Reading the Seasons

A crocodile’s year is written by water. The rains come and the water spreads, and the animals spread with it into ground that was dry a month before. The rains stop and the water shrinks back, and the crocodiles pack into whatever is left. That rise and fall is the same everywhere the animal lives, and the risk to people rises and falls with it. So the most useful thing you can learn about your own patch of crocodile country is its calendar of rain, because the rain is what moves the water and the crocodiles come with it. Risk is never zero in any month. But it has a shape, and the shape is one you can learn.