Bush Christmas

[first lines]

Narrator:
I don't expect you've ever heard of our valley. Mara Mara is its name, the name the Australian blacks gave it hundreds of years before we came to their land. Mara Mara. It has a nice, sleepy sound, hasn't it? And we're a sleepy little town, too. Plenty of hard work, but never much excitement. That is to say, not until last Christmas. I must tell you about last Christmas, because then we had too much excitement for a little place like ours. It all started on the afternoon school broke up for Christmas holidays. Of course on our side of the world, Christmas comes in the middle of the summer.

[last lines]

Helen Thompson:
That's our Christmas present, daddy, from all of us.

Michael Thompson:
What's up with Neza?

Helen Thompson:
Goodness knows. The blacks have their own ideas.