
Soon the mountainside was covered with plants we hadn’t seen for years.
The mountain is full of new life!