Awatea and the Kawa Gang

by Fraser Smith

  To three wonderful women: Josie, Zinnia and Fern

  First published in 2019 by Huia Publishers

  39 Pipitea Street, PO Box 12280

  Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

  www.huia.co.nz

  ISBN 978-1-77550-357-6 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-77550-391-0 (ebook)

  Text copyright © Fraser Smith 2019

  Cover illustration copyright © Patrick White 2019

  This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior permission of the publisher.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

  Ebook conversion 2019 by meBooks

  CONTENTS

  1 Back at the Bach

  2 Zealots

  3 Revenge

  4 Tredget’s Return

  5 Kawa Gang HQ

  6 Flip-top Head

  7 Rock-a-bye Baby on the Treetop

  8 Flip-top’s Retreat

  9 Kim’s Tricks

  10 Tapu

  11 A Gander and a Ghost

  12 Poachers

  13 Mercy Dash

  14 Treasure Chest

  1

  Back at the Bach

  Carrot squinted out the window then swivelled his head, looking for an audience. “Carrot!” he said. “Oh no!”

  Pa Rumble was reading the newspaper and mumbling to himself. “Russians, Yanks, Communists, Capitalists, damn politicians, religious zealots. No sense, just greed. All this paper is good for is lighting the fire. Oh no, Carrot. Oh no!” He folded it, shoved it in the box beside the wood stove, and got up to stroke Carrot’s head feathers down flat. “What is the world coming to? When will they ever learn?”

  “Old bugger,” Carrot purred.

  “Crusty? Let’s eat.” Pa lifted the lid on the camp oven and took out a half-loaf of bread. He cut some slices and tossed a couple of them on the stove top. “What are we gonna do, bird? Ma and Tredget won’t be back for days, the tide’s too high for getting seaweed, and the news is rubbish. Cup of tea? Crusty? Carrot?”

  “Zealots,” mumbled Carrot.

  “Never a truer word said,” agreed Pa, turning the blackened bread as it started to smoke.

  “Look out,” said the parrot, but it was a half-hearted warning.

  Awatea was heading towards the Rumbles’ cabin. He hadn’t been back to Mangokuri since the summer. Hurray for holidays and his grandmother insisting he come to stay! The smoking chimney meant the Rumbles were home.

  The sound of his feet on the verandah set off a great noise from inside. Carrot appeared at the window, flapping his colourful wings and shouting, “Boy! Boy!”

  Pa had barely opened the door before Carrot was perched on Awa’s shoulder. He grabbed a beakful of floppy hair for balance, just missing Awa’s ear.

  “Don’t burst your boiler, Carrot,” said Pa, smiling. “Come in, Boy!”

  Awa nudged a hand under the bird’s chest and Carrot walked down his arm to his elbow and looked him in the eye. “Boy, Boy.” His head nodded as he spoke.

  “Come on, you two, toast and tea,” said Pa.

  “Crusty? Boy?” asked Carrot.

  Awa sat at the table while Pa talked. Tredget, Pa and Ma’s son, had come home after many years overseas. They had all gone off to see family and friends but Pa and Carrot came back early. Pa was tired of people and travelling, and Carrot had been a real nuisance. Ma and Tredget were staying with Ma and Pa’s daughter.

  “You left and didn’t come back,” Awa said.

  “Yes. Tredget just walked in the door after all those years away. Then he sold some treasure – got quite a lot of money actually – and he took us visiting. They should be back in a couple of days.”

  “Treasure?” Awa knew.

  “Ambergris! That boy had a wee hoard stashed away somewhere. He did very well for himself.”

  “X marks the spot,” Awa said to himself. He was eager to check his own little hoard of ambergris!

  “Go on then. Finish your tea and take Carrot for a walk. That is one bored bird!”

  Carrot nodded furiously on Awa’s shoulder.

  “Thanks, Pa Rumble. We’ll go and check out the beach.”

  He and Carrot set off for the secret valley at a wobbly trot. To steady himself, Carrot nibbled on Awa’s ear. Awa brushed him off, thinking he’d wear his knitted beanie with the pompom next time. Pompoms had no purpose that he could see, but Carrot could grip it to steady himself since he was too lazy to fly.

  Up the valley, he followed some recent horse tracks under the trees. That would be Toss the shepherd on his rounds, thought Awa. He measured three strides from the trunk of the old pōhutukawa tree towards the little creek and kicked at the leaf mould. Carrot took off into the lower branches of the tree and noisily began climbing from one branch to the next. From higher up he yelled, “Boy! Boy!”

  Awa’s shoe bumped a rock, and he knelt to brush away the leaves. Yes! X marked the rock.

  “I’ll be up soon, you silly cockatoo!” he yelled back. He removed the rock and began to dig. He pulled out a jar, brushed the dirt off it and unscrewed the lid. His treasure was just as he’d left it, four lumps of ambergris wrapped in brown paper. He replaced the jar and the rock and kicked leaves over it. Then he climbed the pōhutukawa.

  The tree hut was different! Rusty pieces of corrugated iron had been nailed to the overhanging branch to make a roof. Under it was a shallow bed made of boards and filled with mingimingi, a springy shrub that tangled its way waist deep over the foothills. Awa had lain on it sometimes. It was like a mattress. He lay down on the bed. Tredget must have slept up here.

  In the hollow under the roof branch there was a wooden apple box wrapped in waterproof oilskin. In the box were candles, matches in a jar, and two patched and folded blankets. A newspaper parcel contained a battered black billy, a plate and a cup. Lower down in the hollow was Tredget’s old biscuit tin. Awa opened it. Tredget’s ambergris and the other treasures were gone. Inside was half a packet of cabin bread – still good – a small jar of marmalade, tea leaves in another small jar, a tube of sweetened condensed milk, two kūmara and an onion. A folded note said, Make yourself at home, Boy!

  Awa did. He threw one of the blankets over the springy mingimingi, put away the rest of the box and lay down. Carrot perched on the board at the head of the bed, cocked his head and said meaningfully, “Boy!”

  “I bet you stayed here too, Carrot?”

  “Zealots,” said Carrot.

  Awa shook his head. What rubbish was this bird talking now? The tree rocked gently in the soft breeze. Carrot dozed off, and before long, so did Awa.

  “Look out! Look out!”

  Awa nearly tumbled out of his treetop cradle. He froze, listening. Then he carefully reached over and pressed gently on the parrot’s back. “Shhh, shhh.”

  “Shhh, shhh,” said Carrot.

  “Ahoy, landlubbers!” shouted a voice from below. “Avast, me hearties, look lively there!” The sound of a horse snorting and stamping followed. Carrot hopped off his perch, crossed the tree hut platform, spread his colourful wings and glided down and out of sight.

  “Arrr, Carrot, you birdbrain. If you hadn’t shouted out, I would never have known you were up there.”

  “Zealots,” said Carrot. “Hello.”

  It must be Toss, Awa thought, and he started to climb down the tree.

  “Avast there, it is Awa! Tēnā koe, Boy. I was expecting someone else. Tredget comes here sometimes.”

  “Kia ora, Toss. I saw your tracks. Where are you headed?” What looked like a sheep car
cass wrapped in mutton cloth was lying over the front of Toss’s saddle.

  “Taking Pa Rumble some kai. You wanna ride back? Put your left foot here and grab the back of the saddle.” Toss took his leather boot out of the stirrup and pointed to his heel. Awa stretched his foot up onto Toss’s boot and leaned into the horse, reaching for the saddle. Toss leaned forward, swing-ing his leg up behind him. In one swift movement, Awa was swung up onto the horse’s back.

  The horse picked his way along the bush track and onto the foothills of the farm. They could hear big breakers rolling over the rocks below. Carrot perched on the sheep carcass and nodded directions with his head as if he was steering the horse.

  Toss stopped the horse occasionally to study the ground.

  “What’s up, Toss?”

  “Someone’s been driving a tractor onto the beach. Must be coming in over the farm, ’cause Pa hasn’t seen them.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know, but now you’re here you can be a lookout for us, be a vigilante, eh Boy? Keep an eye out for tractor tracks and suspicious behaviour.”

  “Sure thing, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  Pa and Toss were pleased to see each other. Pa opened a flagon of beer. They hung the sheep up on a verandah rafter and then Pa asked Awa to take two buckets down to the sea and fill them half full of water. “Better balance that way.”

  When Awa came back, Pa dropped slabs of mutton into the buckets. “Flies can’t dive, Awa. This meat will be safe under water. Tomorrow when it’s brined, we can smoke it. It’ll keep for weeks.” There were two legs of mutton on the wooden verandah rail. Pa gave one of them to Awa. “Take this home to your kuia and koro and come back tomorrow to help light the smoker.”

  Toss used a heavy cleaver to cut through the bones. Chops were lined up on the rail. Carrot perched on the far end, well away from the action. “Poops! Poops! Whoopsie!” he called, and he lifted his tail and pooped onto the grass. Toss and Pa were laughing into their beer as Awa headed home with the leg of mutton over his shoulder.

  He could hear the parrot joining in. “Hehe haha haa!” Awa was glad to be back.

  2

  Zealots

  Back at the bach, Nan put the leg of mutton in the coal range to roast. The afternoon tide was nearly low and Pop was already out on the reef. Awa looked under the bach for the hīnaki fish trap he and his brother Tai had made in the summer. He pulled it out onto the grass and then sat down and gazed out to sea, daydreaming about his long stay at his grandparents’ homestead while his father was ill. No school, Mrs Carol’s ghost, his quest to sleep in her house for ten pounds, his teasing uncles, Mangokuri, the Rumbles, Carrot finding ambergris.

  A movement out on the reef caught his eye. Pop was setting a cray pot. He hoisted the hīnaki on his shoulder and set off towards his grandfather.

  The hīnaki was a long tube, wide at one end and narrow at the other, with a funnel entrance. For a fish, it was easy to slip into but hard to get out of. Uncle Kim had shown them how to make it with number eight wire and chicken mesh, but they had never got a chance to use it. “I’ll just go and check on Pop!” he called to his grandmother.

  “You be careful out there. Put your shoes and a woolly on, Awa, and don’t be too long. Tell your grandfather I’m in the mood for kina.”

  Down at the rock pools, Awa could make out Pop’s red checked shirt flapping in the wind out where the breakers washed over the rocks. Awa picked his way over to a deep pool with the swell rushing into it. He put the hīnaki down and used his screwdriver to prise some kina and a couple of pāua off the rocks. He cracked their shells to expose the flesh and dropped them into his hīnaki. Then he set the hīnaki in the pool, anchoring it between some rocks. He tied a rope and a small buoy to it and stood back to survey his handiwork.

  Satisfied, Awa started to gather kina for his Nan. When he had a small pile, he took off his shirt, put the kina in it and tied the sleeves. The bundle of kina dripped down his shoulder as he made his way back to the bach.

  When Pop came back, Awa was helping Nan to spoon hot mutton fat over kūmara to go in the oven. They ate the kina with bread and tea.

  “I hope you catch some of those butterfish, Awa,” Pop said. “Baked slowly, they are tenderlicious. Gut them and wash them in the sea straight away to keep them fresh.”

  Nan said, “When I was a girl, we put them in bull kelp bags and cooked them on the coals.”

  Awa decided to try that! “What about putting watercress and potatoes in the kelp too, Nan?”

  “Mmmm, sounds good,” said Pop. “When’s dinner?”

  Later, Nan sat by Awa’s bed and told stories about when she was a girl and living with her grandparents. She told Awa where a great canoe was buried in a swamp up north. Her grandfather believed that the dark, peaty water would turn the great canoe to stone. Petrify it. He talked about her grandmother’s grandfather seeing Captain Cook’s ship arrive near the Bay of Islands when he was five years old. He helped to throw trevally up onto Cook’s ship as a gift to the ghostly manuhiri.

  She talked about her work as a nurse, and compared today’s remedies to those they used when she was a girl. “Times have changed, Awa, but the old ways saved many lives. Take tea. Tea is a funny thing. When a person’s cut open, you can see how tea can dye a stomach black, but it soothes people too. The good outweighs the bad.”

  Awa fell asleep wondering if his stomach was black inside.

  The rattle of the kettle and the banging of the coal range door woke him at dawn. Pop was going to check his cray pot. Awa remembered the hīnaki and climbed out of bed. He grabbed an old jersey from the drying rack above the range. “The tide’s already on its way in, Awa. We’d better get going. Tea and toast when we get back later. I’ll get a knife for your fish, eh?” he said with a wink.

  Pop didn’t stop at the hīnaki. Racing the tide, he carried on to the reef. Awa found his buoy and pulled at the rope. When the hīnaki reached the surface, he grabbed it and heaved it up onto the edge of the deep rock pool. Inside flapped three butterfish and a crayfish. A mixed bag. He’d just finished gutting the fish when he heard Pop’s whistling above the sound of the surf. Together they carried their pots back to the bach. Pop had some good-sized crays in his. “Plenty,” he said.

  “Pa Rumble wants me to help light his smoker,” said Awa after breakfast.

  “You could throw in some butterfish,” said Pop. He split the fish open and sprinkled them with salt.

  Awa arrived at the Rumbles with his tomahawk sheathed on his belt and a wet sugar bag of kaimoana. Pa was sitting on the verandah step, looking out to sea. Carrot walked along the verandah rail towards Awa, nodded twice and said, “Hello.”

  Awa smiled. “Hello, Carrot. What nice manners!”

  “Zealots!” Carrot shouted.

  Pa laughed. “Arrr, a boy and an axe, just in time to cut kindling.”

  They soon had a small fire smouldering in the smoking shed. They hung the salted mutton and fish on hooks high above the fire and shut the door. “Now we wait a few hours,” said Pa. “The seaweed is calling and the tide is rising fast. I’m off to work. Can you keep that bird out of mischief while I’m gone?”

  Awa went straight up to the secret valley. He had an idea that Tredget had a fireplace somewhere near the tree hut. Carrot saw him looking around and flew over to the little pool nearby. “Boy, crusty!”

  Beside the pool was a circle of stones and some charred wood. Awa shot up the tree for the billy, which he filled with tea, cabin bread, marmalade, matches, a cup and the tube of sweetened condensed milk. Before long, he and Carrot were drinking sweet billy tea and crunching on cabin bread. “This is the life, eh Carrot? We could move in up here.”

  Carrot shared the tea, dipping his beak in the cup and lifting his head to swallow. “Crustyyy boyyy,” he gargled.

  Awa lay back against the grassy bank and closed his eyes. A sudden racket made him sit up. Five magpies chased a harrier hawk across the sky.
<
br />   “Look out! LOOK OUT!” shouted Carrot.

  “Nasty magpies. That hawk should be chasing them,” said Awa.

  “Grrrr!” said Carrot, sounding like one of Toss’s dogs. “Zealots!”

  Awa tipped the last of the billy tea on the fire, watching the coals hiss and steam, and they climbed the tree. He made the bed, one blanket underneath and one on top, and stretched out. Carrot perched on the headboard and annoyed Awa by lining up strands of his hair, like he did with his feathers. Soon it wasn’t annoying any more.

  “Grrrr!” Carrot was growling like a dog again.

  Awa opened his eyes.

  “Grrrr, grrrr!” The sound was low and menacing.

  Awa looked in the direction Carrot was looking. There was a swoosh of wings and a flash of black and white. Magpies! Had he left some crumbs by the campfire? He lay still. There was another flurry of wings just above him, and a clatter. One magpie stood on the hut platform, his red eyes glaring at Carrot. He hopped twice towards Carrot and stopped. More wings whipped the air. Two more magpies were perched on a branch above them. All of their beady red eyes were looking straight down their lethal black-tipped beaks at Carrot. Carrot sidled closer to Awa.

  “Grrrr, grrrr.”

  Up close, their beaks were long, sharp and powerful. Awa sat up suddenly and shook his blanket so it billowed upwards, yelling, “GET OUT!”

  “LOOK OUT!” shrieked Carrot, flapping his wings and holding his ground.

  The two onlookers flew off, but the leader dived at Carrot. Awa swatted at him, knocking him off course. His beak slashed Awa’s left ear. Awa pulled the blanket up to protect his face, trapping the magpie in a loose fold. He wrestled with the frantic, squawking, scratching bird until it skidded out from underneath, let out an ear-splitting shriek and disappeared.

  “Bloody hell!” Awa put a hand up to his ear. It came away wet with blood. “Carrion!”

  “Zealots!” yelled Carrot. “Grrrr!”

  Awa’s hands were shaking. That magpie was sinister. It gave him the shivers, like a fingernail scratching a blackboard. He knew magpies were territorial. Carrot needed protection.