The Game 
by Mike Carter

Now, of course, everyone knows that Dart  isn't a game.  But back then, when 
Jess and I were twelve, it seemed to us like any other machine in the arcade, 
only this one was free – and it was tough.
Most nights, straight after school, Jess and I would go down to Space World.  
I'd feel my fingers start to twitch as I stood at the doorway, peering in at the 
guys standing by their machines in the gloom, the crackle of guns firing around 
them, the shadows of figures leaping and twirling on the screens.
The Thursday when I first saw Dart was no different, except that there was 
this man, maybe thirty or so, standing in the corner and a new machine sitting a 
little way apart from the others with a kid at it.  
Except for Billy, who ran the place, there were never any adults in the 
arcade.  Everyone over school age spent their time outside, scuttling past on the 
pavement, peering into the gloom, and thinking what lowlife scum we all were.  
If we caught them staring, we'd snarl at them and watch them sniff and race on 
like they'd been infected.
"What's with him?" Jess asked Billy, nodding at the stranger.
Billy left his little kiosk and came over. 
"He's brought in a new game called Dart.  He's letting the fellas try it out. 
Would ya like to have a go?"
"How much?" I asked suspiciously.
"Free."
"Yeah?"
"True.  He says anyone can have a turn.  He arrived about an hour ago with 
a letter from my boss telling me to let him set it up."  Billy shrugged. "Matt's 
on it now."
I wouldn't have recognised Matt.  He was sitting in a low chair, his head 
completely enclosed in a full-faced helmet that had the front sticking out as if 
there was a screen inside.  
We gathered round him.  His feet rested on pedals and the fingers of his left 
hand danced over four keys set in a lever.  His right hand gripped a joystick 
that he was moving backwards and forwards, left and right.  As we watched, his 
body jerked sideways, the knuckles of his right hand went white and, suddenly, 
his fingers were clawing at the helmet, trying to pull it off his head.
The man in the corner bounded over, touched something on the side of the 
machine, and the helmet lifted up.  Matt's face was pale, full of fear.
"You should've hit the eject button, son," said the stranger.
Matt didn't reply.  His eyes flicked from side to side.  His whole face was 
screwed up.  Then he started to shake.
"Come away from it, lad."  The stranger helped Matt from the chair. I saw a 
five-dollar note pass from his hand into Matt's.  "Here, go out and treat 
yourself to a pie and Coke."  
Matt began walking from the parlour.  His eyes were glazed.  He hadn't even 
seen us.  "I blew up," I heard him whisper.  "I just blew up …" 
I caught the stranger's eye and nodded towards the game.  "What is this 
thing, mister?"
"How good are you on the machines?" he asked.
"Not bad."
It was an understatement.  Diamond, my arcade name, headed most of the 
games in the place, and when we raced the cars, no one beat me.  I seemed to 
know what was going to happen before the machine did. 
"All right," the man began.  He bit his lip.  "It sounds corny, but the story 
is you're in a small spaceship.  The controls are like a plane's."  He started to 
explain, pointing to keys and touching levers. 
"What about this button over here?" I asked before he had time to finish.
"It fires a gun."  He pointed to another by my left hand.  "This one lets you 
eject … if you find things get too rough."
"Matt didn't use it."
"No.  It would've been better for him if he had."  He hesitated.  "When you 
play Dart, you're right there in the action.  If your ship blows up, you feel 
exactly like you're going with it."
I glanced down at the machine.
"Now, ready for the helmet?" asked the man.  "Once it's on, you're on the 
border of the solar system, and the ships from Galaxy 3XZ are after you."
"I'm ready."
He lowered the helmet onto my head.  It rested on my shoulders, and 
suddenly I was in deep, star-lined space.  This was real three-dimensional stuff, 
and in front of me, instead of a screen, there was a window through which I 
viewed the universe.  
I shoved the throttle forwards, and the stars raced towards me; I pushed the 
joystick to one side, and space tilted.  I kicked down with one foot and skidded 
sideways.  Cruisy.  Then, without warning, a silver dart appeared in front of me.  
A fiery red line shot from its nose.  Attack!  I yanked the joystick back.  My 
left hand shoved the throttle forwards while my fingers worked desperately at 
the keys.  The red line snaked past my window.  It had missed me, but there was 
no time to feel relieved.  Another silver dart appeared right before me.  I 
pressed my "fire" button and watched as a quivering line of gold smashed the 
dart into a thousand sparkling fragments.
Then another headed straight for me, and another.  Red lines hurtled towards 
me, on and on, from every side, no let-up, no break, on and on …  I don't how 
long I stuck at it before I realised that I couldn't keep going, that I was going 
to be hit.  I reached for the eject button.  The screen in front of me went black.  
The helmet lifted upwards.  I rolled out of my seat and onto the floor of the 
arcade.  My heart was still pounding ten minutes later.

Now we all know that Dart isn't a game.  Five years down the track it's common 
knowledge that Earth faces an alien invasion and that most kids are being used 
to help defend our planet.  The stranger in the arcade that Thursday wasn't just 
offering us a free game.  He was a trained recruiter from Spaceforce, a branch 
of the airforce that we didn't even know existed back then.  When he sat us 
down to play Dart , he wasn't just trialling us; it was the real thing.  We were 
in charge of a robot-controlled ship that really was out there in space, that 
really was facing attack.
Adults who had trained as fighter pilots weren't any help.  Space warfare 
requires super-swift reflexes, the sort that most people have lost by their late 
teens.  We were troops for Earth, and we didn't even know it.
I stuck at Dart for four years before I got out.  That's about a year longer 
than most. I could feel my reflexes dying, the stress always with me.  Flying 
those ships is all instinct.  There's no way you can take the time to mentally 
calculate your actions and still hope that the ship will survive.  Estimating the 
microseconds before you fire, aiming slightly wide so that the dart flies into 
your beam, transferring your reactions into the touch of a finger on a key or the 
jerk of a hand on a lever – you don't think about it, you just do it.  
Me, I'm back at school now, helping design the circuits that transform that 
twitch of a finger on a "spacies machine" into a fearsome blast that can blow an 
alien craft out of existence.  I didn't think much of maths and science at school, 
but now I know that it's the key to programming Dart's computer, and that's all 
that lies between us and those … things out there.
They got as close as the Asteroid Belt before we started pushing them back.  
I'd like to think that, some day, we'll manage to talk to them, but for now they 
refuse.  Who knows, maybe their darts are manoeuvred by kids like us, sitting in 
front of "games" machines in another galaxy …
One thing, though, when anyone on the street glances into the darkened 
arcades scattered throughout the world in every city and in every street and sees 
the kids sitting in their chairs, their helmets like a fearsome growth on their 
heads, they don't think of them as lowlife any more. 

There Stood a Man …
by Pauline Cartwright

Years before miners came to Otago searching for gold, another group of 
people used to pass through the region regularly.  They were Màori, 
crossing the area to reach another treasure, West Coast greenstone.

George MacPherson was lost.  It wouldn't have mattered had the weather 
been warmer and had he had some food and dry clothing.  But there was a 
fine rain falling from a cold, grey sky, and George's clothes were 
uncomfortably damp.
He felt in his pockets yet again but was still unable to conjure up 
anything even remotely like food.  His eyes combed towering hill slopes 
that he didn't recognise.  Not even a sheep.  George knew that he had no 
means of cooking mutton, but had he seen a sheep, he would have felt 
less alone in this godforsaken spot.  It would have meant that some 
human, somewhere, owned the animal.  He would have known the 
possibility of finding a farmhouse. 
The hills, peaks shrouded in mist, seemed to be tipping over on him.  
They were so huge.  So bare.  He began walking again.  The hills didn't 
seem to tilt when he was moving.
He rubbed the bump on his head very gently for it was extremely 
tender.  How long had he lain knocked out at the bottom of that steep 
slope?  And was his memory right when it tried to tell him that he had 
been prospecting for unfound gold?  His head still ached.  His thinking 
seemed fuzzy, unfinished, tired.  How long had he been here?  And where 
was he?
"Well, I know that I'm George MacPherson, Scottish born.  My 
memory's clear on that."  George muttered the words softly.  He thought 
about crying again for help but decided against it.  He already knew that 
the sound of his own voice bouncing back eerily from the hills made him 
feel more alone than ever.
"I'm George MacPherson, and I fancied adopting this land as my 
own," he said quietly.  "I am not so sure about that at this moment.  Not 
so sure at all."
The outlines of the hills were dimming – and it wasn't just from the 
shadowing of rain.  Night was falling.  "I'm not a superstitious man, but 
I could do with some company right now, some company that would lead 
me back to my camp." 
Rock, thrusting up here and there from the folds of land, took on 
sinister shapes.  George gave a short laugh.  "Perhaps it is the time to be 
reciting the words of our good poet Robbie Burns," he thought:
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, 
And all things that go bump in the night,
The good Lord deliver us.
"Now, why is it that I can remember that but I can't remember for 
sure why I am here or what I'm doing?"
He was finding it hard to keep his teeth from chattering for the 
dampness was seeping through his clothes, chilling his body.
"I wonder if I had a swag?  Have I pitched a tent somewhere up there, 
or was I heading back to camp?"
He could remember camp clearly enough:  the huts and tents, the 
beginning of a row of shops that were only flapping calico shelters 
disguised by wooden fronts, and the hotels that were of a similar 
structure.  "My, what I could do for a drink right now!"
Yet even as he said the words, he knew they weren't true.  What he 
needed was food.  When his stomach didn't gurgle and rumble, it ached  
with hunger.  George staggered a little, stopped, and leaned on a rock, 
needing its support.
"I should be finding shelter, and there doesn't seem much to find in 
these parts.  Not much at all."  He was trying to make light of it, to 
thrust aside his fear of maybe dying out here in this empty land.  "Not 
even a river.  I can't even find a river to follow."
Then, suddenly, immediately in front of him, there stood a man, tall 
and proud looking, with his hair tied in a topknot and with fascinating 
patterns swirling in circles over the contours of his face.
George rubbed his eyes.  Gingerly he touched his head again.  Perhaps 
he was starting to see things that weren't there.  The tall stranger took a 
step forward.  In the half-light, the white of his eyes flashed.  George 
heard a grasslike rustle from the cloak around the man's shoulders.
"You're a Màori, aren't you?"
The man didn't answer.  His eyes held George's.  George saw no 
reason to be afraid.
"I'm lost," he ventured.  "Will you help me?"
The man gave no signal that he either heard or understood.  Instead, 
he turned and took a few steps, looked back, and beckoned George to 
follow.
Hope surged into George's breast; another human being, who would 
help him.  George was sure he would help him.  Of course, he could be 
taking him off to a trap.  George had heard stories, when he first came to 
New Zealand, about how Màori sometimes ate people.  No.  It couldn't be 
a trap.
George's feet found new energy.  He pushed through the wet tussocks 
after the man in front of him, followed him round the shoulder of a hill, 
and found that he was being led along a track.  It was faint, but it was 
definitely a track.
"Why didn't I find this?  You're a clever fellow.  You know your way 
round these parts.  Do you live hereabouts?"
George had come across a handful of Màori mining.  A bold lot they 
were, too, he recalled.  A group of men had pushed them off their claim.  
The Màori miners came back and chased the thieves off with tomahawks 
and wild cries that ensured that not a soul would try such a thing again.
"You've been mining yourself?" asked George.
The man turned round and made a silencing motion with one hand.  He 
pointed at George's feet.  Then, beckoned again.  George figured that he 
was being told to be quiet and to walk, and for what must have been at 
least an hour, he did.  
It took all his energy to stay on his feet, and all the time he knew 
that if this stranger hadn't turned up, he wouldn't have had a hope.  He 
would have staggered into the lee of a sheltering rock and curled up to 
nurse his aching hunger, his weariness, his fear.  Maybe he would have 
slept, and maybe he would never have woken.  But the restrained energy 
and leadership of the man in front of him gave him new heart, new hope.  
George was being brought to safety.  He knew it in his bones.
Over his laboured breathing and beyond the dull aching in his 
temples, George at one stage heard the sound of running water.  
Although he couldn't see now because of the darkness, he knew that the 
track was running alongside a river.  Maybe it was the very river that 
George lived by!  Perhaps he was nearly back at his camp!
The rain was now no more than a light mist.  Quite suddenly, George 
caught a distinct whiff of smoke wafting through the night air.  He 
smelled food, and his stomach convulsed with the need of it.  Then, as 
they came round a bend, he saw by the light of campfires, two tents on 
the high side of the track, and men moving outside them.  Meat – George 
could smell meat!  He could hear it sizzling.
He wanted to run, but he couldn't have if he'd tried.  Instead, he 
followed his rescuer, who seemed to know the path well and who, 
avoiding the clutching matagouri, climbed a stone step or two and then 
stood still in the flickering light of the campfire.  George noticed that 
nobody looked at his guide, and he thought that they must know him well 
to take so little notice.  It was George whom the men stared at, seeing 
the unsteadiness of him as he swayed on his feet, seeing his face, white 
in the darkness.  He remembered later that he had turned to thank his 
rescuer and found him no longer there. 
George had only vague recollections of being given hot tea – blessed 
hot tea – and food.  Someone must have removed his wet clothes and his 
boots and wrapped him in dry blankets.  He slept.
"Stay here, and I'll take you into town later."  He remembered 
someone saying that to him and realised, when he woke in the middle of 
the next day, that it must have been one of the men leaving the tent early 
in the morning.  Maybe the group was mining out in the hills.  He sat up 
suddenly.  Maybe they had made a new rich strike!
He wasn't able to find out for Shorty, the man who had spoken to him 
that morning, returned within the next hour.  He said very little as he 
cooked up another feed and shared it with George.  Then he threw George 
his sun-dried clothes and led him off towards town.
"I could find my own way, now," said George.  "There's no need to 
take me.  I can follow the river."
"And maybe," he was thinking to himself, "I can get a look at what 
you men are up to out here in the hills."
Shorty was firm.  "I'll take you.  I know the shortest way down the 
old greenstone trail."
"Greenstone trail?" asked George.
"The track the Màori used to follow, some years back, when they 
crossed to the West Coast collecting greenstone.  All this space was 
theirs, you know, before the runholders and the miners came."
"I suppose it was."  George rolled back his sleeves to feel the sun on 
his arms.  It felt so good to be alive, striding between these towering 
hills, his belly full, his direction purposeful.  "I was really sorry that I 
didn't get to thank your Màori mate properly.  Will you thank him for 
me?"
"What Màori mate?"
"The one who found me and brought me into your camp last night."
Shorty was glancing at George over his shoulder.  "We haven't got 
any Màori mates.  There's been no Màori on this trail for years.  You 
came into camp on your own.  Staggered in, actually."
George felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle.  He remembered 
the way the men had looked only at him and how they hadn't 
acknowledged his rescuer.  Greenstone trail … Màori track … from 
ghoulies and ghosties …  In his mind, George saw again the tattooed 
face, the topknot.  He had seen it.
"Shorty, someone did lead me to …" 
"Don't worry about it, mate.  Town's just around the next hill."  
Shorty's voice was brisk, as if George was a child who needed to be 
jollied along.  "I'll leave you there, and you can head straight on down."
Shorty swerved slightly to the left as the track forked.  George 
glanced down at the faint trail, the greenstone trail, on the right.  A 
cluster of thrusting rocks stood in the distance. Was it a man that stood 
alongside them?  A tall, young man?
Shorty strode on ahead.  
And George scurried to catch up with him. 

The Battle of the Mountains 
A Tùwharetoa legend retold by Te Maari Gardiner

In ancient times, before people came to Aotearoa, there stood in the 
heart of Te Ika-a-Màui a great assembly of mountains.
Tongariro, Taranaki, Tauhara, and Pùtauaki were warrior mountains, 
tall, strong, and arrogant.  They quarrelled amongst themselves, always 
attempting to outbid each other in demonstrations of courage, cunning, 
and wit.
It had been this way throughout their childhood, a childhood they had 
shared with Pìhanga, the maiden mountain amongst them.  Pìhanga had 
been part of the rough and tumble of their play, but as the years went by, 
she withdrew more and more, finding their antics childish and tiresome.
So it was that the warrior mountains began to look at Pìhanga 
differently.  They noticed how beautiful she had become with her 
forested cloak drawn up about her rounded shoulders, how she shimmered 
when the sun gently touched her through the morning mist, how she 
glowed in the evening when the sun painted her in velvet hues of red and 
mauve.
Tongariro, Taranaki, Tauhara, and Pùtauaki each fell in love with 
Pìhanga.  Each desperately wanted her to be his wife.  One by one, they 
sidled up to her.
"Pìhanga," whispered Pùtauaki, "you are beautiful, and I love you.  I 
am more industrious than the others.  Marry me, and I will bring you 
anything that your heart desires."
"Pìhanga," whispered Tauhara, "you are beautiful, and I love you.  I 
am more caring than the others.  Marry me, and I will look after you and 
protect you when the wild storms lash."
"Pìhanga," whispered Taranaki, "you are beautiful, and I love you.  I 
am more handsome than the others.  Marry me, and together we will reign 
over the land, supreme in our strength and beauty."
"Pìhanga," declared Tongariro, "you are beautiful, and I love you.  I 
am as industrious as Pùtauaki, as caring as Tauhara, and as handsome as 
Taranaki, and I want to marry you, too.  We all want to marry you.  You 
must decide who it is amongst us that you want to be your husband."
Pìhanga had become weary with the demands of the warrior 
mountains.  She wanted to be left in peace.
"Well," she replied, "if I must choose a husband from amongst you, 
let him be the mightiest of you all.  And that you must decide for 
yourselves."
Then the warrior mountains shouted in unison, "Let the battle begin!"
Soon the earth began to rumble and shake.  The sky darkened as 
heavy, black clouds of ash billowed from the craters of the mountains.  
Fiery rocks catapulted across the sky.  Red-hot lava spewed in fierce and 
angry rivers from the mouths of the mountains.
Throughout days and nights, weeks, months, and seasons, the battle 
raged.  Finally, bent and wearied, Pùtauaki gasped, "I have had enough.  
I will leave and travel towards the place where the sun rises in the 
morning."
Soon after, exhausted and in pain, Tauhara gasped, "I too have had 
enough.  I will also leave and travel towards the place where the sun 
rises in the morning."
Pùtauaki and Tauhara limped away, their hearts heavy with 
disappointment.  They journeyed in the hours of darkness, the time when 
mountains move, and when the new day's sun rose to halt their tracks, 
Pùtauaki had reached the open plains beyond Kaingaroa.  He stands there 
today, revered as the sacred peak of Ngàti Awa.
Tauhara reluctantly dragged his steps, and by the time the sun had 
risen, he had only reached the northern shore of the great inland sea now 
known as Taupònui-a-Tia.  He stands there today, forlornly looking back 
across the waters at the beautiful Pìhanga.
Taranaki and Tongariro fought on in the high pitch of battle, each 
growing wearier by the day.  Summoning one last determined effort, 
Taranaki hurled a gigantic fiery boulder towards his opponent, 
dislodging Tongariro's uppermost peak and sending it crashing into the 
waters of Taupònui-a-Tia.  It remains there still, an island known to the 
people as Motu-taiko.
This final blow left Taranaki completely exhausted, but it reignited 
Tongariro's fury.  He returned such a ferocious attack that Taranaki at 
last gasped, "I too have had enough.  I will leave and go towards the 
place where the sun sets in the evening."
At the dead of night, heavy with sorrow and exhaustion, Taranaki 
dragged his weary body through the darkness, gouging out a deep channel 
as he went.  The channel, filled with Taranaki's tears, is known today as 
the Whanganui River.  
Without stopping, Taranaki pushed on towards to the sea, turned 
northwards along the coast, and was at last halted in his journey by the 
sun's dawn rays.  Today he dominates the Taranaki landscape, honoured 
by the people there, who took his name.
So it was that Tongariro won Pìhanga as his bride.  The couple stand 
together still, in the land of Ngàti Tùwharetoa, the very place where the 
battle was fought.  Between them lie the tranquil waters of Rotoaira, 
filling the place where once the banished mountains stood.  The images 
of Tongariro and Pìhanga reflect across the mirrored waters of Lake 
Rotoaira so that they may touch in gentle embrace.  
And when Ranginui, the Sky Father, wraps Tongariro and Pìhanga in a 
cloak of silver mist, the people of Tùwharetoa know that the marriage of 
their two sacred mountains has been truly blessed. 

Get Out Of My Hair! 
by David Hill

"Lashana!"  Tamsin was banging on the bathroom door.  "Lashana!  I 
need a face flannel for Shay!"
Lashana glared in the mirror.  Aw, no!  The blonde streak she 
was trying to put through her hair had turned into a blonde blob.  It 
was Tamsin's fault for interrupting her – Tamsin and stupid Shay.
Lashana's sister and her baby had only been in the house for two 
weeks – but it felt like two years.  The bathroom was full of baby 
wipes and baby shampoo.  The washing machine was so full of 
nappies that Lashana couldn't fit in her basketball gear.  She didn't 
even have her own room any more.  Tamsin and stupid Shay had it, 
and she'd been pushed into the tiny spare room.
She yanked the bathroom door open.  
"Thanks," said Tamsin.  "Sorry for the rush."  
Lashana ignored her.
In the living room, Mum was kneeling on the floor, laughing at 
Shay.  "He's kicking away like an Olympic Games swimmer!  Come 
and look, Lashana!"
"No, thanks," Lashana muttered.  
Just because she was a girl, everyone expected her to coo over 
babies.  Well, she wasn't going to.  And Shay didn't look like an 
Olympic swimmer, either.  He looked like a skinned frog.  Or a 
chicken with no feathers.  Anyway, the only time she'd picked him 
up – because Mum had told her to –  Shay's bottom had made a 
disgusting noise, followed by a disgusting smell.  And then his 
nappy had leaked and left a disgusting stain on Lashana's T-shirt.
"What happened to your hair?" asked Mum, when she finally 
noticed Lashana at breakfast.  
Dad laughed.  "Been into the nappy bleach, eh?"  
Tamsin, sitting in the corner with her pyjama top pulled up as 
she fed Shay, said nothing.  Just as well.
Weird to think that it was only a year since Tamsin had dropped 
out of polytech and gone off with her useless boyfriend.  Then Shay 
had arrived, and the boyfriend had vanished.  Tamsin had tried to 
manage by herself, but she'd had to come back home.
"Wish she'd stayed away," Lashana thought at school that 
morning.  Kids kept making smart cracks about her hair. 
"Been standing under a seagull, eh?"  
"Hey, Lashana, why've you got a poached egg in your hair?"
After school, Lashana mucked around at West City Plaza.  Mum 
would be cleaning at the hospital.  Dad would be out in his taxi.  If 
she went home, she'd be expected to drool over the baby, just so 
Tamsin could feel better.  Tough – Tamsin got herself into this 
mess; she could get herself out of it.
When Lashana did get home, Shay was actually being quiet for a 
change.  Tamsin was folding nappies.  Her eyes were pink, as 
though she'd been crying.
"He's asleep!" she whispered.  "Phew!  I'm going to do dinner to 
help Mum." 
Lashana didn't say anything.  She went into her crammed little 
room and switched on her tape deck.  Boyz II Men!  Awesome!  She 
turned the volume up.  
Next minute – "Waaaah!"  A thin voice began wailing from what 
used to be her bedroom.  Tamsin appeared in the doorway. 
"Oh, Lashana!  I told you he was asleep!"
Lashana got up off her bed and slammed the door shut.  Through 
the wall, the crying grew louder.

"Be a bit nicer to Tamsin, love," Mum said after dinner that night 
while Shay was off being bathed.  "She's doing her best.  It's a bad 
time for her."
Lashana stayed silent.
Before she went to bed, she spent twenty minutes washing and 
shampooing her hair.  The blonde blob slowly faded to a blonde 
blur.
Some time in the night, a noise woke her.  Stupid Shay, grizzling 
and crying next door.  Then she heard Tamsin crying too.  
"Hush, baby.  Please be quiet," her sister was saying.  For a 
moment, Lashana felt wobbly inside.  Then she reminded herself.  
Tamsin's mess – Tamsin's problem.
Lashana's hair looked almost normal next day.  She kept the 
front bit brushed across so that it hid the strands that were still 
blonde.  Nobody at school made any smart cracks.

The smell of baking filled the house when Lashana arrived home 
that afternoon.  Tamsin was in the kitchen.  "Hi," she whispered.  
"Want an oatmeal biscuit?"
Lashana took one.  Tamsin was spooning out more of the dough 
from a bowl.  "I'm doing some baking for Mum."  She gave a tired 
smile.  "That's if Mr Puniverse here sleeps for another five 
minutes." 
Shay lay in his carrycot.  Was he more like a skinned frog or a 
plucked chicken?  Lashana tried to decide.  "Actually," she thought, 
"he's more like a pink prune."
Just then, Shay's eyes opened.  He yawned.  His face turned red, 
and he started crying.
"Oh, no!"  Tamsin was still busy with the biscuits.  "Not now, 
little man!" 
Shay cried harder.
Lashana took another cookie and headed out of the kitchen.  Not 
her problem.
"Please, Lashana …"  Tamsin's voice was shaky.  "Would you 
pick him up?  Just for a minute?"
"He's not my bab –" Lashana began.  Then she saw her sister's 
face.  If Mum found out that Tamsin had been crying, Lashana knew 
she'd get the blame. 
"All right!" she snapped.  "But hurry up!"
She saw herself in the living room mirror as she carried Shay out 
of the kitchen and stuck him in his bouncer.  The blonde bit of hair 
was sticking up at a weird angle.  She rubbed at it angrily.  Shay 
wouldn't stop crying.  "Shut up," Lashana told him.  "Shut up, 
chicken legs."
"I'm never gonna stuff things up like Tamsin," she told herself.  
"I'm gonna get a proper job, and I'm gonna travel and have a real 
life.  Not like her.  No way."
The baby cried, on and on.  One arm waved around as if he were 
searching for something.  Lashana bent down and gave him a poke 
in the side.  Not hard, just a poke to show she wasn't going to pick 
him up.  "Shut up, I said." 
Shay kept crying.  Lashana leaned forward to give him another 
poke.  His waving arm touched her hand and stopped.  Four fingers 
and a thumb wrapped themselves around her finger.  Shay looked up 
at her, gave a yawn so huge that Lashana thought his face might 
turn inside out, and went back to sleep.  His hand still held her 
finger.
Lashana stared at him.  The baby's fingers were so little that all 
four of them covered only half her finger.  The lines at his knuckles 
were like miniature fold marks.  His fingernails were tiny pink 
ovals.  Inside the wrist that lay curled against her, she could feel 
his pulse beating, tiny and steady and perfect. 
She realised she was holding her breath and let it out slowly.  
Shay's lashes slanted across his cheek as he slept.  His eyelids had 
tiny blue veins running through them.  His ear made Lashana think 
of a small seashell.  For a second, she felt as though something had 
turned over inside her.  She reached out her other hand to stroke 
the little head – just as Tamsin came hurrying in from the kitchen. 
The baby jerked at the sound.  His hand twitched, and Lashana 
eased her finger free.  By the time Tamsin reached her, Lashana was 
standing, hands in pockets, beside the bouncer.
"Thanks heaps!" her sister said.  "Last of the biscuits are in the 
oven.  Now I'll … oh, you've got him back to sleep.  Hey, awesome!  
He must really like you."
Lashana said nothing.

That night, when Mum and Dad were doing the dishes, Tamsin 
asked, "Want me to do your hair, Lashana?  That blonde highlight 
looks cool, but maybe you could style it differently."
"If only you'd stayed at polytech," thought Lashana, "you'd be a 
real hairdresser by now, not just mucking round at home with some 
dye."
"I'll just see if Shay will go down, first," Tamsin continued, 
struggling to her feet, her arms full of baby.
"I'll hold him, if you like."  Lashana almost jumped at the sound 
of her own voice.  Had she actually said that? 
Ten minutes later, while Tamsin brushed, combed, and trimmed 
Lashana's hair and while Shay snored very small snores on 
Lashana's lap, Tamsin said suddenly, "Don't stuff things up like me, 
eh?  You get qualifications.  You get a good job, and do the things 
you really want to do."
"I've already decided that," Lashana thought.  But she just said, 
"You can still do it."
Tamsin smiled.  "Yeah.  Sometime."  She bent down and kissed 
Shay on the cheek.  Shay snored louder.
Tamsin left to find a hand mirror.  Lashana looked down at the 
sleeping baby on her lap.  She had a funny feeling that underneath 
him there was a wet patch.
"Suppose you think you're the big boss dude around here, eh?" 
she murmured as Shay's eyes began to flicker open.  "Suppose you 
think I like you or something?  Boy, you've got a lot to learn."
And she held her finger out to her nephew.

Poros of Malia
by Douglas Carian

The year: 356 BC  
The place: Olympia, Greece  
The occasion: The 106th Olympic Games  
The event: The stade, a 192-metre sprint and the most important event of the 
games
The athlete: Poros of Malia

He felt the heat wrap itself around him like a blanket.  He prayed for a 
breeze.  The athletes were naked, of course, but Poros noticed that they were 
all sweating.  He knew that it wasn't just the heat.  His eyes followed a bead 
of sweat as it accelerated down Dikon's back.  Strange, he thought, how 
tension and anxiety made you more aware of some things and less of others.  
A few minutes ago, he'd been fully aware of the food and drink vendors, 
he'd heard their shouts above the crowd's noise, and he'd smelt the food 
they offered.  He'd been distracted by the colour and movement of the 
dancers and singers, the jugglers and fortune-tellers, the entertainers and 
pedlars.  He'd cursed the heat, the dust, the flies.  Gradually, though, he'd 
become focused on the task ahead.  Everything else had faded from his mind.
The other athletes were watching him now.  He pretended not to notice.  
He looked away to the far end of the stadium to where a mass of purple-
robed judges formed an ever-changing shape.  They too seemed to be looking 
at him – and so did the crowd.  They all knew him: spectators, athletes, 
trainers, judges.  He'd won here four years ago; and from that time on the 
105th Olympic Games had been known as the Games of Poros of Malia.  In 
recognition of his achievement, his statue stood outside the stadium.  Now 
the man himself was before the crowd's eyes, not a cold lump of marble but a 
sweating, anxious athlete.
The competitors all knew that he was the one to beat.  He'd trained for 
more than the minimum eleven months required by the rules, and the last 
month, here at Olympia under the judges' supervision, had been the hardest 
of all.  He'd watched the other athletes train, watched them race in the 
heats.  He knew how good they were – Dikon of Athens, Damon of Corinth, 
Mikinas of Rhodes.  In just a few minutes, he'd be facing the toughest race 
of his life.   
He looked to that special point two-thirds of the way down the track.  
"The crisis point – where the pain begins," he thought.  That's where the 
real race starts – the place of agony where guts count as much as speed.  And 
that's where I can win, he told himself.  By Zeus, that's where I will win!"
The athletes were moving to the starting line.  He moved with them, 
adrenalin pushing up his heart rate.  Behind him was the starter.  To his left 
and right were the other finalists, their places drawn by lot.  They all knew 
the rules.  No pushing, no holding, no cutting off.  They were not to bribe 
another runner to do less than his best , and they were not to cast, or have 
cast on their behalf, any magic spells.
Poros needed a clean, sharp start.  No man had won an Olympic final after 
being left in his holes.  He knew that if a runner broke, they would all be 
called back by the blast of the trumpet call and that the offender would be 
whipped by a judge before the race was restarted.  Poros shuddered.  The 
whipping itself wouldn't be painful, but the humiliation of being whipped 
before this crowd of forty thousand would be unbearable.  If it was he who 
was whipped, they'd tell jokes and stories about him for years to come.  
They'd laugh at his statue.  For a moment, his imagination tormented him.
Then Poros drove all thoughts of breaking from his mind.  He refused to 
think any more about his competitors.  There was nothing he could do about 
them except beat them.  Now he concentrated only on the race.  Head up, he 
looked towards the finish line, visualising himself already there, the red 
woollen band in place around his forehead, the palm leaf in his right hand.  
Then he saw the victor's crown of wild olive leaves being placed on his head 
at the conclusion of the games.
A smile crept to his lips.  He knew now that he would win, that he was 
unbeatable.  He was Poros, Olympic champion.

Poros of Malia won the stade for the second consecutive time at the 106th 
Olympic Games.

Flashbacks
by Michael Wilson

Saturday afternoon.  Allie and Steph weaving and dodging through the 
mall.  Tossing ideas around.  Bouncing thoughts off the uneven paving 
stones.
"Hey, Steph?"
"Wow, look at those Docs.  Cost a fortune, I bet."
"Steph?  I've been reading this book."
"What about?"
"Death."
That one comes out of nowhere.  No problem for Stephanie, though.
"Yeah?  Sounds cool."
"About people who've experienced death.  Well … nearly 
experienced it.  Like …"
Allie's gearing up for one of her raves.  Time to find somewhere 
comfortable and sit down.  
"What do you mean, nearly?"
"Like … they nearly died, or they thought they'd died, or their heart 
stopped beating for a while."
"And then they were pulled back out of the jaws of death?"
"Yeah.  And these people told what it was like to be dead.  And 
how, when they thought they were going to die, their whole lives 
flashed in front of their eyes."
Steph jumps up then.  She runs around in front of Allie doing a 
whole crazy sped-up "Birth to Death" act, ending with an arrow 
through her head.  Two people clap.  She should be charging for this.
"What was that?!"
"That was your life, Allie.  Flashing in front of your eyes."
"What about all that kissing?"
"You and Aaron Cooksley!"
"Get real!  Anyway … "
Anyway.  It's Allie's way of getting Steph's attention back.  Back to 
the important issue – her rave.
"Anyway … I had a few questions that the book didn't really 
answer."
"Like?"
"Like if you were short-sighted, and your glasses fell off just before 
you thought you were going to die, would you have any trouble seeing 
your life flash in front of your eyes?"
Steph thinks this is slightly funny and laughs like a drain.  But 
there's more.
"A lot of these near-death people seem to have fallen off mountains, 
or they've gone skydiving and their parachutes haven't opened.  
Right?"
Steph nods.  That's all you can do, sometimes, when Allie goes into 
a rave.
"And they see their lives flash in front of their eyes as they fall 
hundreds of metres to the ground.  And then they only sprain their 
ankle or break their nose.  OK?"
Nod.
"So.  If you go bungee jumping and you suddenly think 'I'm gonna 
dieeeeeeeee!', do you see your life flash in front of your eyes, and 
then, when you reach the end of the bungee, and you go flying back up, 
do you see your whole life flash backwards?  And then forwards?  And 
backwards?  And forwards again?  Makes you think, eh?"
Steph is already thinking.  She's on to it now, and she's got a few 
questions of her own.  
"OK, OK.  But what if you haven't got that much time?  Like if a 
wild animal, say, is tearing you limb from limb and your whole life is 
flashing in front of your eyes, and you're only up to year four?  Can 
you, like, fast-forward over the boring bits?"
"What if it's all boring?"  
Allie's picked up on Steph's idea now.  She's running with it. 
"Maybe if it was that boring, it might put you to sleep, and then 
you'd have a painless death.  That'd be cool.  Or maybe the lion, or 
whatever it was, might think 'Yup, she's dead' and stash you under a 
tree for a bit while it went off to take out a couple of antelope, and 
then …"
Steph takes over.  "And then you'd recover ..."
"AND RUN AWAY!"  They shout the words together, laughing, 
breathing fast.
"Except," teases Allie, as they walk back up the mall, "if your life 
was that boring ..."
"What'd be the point?" Stephanie agrees.
"I don't know," says Allie.  "Anyway, I finished the book.  I'm 
reading a comic now."

A Lucky Escape
By Anna Kenna

The tiger ambled towards me.  His powerful muscles rippled under his 
silky coat.  His huge paws flicked up dust as he quickened his pace.  
Closer, closer …
"Grrr," I snarled and took another lick of my ice cream.  I could be 
incredibly brave behind a tiger-proof fence.
We were at the zoo on a school trip.  I'll never forget it because it 
was the day Mrs Larsen let Mum loose with five kids and a map.  Big 
mistake – Mum can't read maps or even find places.  Dad says she's 
geographically challenged.  
We've got used to doing U-turns in strange streets, stopping to ask 
people directions, and totally missing classmates' birthday parties 
because Mum can never find the venue.  She's lost the car so many times 
that Dad has painted a ping-pong ball red and stuck it on the aerial so 
that she can see it from anywhere in the car park.  I'm not putting Mum 
down or anything; she's quite normal in other ways.  It's just that she 
should never, ever, be put in charge of a map.
Of course, Mrs Larsen didn't know that when she picked Mum to lead 
a study group at the zoo.  I watched in horror as she handed her a map.  
It looked like a snakes and ladders board with heaps of pathways and 
little animal symbols on it.
Mum glanced over at me as she took it.  
"Say you've got a migraine or that you've forgotten your glasses," I 
pleaded.
Mum looked hurt.  "It can't be that hard to find a few wild animals," 
she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. 
"Listening, please," growled Mrs Larsen.  "Now, you should each 
have a worksheet with four animals on it.  You have an hour.  We'll meet 
back here, on the lawn near the tiger enclosure, for lunch."
"Right," said Mum, looking up from the map and charging down the 
nearest pathway.  "The zebras are this way."
Moments later, we'd done two complete circuits, we hadn't sighted a 
zebra, and Mum was arguing with the map.
"It should be right here," she said, as though the zoo people had 
shifted all the animals around just to confuse her, "but that's a 
rhinoceros."  
Actually, it was a hippopotamus.  Maybe it's not only maps that 
confuse Mum.   
"Er, Mrs Steele," said Lucy Yee, politely pointing over her left 
shoulder. "The zebras are over there – those black and white stripy 
things rolling in the dust."
I felt myself go red as Neil and Dave elbowed each other and started 
to giggle.
Mum shoved her sunglasses onto the top of her head.  "Thank you, 
Lucy, I do know what a zebra looks like, but this map is wrong."
I rolled my eyes.  Mum glared at me. 
The zebras totally ignored us as we got out our worksheets and 
started writing about them: habitat, food source, physical 
characteristics.  It was hard to concentrate, too, when I was worrying 
about how we were going to find the Arctic wolf, the cotton-top 
tamarins, and the Galapagos tortoise.  They were all in different parts of 
the zoo!  The way Mum was peering at the map and mumbling to herself 
made me even more nervous.  
"Right, if the meerkats are there," she was saying, tracing a pink 
fingernail over the map, "and the camels are here, then the Arctic wolf 
must be there."
Wrong again.  The Arctic wolf might just as well still have been 
living in the Arctic for all the time it took us to find him.  At one stage, 
Neil Watkins tried to take over the map reading, but Mum fought him 
off.  In the end, I reckon we trekked several kilometres, asked three 
keepers, the kiosk lady, and another school party before we finally found 
the wolf.  He was inside a cave sheltering from the sun, and all we could 
see of him was a dirty white paw sticking out.  Filling in the bit about 
his physical characteristics wasn't going to be easy.
Lucy looked like she could do with sheltering from the sun.  Her face 
was sweaty as she sank onto a low wall. 
"How's it going?"  Mrs Larsen called gaily as she and her group went 
trotting past.  "We've only got the armadillo to go.  See you in ten 
minutes."
Ten minutes!  We still had to find the tamarins and the Galapagos 
tortoise, and we no longer had a map.  Mum had scrunched it up and 
dumped it in a rubbish bin, raving on about how she would be 
complaining to the zoo management about how useless and inaccurate 
their maps were.
"I don't think it's the map that's inaccurate," said Neil Watkins 
under his breath.  Mum pretended she hadn't heard, but I felt myself go 
red again.  Lucy gave me a weak smile. 
Luckily we didn't have to find the cotton-top tamarins because they 
found us.  We were ambling along behind Mum when the trees above us 
suddenly came alive with a sound very much like "We're here!  We're 
here."  Several little monkeys, with white manes and old-man faces, 
swung above us.
We scribbled down as much as we could on the run, and then, just 
when Mum was getting all fired up about finding the Galapagos tortoise, 
Lucy threw up behind the reptile house.
Mum, who's awesome when it comes to first aid, looked concerned.  
She wet her scarf with my water bottle and put it on Lucy's forehead. 
"We'd better get you back," she said gently.  She looked around 
nervously.  "Wherever 'back' is," I heard her mutter to herself. 
A woman keeper came to our rescue when she saw Lucy's pale face, 
and she escorted us back to the meeting place.  Although we were ten 
minutes late, we were surprised to find that Mrs Larsen's group was the 
only one that had returned.   
"Where is everybody?" asked  Mrs Larsen.  "I thought I'd given you 
heaps of time."
Gradually, everybody drifted back with tales of lost llamas, elusive 
emus, and missing muskrats.  Some people had found only two animals, 
one group hadn't managed to find any. 
"I told you," said Mum triumphantly.  "Those maps are wrong …"
"Can I see your map, Mrs Steele," asked Mrs Larsen.  
Mum said she'd tossed it, so Tyrone Bayley's mother handed hers 
over. 
"Oh dear," said Mrs Larsen, blushing.  "This is all my fault.  I gave 
out a pile of old maps that I'd kept from our visit two years ago, and of 
course, everything has changed.  I must have been the only one with an 
up-to-date map because I picked it up here this morning."
All the parent helpers looked relieved, and Mum playfully poked out 
her tongue at me as if to say "See, I'm not that bad, after all."
By the end of lunch, everyone was laughing about what had happened.  
Even Lucy was feeling better.  Mum sent me to the kiosk to get her an 
icecream.  
On my way back from buying it, I stopped in front of the tiger 
enclosure to watch the tiger eating his lunch.  The day had turned out all 
right in the end, but I couldn't help wondering how Mum would have 
gone even if she had had the right map.  I shuddered as I watched the 
tiger's enormous teeth ripping the flesh off what looked like an 
elephant's thigh bone. 
"I reckon my mum had a lucky escape today," I told him as he gnawed 
away.  "No offence, mate, but I hope you never do!" 

No Joke
by David Hill

When we studied police and crime at school last term, we learned a lot about 
courts.  Now here I am, sitting in the public part of the courtroom with my 
best mate Mepi, watching a real case.
Mepi's a really funny guy.  Not today, though.  Like our teacher, Ms Byrne, 
told us, "A courtroom isn't a place for making jokes."
The guy on trial is just seventeen.  His name's Darryl, and he's charged with 
dangerous driving causing death and injury.  He and a car full of friends were 
speeding on a back road when the car flipped and hit a power pylon.  A girl 
called Erica was killed; a guy, Todd, is going to be in a wheelchair for the 
rest of his life.  Two other teenagers in the car were hurt, too.
Darryl looks scared.  His mother and father are in the public area, and 
you can tell that his mother's been crying.  The dead girl's mum – Mrs Ngata – 
is there, too.  
When the court official asks Darryl if he's guilty or not guilty, he 
answers "Not … not guilty" and swallows.  Mrs Ngata starts to say 
something, and a friend beside her squeezes her hand.
The judge is a small woman.  Her voice is quiet, but everyone listens to 
her.  She gets the prosecution lawyer, the one who tries to show that Darryl is 
guilty, to speak first.
The prosecution lawyer says he'll call witnesses to prove that Darryl was 
doing wheelies and handbrake skids and that he took no notice when people 
in the car asked him to slow down.
The lawyer gets his words mixed up at one stage.  He says "a pie power 
line" instead of "a power pylon".  Usually, Mepi would start whispering all 
sorts of sick jokes to me, but this time, he doesn't say anything.  Mrs Ngata 
is crying quietly.
The witnesses are called one by one.  First there's a girl, Joanne.  She was 
in the car, and her arm was broken in the crash.  She says she really freaked 
out when Darryl started doing wheelies and stuff.  She asked him twice to 
slow down, but he just laughed.  She thought he was showing off for Erica. 
Next comes Todd, the one who's in a wheelchair now.  A nurse pushes him 
in.  Todd stares at Darryl as he goes past, and Darryl looks away.  Todd's 
evidence is like Joanne's.  His voice is tight; you can tell he's really angry 
at Darryl.  When he's finished answering questions, he suddenly yells, "He 
walked away without a scratch!  And I'm never gonna walk anywhere again!"   
Beside me, I feel Mepi holding his breath.  Darryl looks like he's going to 
howl.
The next witnesses are two girls who were riding horses along the road.  
One, called Zara, says how she heard the car coming fast.  The other girl 
says, "Polly was getting really scared."
The judge looks puzzled.  "I thought your friend's name was Zara?"
The girl nods.  "Yeah.  Polly's the name of my horse."  
A few people in the courtroom grin, then stop, quickly.
A farmer, who was working nearby, describes seeing the car go hooning 
past.  "Typical young idiots!"  The judge tells him to just answer the 
questions, please.  When the farmer tells how he ran to the wrecked car and 
saw Erica and Todd lying there, his voice shakes, and he has to stop for a 
bit.  Erica's mother, Mrs Ngata, is crying again.
Finally, the police officer who was called to the crash describes what he saw 
and how he took statements from Darryl and another guy, Justin, who was in 
the car too and who got a few cuts and bruises.  
Darryl's defence lawyer, who's allowed to question every witness, asks the 
police officer how Darryl seemed.  
"Very distressed," the police officer says.  "Sobbing and shocked."  
I see Darryl's mother put her hands over her face.
After that, the judge says that there will be a thirty-minute break before the 
defence calls witnesses.  Everyone stands as she leaves.  
Outside the court, Mepi and I wander round on the grass.  We hardly say 
anything; we don't crack any funnies.  Ms Byrne's right; a courtroom isn't a 
place for making jokes.
I feel so sorry for everyone in the trial – Darryl, Todd, their families, 
Erica's mother.  Mrs Ngata is standing by a tree.  Sometimes she looks at 
Mepi and me, but mostly she just stares at nothing.  Darryl's mother and 
father are by themselves.  They know Mrs Ngata; Darryl and Erica were 
friends, remember?  But you can tell that they don't know what to say to one 
another.
When we go back inside and the trial starts again, Darryl's lawyer calls 
her two witnesses.  First is the guy, Justin, the one who was slightly 
injured.  The lawyer asks him if Darryl believed the others in the car really 
wanted him to slow down.  Justin looks awkward.  "I dunno.  He might have 
thought some of them were joking."
Then Darryl's lawyer asks about Erica.  "What was she doing?"  Justin 
looks more awkward.  "She was laughing.  And she kept calling out, 'Go, 
Darryl!'"
Mrs Ngata shouts, "Don't you blame my girl!"  The judge asks her to 
please be quiet so the trial can go on.
Next, Darryl gets asked questions by his lawyer.  Why didn't he slow 
down when the others asked?  Why was he driving fast?
Darryl's voice sounds jerky.  He thought they were joking.  And he was 
showing off for Erica.
His lawyer asks if there's anything else Darryl wants to say.  Darryl 
starts to speak, chokes up, then starts again.  "Just – I'm really sorry.  I'd 
give anything if – if it hadn't happened.  I'll never drive fast again."  He 
stares at the floor.
The prosecution lawyer gives Darryl a hard time.  Does Darryl think that 
"showing off" is an excuse?  Did he really believe his friends were joking 
when they asked him to slow down?  Is he truly sorry, or is he just trying to 
wriggle out of things? 
Darryl answers in a flat voice.  He looks tired out, like he wants to lie 
down and sleep for a week.
Then come three speeches.  The prosecution lawyer sums up his case, and 
Darryl's lawyer sums up hers.  The judge tells the jury that it must make a 
decision and what to do if its not sure about any evidence.
When Ms Byrne told us about these speeches, Mepi and I rolled our eyes 
at each other and pretended to yawn.  But now that it's happening, we don't 
do any yawning – we both know what's going to happen.
The jury will go away and decide whether Darryl is guilty or not guilty of 
dangerous driving causing death and injury.  If they find him guilty, he could go 
to jail for up to five years.  He's seventeen, and he might be in jail till he's 
twenty-two.
Outside on the grass again, Darryl's parents and Mrs Ngata are 
wandering around, still not speaking to one another.  Suddenly, I know I 
don't want to be there when the jury announces its verdict.  I don't want to see 
Darryl's face if he has to go to jail.
Mepi looks at me, and I'm sure he's thinking the same.  We don't say 
anything.  We just start off across the lawn.   
I head for the man and woman standing silently together, holding hands.  
"Mum?" I ask.  "Mum?  Dad?  I … I want to go home."
Darryl's mother – my mother – puts her arms around me.  "All right, love," 
she says.  "It's been awful for you and Mepi, hasn't it?"
I glance to where Mepi stands with his Mum, Mrs Ngata, hugging him.  I 
think of his sister, Erica, and my brother, Darryl.  I remember all the 
laughs and jokes they and Mepi and I used to have.  I wonder how long it 
will be till anyone in our families ever makes a joke again.

Picking up Pùhà
by Hayley Tamati (Ngàti Porou)

"Can you smell that?" my sister asked, brushing the sleep from her eyes.  
I sat up and sniffed.  My heart sank.  Although the sun hadn't quite 
risen above the hills, the yeasty smell of rising rèwena bread filled our 
room.  I should have noticed the warning signs the night before: Mum 
thawing bacon bones in the sink, Dad digging around in the kitchen 
drawers looking for plastic shopping bags.  
I glanced forlornly at my wallet sitting on the dresser.  I'd been 
planning to go the movies with my friends but, as Dad burst through the 
door, grinning from ear to ear, I saw my Saturday disappear.
"Mm-mm," he said, rubbing his big puku.  "Who feels like a feed of 
pùha-aa!?"
Dad's stomach!  Sometimes I pictured the insides of it as just a 
swirling mass of pùhà stalks and juice!  
"Oh, I almost forgot!" he added, pretending to be surprised.  "Look 
what I found under the shed."  He held up the gumboots that Donna had 
told me to hide after the last pùhà day.  "Just as well I found them," said 
Dad.  "You can't pick pùhà unless you've got your gummies on."  He 
dumped the boots on the floor in front of us.  
Dad was still laughing as he went into Konrad's room.  A moment 
later, we heard our brother's yelps as his blankets were pulled off the 
bed.
"What a dumb place to hide our boots!" Donna hissed at me as we 
pulled on our jerseys.  "Don't you know that he keeps the blimmen pùhà 
sacks there?"
Poor Donna.  She hated picking pùhà.  She'd just started college, and 
I guess she thought that crouching around under hedges by the side of 
the road wasn't the coolest thing to do.  I didn't care too much.  I was 
kind of used to Saturdays full of electric fences, muddy drains, and nosy 
cows.
"If he takes us up to the end of the main road," threatened Donna, 
"I'm going to slash off your plaits with my pùhà knife and then …" 
"Picking up pùhà, puttin' it in the basket …"  Dad's yodelling broke 
the morning air.  "Picking up pùhà, puttin' it in the basket, Picking up 
pùhà, puttin' it in the basket, Way down yonder in the pùhà patch."
We groaned.  Dad sang that song every time we went pùhà picking.  I 
guess he thought that it inspired us!  He liked to sing about pùhà 
whenever we went on long journeys, too.  He and Mum would make up 
the words by turning normal songs into "pùhà" songs.  They had a whole 
stack of them – "Tiptoe through the Pùhà", "Green, Green Pùhà," and 
even church songs like "How Great Thou Pùhà".  They'd sit in the front 
of the car laughing until the tears streamed down their cheeks.  I thought 
the songs were funny, too, but I didn't laugh too much because I knew 
that Donna and Konrad would thump me for encouraging Mum and Dad to 
be so stupid.
"We'll go up the back of the ponds, eh?" said Dad as we drove along 
the misty road.  "Reckon there'll be a bit of pùhà under those hedges."  
Donna rolled her eyes.  
"Bang!  Bang!" spluttered Dad.  "Public enemy number one!"  Mum 
laughed.  Dad was pretending to shoot cows to keep them away from the 
pùhà.  That was my job on these outings – scaring away the cows while 
everyone else picked pùhà. 
"It's a very responsible job," said Dad the first time I'd done it.  
"The finest Màori warriors were often chosen to do this – chase the moa 
away while the weaker ones picked the pùhà.  Now, of course, moa have 
evolved into cows …"
The car stopped near a ditch, and we reluctantly piled out.  It was 
freezing cold, and our breaths made white clouds in the air.  One good 
thing about being out so early was that there wasn't much traffic around.
"After you've picked your fourth sackful, you won't even notice the 
cold," Dad lied.
Our frozen fingers worked busily, snipping away at the thick stalks.  
The sound of the hollow, green crunch made me hungry.
"This stuff must be like caviar to cows, eh?"  Konrad said.  "I bet 
they think it's Christmas when they find a whole patch of it."
By the time we stood to crack our aching backs, the sun had melted 
the dew on the hedge leaves, and milk trucks were starting to lumber 
past on their way to the factory.
"Duck!" Donna called as one tooted its horn at us.
"He's got no shame," said Konrad as Dad kept waving to the passing 
traffic.  We climbed back out of the ditch when the coast was clear.
"Gee, you fullas are hardcase," Dad laughed.  "Anyone would think 
you were criminals the way you dodge the traffic.  What are you scared 
of anyway?  No one's going to throw you in jail for picking pùhà.  
Anyone can come and get it."
"Yeah," began Donna, "but no one round here does !"
"I reckon!" added Konrad.  "What if some of our mates saw us?  What 
a shrink!  No one round here eats pùhà.  Why can't we buy some broccoli 
from the supermarket like normal people do?"
He and Donna looked at me, waiting for me to add my piece, but Dad 
spoke first.
"You know," he said, "when I was your age, we couldn't afford to 
have all that flash food you eat now.  You fullas wouldn't have a clue 
what it's like to be really hungry, eh?  You can go and have a kai 
whenever you want to.  But I was brought up on this stuff.  Sometimes, 
pùhà was all we had to eat."
We looked ashamedly down at our gumboots.
"Besides," he continued, "what are you frightened of?  Scared your 
mates will think you're a pòhara Màori, eh?  Scared they'll see you 
getting Màori kai?"  He looked at us.  "Well?"
I knew that we'd gotten to Dad.  Nothing ever made him angry on 
pùhà days.  Mum didn't say anything to help us, either, as we all trooped 
back to the car in silence.

Back at home, the iron pot sat in the middle of the table, next to the 
steaming rèwena bread on the cutting board.
"Amen!" we chanted impatiently as Mum finally finished her long 
grace.  Slabs of bread disappeared beneath hot pùhà and juicy, pink 
bacon bones.  Fat, yellow kùmara were smothered with butter.  Nothing 
tasted sweeter to me than a mouthful of bacon, pùhà, kùmara, and rèwena 
bread, sloshed down with a mug of juice from the cooking pot.
"Anyway," said Dad, pointing to the mound of food on his plate and 
getting ready to put on a posh voice, "can you imagine going into one of 
those fancy delicatessens in town and asking for 'a pùhà, pork bone, and 
kùmara rèwena sandwich, please'?"
He sounded so funny when he said it like that, and the idea was so 
stupid anyway, that we all burst out laughing.
And then, suddenly, being woken so early in the morning, listening to 
Dad's yodelling and Donna's whining, being told off, and standing in a 
freezing cold ditch didn't seem so terrible any more.  The warm kitchen 
and the warm feeling in our full stomachs made everything seem 
worthwhile.  Even Donna smiled.


