I wake in the dark and I can hear the rain pouring like waterfall. Maybe it will quit by morning, I think, and roll over to fall back to sleep. The alarm rings and it's still raining. It's five am, and I crawl out of bed.
Before I leave the house I tap Moira awake. "It's raining, and I'm taking the umbrella. Just put something over your head when you walk down the lane. Sorry." I repeat the instructions to Arwen, then I take our only umbrella and leave through the front door. The air is bright, the light is clean, the surface of every leaf, bark, rock, grass shines in the rain. I balance a cup of coffee in my non-umbrella hand. Hang it in a tree mid-lane.
I have to walk the long way, past the coop card-lock, along the road that curves right, and cross highway ten at the train tracks. No short cuts today.
At lunch in our staff room I run into Sandy Pinay Schindler, Prairie Valley School Division's First Nations and Metis Coordinator. Sandy and I worked on a Treaty Arts Smart Movie Project last year with my grade tens. "Did you hear they're going to fly the Treaty Four flag in Regina?" she says.
"No," I say, "Really? They're going to fly it all the time?"
"Yes. There'll be a flag raising."
"We should take some students," I say.
"That would be great," she says, but then I'm called away and we don't talk any further.
I leave the school out the backdoor. The sun is shining. It's Friday. I've forgotten it had rained and I take the short cut across the tracks. The field is dry. I forget to take a picture of the Treaty Four Flag at the All Nations Healing Hospital. I need to pack and organize supper before we leave for Regina; we're attending a church conference at Western Christian College. I forget to drive by Regina's city hall to see if the flag is flying.
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