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a toddler creates thunder by dancing on a manhole At first, she cannot account for the noise. With each jerked step, a thunderclap. Her metal dance floor echoes her jive. Her pumps, no bigger than mini croissants, each create a cymbal crash, the earth responds to her slightest step. What dark sorcery is this? What topsy-turvy witchcraft? She pauses to evaluate. A scientific test. She retreats to the grass, jumps. No thunder. She steps back on the manhole. Thunder. She sees her powers are site-specific, unique to this one patch. She returns to her sacred sphere, a pint-sized Jedi embracing the force. I watch it happen in her face. From this beer-garden bench, book propped, ornamental, in my hands, I see her eyes spin like stop-signs, red to green. Now she cannot be silenced. Prospero in rainbow leggings. Storm Lord. She gambols fitfully on her audible stage. (Toddlers always dance like marionettes, their brains still learning the strings.) She bellows with god-like glee. The men behind are quaffing hipster ales. ‘I don’t want to feel shit in terms of…  there’s never a good way to end it…  Daisy…  I mean…  she’s fine.’ I turn my phone facedown on the table. But what’s this? A swerve in the plot? A second child – same face, same rainbow leggings – approaches the rim of the arena. A sidelined gladiator. This is mythological: siblings duelling for the Tempest Touch. 56
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Yet in the magic circle is room for only one… The twin hovers her trainer over the metal. She pauses, draws back. I see her thinking: What if I can’t replicate the sound? Her logic doesn’t focus on the manhole, its looseness, percussive material, the reasons for the noise, but rather on her sister’s ability to conjure it. For the twin, it is not guaranteed just anyone could make this dance floor sing, or that her identical weight must yield identical magic. The conclusion is unknown. Therefore, a risk. A trial of self-belief. She lifts her foot again. I miss my mouth, spill coke down my shirt. Again, she withdraws. Her brow squeezes. A moral flashes through it. And like that, she folds, cross-legged, on the grass; consents to spectate. She will not trespass on her sister’s fairy ring, steal her thunder. The humanity! Generosity unsurpassed! Wait… there’s more! She begins to applaud, that fleshy infant clap (its value enhanced by the coordinative strain). The hipsters are discussing liquorice Rizla: ‘It’s flavoured smoking…’ They chortle like scrambled cassette tapes. But watch, now the tiny dancer is a celebrity, applauded by her own mirror image. An audience of herself. Like that dream where everyone looks like you. I pick up my phone, type ‘I’m sorry’ then delete it. I picture a world of admiring clones, assigned doppelgängers bred solely to approve of unremarkable feats; a second Me sat cross-legged on my shadow, shouting ‘Bravo!’ and ‘It’s a miracle! Look! She can summon salty water from her eyes!’ 57

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a toddler creates thunder by dancing on a manhole

At first, she cannot account for the noise. With each jerked step, a thunderclap. Her metal dance floor echoes her jive. Her pumps, no bigger than mini croissants, each create a cymbal crash, the earth responds to her slightest step. What dark sorcery is this? What topsy-turvy witchcraft? She pauses to evaluate. A scientific test. She retreats to the grass, jumps. No thunder. She steps back on the manhole. Thunder. She sees her powers are site-specific, unique to this one patch. She returns to her sacred sphere, a pint-sized Jedi embracing the force. I watch it happen in her face. From this beer-garden bench, book propped, ornamental, in my hands, I see her eyes spin like stop-signs, red to green. Now she cannot be silenced. Prospero in rainbow leggings. Storm Lord. She gambols fitfully on her audible stage. (Toddlers always dance like marionettes, their brains still learning the strings.) She bellows with god-like glee. The men behind are quaffing hipster ales. ‘I don’t want to feel shit in terms of…  there’s never a good way to end it…  Daisy…  I mean…  she’s fine.’ I turn my phone facedown on the table. But what’s this? A swerve in the plot? A second child – same face, same rainbow leggings – approaches the rim of the arena. A sidelined gladiator. This is mythological: siblings duelling for the Tempest Touch.

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