Billy and Old Smoko

by Jack Lasenby

“Any more trouble from you, young man,” said Mr Strap, blowing down his nostrils like Bert Brute, “and you’ll be thrown into the school dungeon.

  “Was that you who squeaked, Harrietta Wilson? You watch it, my girl!” He turned back to the standard threes. “Spell dendrochronologically!” he demanded.

  On the way home, Old Smoko handed around the rest of the sandwiches. The watercress had kept them deliciously moist.

  “Mighty good sandwiches, Billy!” said Harrietta Wilson, and winked at him till he blushed. The others agreed and put their pennies in Billy’s school bag. Johnny Bryce was silent till Old Smoko gave him a horse bite just above the knee, when he gabbled, “Mighty good sandwiches!” and paid his penny.

  “My Dad, he’s the best pig hunter in the Kaimais!” said Tama Rawiri.

  “Mine’s the best in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Johnny Bryce.

  “My mother was hanging out the washing, and she stuck a dog-scoffing boar pig under the clothesline,” said June Williams. “It was so big, it wouldn’t go on our wheelbarrow and we had to get the konaki.”

  “My Dad held a boar pig while I stuck it, and it was so big it wouldn’t go on our konaki and we had to get the dray,” said Johnny Bryce. “It’s the biggest dray in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “My mother’s boar pig was so big, it wouldn’t go into our biggest camp oven,” said June Williams. “Mum spitted it on a telegraph post and cooked it over the open fire.”

  “My boar pig was so big, my dad had to get the baker in Waharoa to cook it in his giant oven,” said Johnny Bryce. “It’s the biggest baker’s oven in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “Wow!” said the other kids. “Fair dinkum?”

  “And the baker took one look and said it must have been the biggest boar pig in the Southern Hemisphere!” said Johnny.

  “Remarkable!” Old Smoko said softly.

  “My father’s got the best holding dog in the district,” said one of the Ellery boys. “Dad says he’s a bully-kelpie cross with a bit of alligator in him.”

  “My father’s got the best finder and bailer south of the Coromandels and this side of the Mamakus,” said a kid from out Soldiers Settlement.

  “My father says I’m the best finder and bailer in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Johnny Bryce.

  “Fancy that!” said Old Smoko. “Tell us more, do.”

  Billy felt sorry for Johnny Bryce.

  “Tell you what,” said Johnny, “I bet I’ve got the biggest pair of tusks in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  Through the reins, Billy could feel Old Smoko smiling to himself. “Tomorrow,” said Old Smoko, “everybody bring your best tusks, and we shall hold a competition to see whose are the biggest. I shall provide the prizes.” He paused and said, “I am looking forward to seeing Johnny’s tusks. The biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, I think you said?”

  Johnny Bryce nodded but looked a bit dazed.

  “My bed’s full of crackling crumbs and there’s a smell of roast pork and Rotorua in my kitchen,” said his stepmother when Billy walked in. “I’ve an itchy feeling in my funny bone that there’s something going on just let me find out what they’re up to I’ll straighten them out good and proper mark my words!”

  For their tea, she and Billy’s father ate the pork chops she found in the safe. “Pork chops are too rich for a growing boy they heat the blood and give you lustful dreams,” she said and gave Billy a worn-out bit of puha.

  Billy pushed it around his plate. “Can I get down?”

  “You’re not getting up from the table till you’ve finished the last delicious mouthful of your lovely puha.”

  When his stepmother wasn’t looking, Billy shoved the puha off the plate, over the edge of the table, caught it between his toes, and rubbed it into the lino till it disappeared. He did the dishes, scrubbed the frying pan, piggybacked his stepmother and father to bed, and told them the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” again.

  “If I was his mother I’d wallop that Jack into the middle of next week I’d show him selling a good cow for a few lousy bean seeds,” said his stepmother, and she turned over and snored.

  Out in the kitchen, Old Smoko had roasted the other pork shoulder and leg. They ate them with apple sauce, made prize sandwiches for the tusk competition tomorrow, and talked about Bert Brute.

  Old Smoko showed Billy how he’d climbed the kahikatea, and how they rocketed off at just the right moment. Billy showed him how he stuck the sow. They danced, kicked over chairs, and made a lot of noise and a cup of tea.

  Billy was just putting out his light, when Old Smoko stuck his head in the window and said, “Johnny Bryce is going to have to masticate and swallow his words.”

  “Does masticating do you any harm, Old Smoko?”

  “It only means to chew. Good night!”

  Billy wrote in his real mother’s book, “Old Smoko likes using long words.” He dated the observation, wrote the time, and slept.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Why Old Smoko Frothed, How Mr Strap Whakapohaned the Whole School, and Picking Up the the Cabbage Tree Leaves and Scrubbing the Dunny Seat.

  At the Wardville turnoff, next morning, they all sat on the side of the road and watched Maggie Rawiri pull a decent-sized pair of tusks out of her school bag. Old Smoko measured them with his thumb.

  “Not inconsiderable,” he said.

  Meredith Rawiri’s jaw had lost a grinder on one side, so that tusk had grown in a circle and back into the lower jaw. “Must’ve hurt, eh!” he said. “I’ll bet the dental nurse would’ve enjoyed yanking it out!”

  Everyone felt their lower jaws, and looked thoughtful.

  The Williams girls each had a couple of jaws with fairly long tusks, but not all that thick. A kid from out Soldiers Settlement had a jaw with one whopping-sized tusk, but the other was a broken stump.

  Harrietta Wilson turned her back, bent over, and stuck her head into her school bag. “Scoff! Scoff!” she said and swung around, two large tusks fitted over her own lower teeth. Billy yelped and jumped out of the way, as she jerked her head left and right, and Old Smoko laughed and awarded her a roast pork and crackling sandwich.

  “Johnny Bryce, let us see yours,” he said. Johnny took his time undoing the buckles on his school bag.

  “The biggest tusks in the Southern Hemisphere, I think you said,” Old Smoko reminded him.

  Reluctantly, Johnny revealed a jaw with short, thin tusks. Everyone turned away embarrassed. “Anyway,” he said, his voice all nasty, “where’s your jokers’ tusks anyway?”

  Old Smoko tipped up a chaff sack and tumbled out Bert Brute’s enormous jaw and its colossal tusks. Lynda Bryce cried and ran; the kid from out Soldiers Settlement wet his pants; and June Williams looked away, pretended she didn’t see the enormous tusks, and said, “You made that up!”

  “Skites!” sneered Johnny Bryce. “Why’s one tusk longer than the other?”

  “That’s because the Kaimais are so steep,” Billy told him.

  Harrietta scoffed her own tusks at Bert Brute’s enormous jaw. The others backed away, hissing. One of the Catholic kids crossed herself. Only Johnny touched the tip of one tusk to see if it was real. “Ow!” His finger dripped blood. Everyone shrieked.

  Old Smoko crawled under the jaw, got it over his head, and jerked it sideways. “Scoff! Scoff!” he growled.

  The youngest Williams girl went straight up a telegraph pole. The kid from out Soldiers Settlement dived head first into a culvert and stuck. Nobody would come near till Old Smoko took off the jaw and hid it out of sight in the chaff sack.

  Billy gave everyone a magnificent roast pork and crackling sandwich, and they rode on into Waharoa. The only sounds were Old Smoko chuckling to himself, and the crunch of crackling.

  The Rawleighs Man drove past, going in the opposite direction. “Don’t eat it all now,” he laughed, “or you’ll be hungry at lunchtime.” He clicked his tongue to his horse and they trotted on, leaving behind the smell of oil of wintergree
n.

  Johnny Bryce got off at school. “I guess youse jokers win,” he grouched.

  “I still reckon you made it up,” said June Williams, “but that was the best roast pork and crackling sandwich I’ve ever eaten.”

  “I’m telling on youse two!” The kid from out Soldiers Settlement ran bawling, legs wide apart, into the primer room. “Youse kids never had no right to scare me!” his voice floated back.

  Mr Strap was in a bad mood that morning. Nobody had done their homework. Everyone’s spelling was wrong. Everyone got their sums wrong. Every single kid in the school was stupid. Then, while filling the inkwells, the ink monitor – Maggie Rawiri that week – spilled a whole enamel jugful all over the floor.

  “That’s it!” said Mr Strap. “You’ve gone too far this time. I’ve had enough. You’re getting the cuts, the lot of you!”

  He made the whole school line up and stick out their hands, and he was taking a couple of practice swings with the strap, when Old Smoko – wearing Bert Brute’s jaw – stuck his head in the window. He’d chewed a bit of soap so bubbles frothed from his nostrils as he growled and went, “Scoff! Scoff!”

  With great presence of mind, Mr Strap leapt out the door and bolted it behind him so the giant-tusked, bubble-blowing Captain Cooker would eat the kids first. Smirking and chortling at his cleverness, Mr Strap ran to lock himself in the boys’ dunnies.

  He heard the clatter of hoofs and looked over his shoulder. To his horror, the giant Captain Cooker was galloping after him, scoffing its tusks, rolling its eyes, frothing. As Mr Strap shrieked and jumped in the dunny door, Old Smoko jerked his head sideways, and the tip of one tusk tore the behind clean out of the headmaster’s trousers.

  Some hours later, Mr Strap peeped over the wall. Old Smoko had rinsed the soap out of his mouth and was grazing in the footy paddock, Bert Brute’s jaw was hidden in the saddle shed, and the colossal boar pig had disappeared. Mr Strap blew down his nose and ran backwards for the school house, holding his pants together. Unfortunately, he tripped, and the whole school saw. They pointed and laughed.

  “Sir’s trying to whakapohane us!” yelled Tama.

  “You wait!” shouted Mr Strap but, when Mrs Strap saw the rip in the seat of his good trousers, she gave him a hiding and made him wear his old gardening pants back to school.

  All the way home, they took turns being Mr Strap, running and holding up his torn trousers. They laughed and gobbled the rest of the delicious roast pork and crackling sandwiches.

  “How about another look at your jaw?” asked Johnny Bryce, as he got off at his gate, but his little sister, Lynda – who had hidden under the cream stand all day – cried and said if he didn’t come home now she was going to tell on him.

  “He can come in just a minute, Lynda,” said Old Smoko He pulled out a bit of paper. “Read that aloud,” said Old Smoko.

  “Get st–”

  Old Smoko scoffed and ground his teeth.

  “All right! All right!” Slowly, Johnny read aloud, “I’ve got the biggest tusks in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “Now eat your words!” said Old Smoko.

  “You can get st–”

  “Grrr!” Old Smoko started pulling Bert Brute’s jaw out of the chaff sack.

  “I was just fooling!” Johnny chewed and chewed.

  “Masticating,” Billy whispered.

  Johnny stretched his neck and swallowed the sodden bits of paper, and he and Lynda ran bawling. Halfway up their drive, Johnny poked out his tongue, spat a bit of paper, and yelled, “I’m telling on you!”

  “Scoff-scoff!” went Old Smoko, and Johnny bolted.

  On the back lawn, Billy’s stepmother was juggling several hundredweight sacks of cement to strengthen her arm muscles. “Why does my kitchen smell of roast pork?” she demanded.

  “You and Dad had pork chops for tea last night,” Billy reminded her.

  “Don’t you dare answer back get down the shed at once and tomorrow you remember to tell Mr Strap he’s to open the school on Saturdays and Sundays in future.”

  “Please, Sir, my stepmother says to tell you you’ve got to open the school on Saturdays and Sundays in future,” Billy said next morning.

  Mr Strap looked scared. “If I keep the school open on Saturdays and Sundays, the Prime Minister will kick my behind. She spends half her time in Wellington running up and down those big steps in front of parliament in her heavy tramping boots. That’s what gives her such powerful legs.”

  “What does she do the other half of the time, Sir?”

  “She spends it kicking the behinds of her cabinet ministers.”

  When Billy told his stepmother, she said, “Humph! Since when was a headmaster scared of a mere woman?” But she said nothing more about going into Waharoa and giving Mr Strap a hiding.

  So, instead of riding to school next Saturday, Billy and Old Smoko did the milking, while the grown-ups had a lie-in.

  They cleaned the milking machine, took the full cans down to the jetty and collected the empty ones, fed the chooks, collected the eggs, boiled the washing and hung it out. They opened the register and cleaned the soot out of the stove, polished it black, and rubbed a little mutton fat into the rings to keep them in good condition, swept out the kitchen, and polished the lino.

  They carried a four-gallon tin of hot water up the back path, scrubbed the dunny seat with sandsoap, scattered fresh dirt down the hole to stop the stink, scrubbed the floor, and left the door open for the sun to dry everything. They mowed the lawns, cut the edges, trimmed the hedge, picked up the leaves under the cabbage tree, swept the path, and creosoted the toolshed.

  What was left of the morning was their own. “Let’s go up the back paddock,” said Billy, “and see if there’s any fresh rooting.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Why the Parents Regretted Selling Their Children, What Happened to Bert Brute’s Carcass, and the True Story of Mount Te Aroha and the King of the Kaimais.

  As they walked up to the back paddock, Old Smoko said, “I told you, did I not, what happened to those children who were naughty on the milk launch, going to school?”

  Billy nodded. “Their parents sold some of them as slaves, some they sold to the circus, and the rest saw what was happening and ran away.”

  “You have a retentive memory,” said Old Smoko. “The parents found they regretted selling their children.”

  “So they missed them after all?”

  “Just for doing the milking, ploughing, and all the heavy work around the farm. They tried to manumit their children out of slavery, but the new owners found them so useful, they would not sell them back.”

  “What about the ones they’d sold to the circus?”

  Old Smoko shook his head. “They had already been fed to the lions and tigers.”

  Billy wept then cheered up and asked, “What about the ones who got under the fence and ran away?”

  “The parents followed their footprints till they vanished into the side of the Kaimais.”

  “My real mother used to recite me a poem about the kids of Hamelin Town who followed the Pied Piper into a hillside!” said Billy. “Only one was left outside, a little kid who couldn’t keep up because he was lame.

  “I wish my real mother would come back. She used to sit on the bed up in my little room and recite poems, and tell me stories, and tuck me up at night. She’d give me a kiss, blow out the candle, and say, ‘Good night! Sleep tight! Hope the fleas don’t bite!’” Billy sighed.

  Old Smoko didn’t want to encourage introspection and self-pity in Billy, so he said, “My mother taught me to say, ‘Step on a crack, marry a rat!’”

  “My mother taught me that, too! And ‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor’; and ‘One potato, two potato, three potato, four!’”

  “So did mine! And she taught me to sing ‘I’ll take you on the cable car, the cable car, the cable car!’”

  “Mum taught me that song,” said Billy, and together they sang the Wellington cable car son
g.

  “Did your mother teach you ‘Eenie, meenie, minie moe?’” asked Billy.

  “Course!” said Old Smoko. “‘Eenie meenie minie moe, Catch a honky by the toe…’”

  “Mine said, ‘Catch a nigger by the toe… .’”

  “Mine taught me ‘Oma rapeti!’”

  Billy laughed and said, “Mine, too! ‘Oma rapeti! Oma rapeti!’” he sang.

  “‘Oma! Oma! Oma!’” sang Old Smoko in his deep bass voice.

  They both stuck their fingers up beside their heads for rabbits’ ears, the way their mothers had taught them, and skipped across the old pig-rooting singing, “’Oma rapeti! Oma rapeti!’” Still singing, they danced around the head and trunk of the huge kahikatea, and the heap of dirt torn up by its roots as it fell.

  “‘Oma! Oma! Oma.…’”

  “It’s gone!” Old Smoko’s voice went up to tenor. “Bert Brute’s carcass. Somebody’s eaten it!”

  “Johnny Bryce!” said Billy.

  “He couldn’t eat it on his own. Ahhh!” screamed Old Smoko. Billy looked down. “Ahhh!” he screamed, too. They flung their arms around each other and screamed, “Ahhh!” together.

  They turned and ran for the fence. Billy got there first. “Pull yourself together,” he told Old Smoko.

  “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

  Neither could look the other in the face. Instead, they pretended to be puffing, very loudly.

  “We’ve got to go back,” said Billy.

  “Why?” asked Old Smoko.

  “What if Johnny Bryce finds out we ran away?”

  “So what?” said Old Smoko.

  “Well,” said Billy, blushing, “he’ll go and tell Harrietta Wilson.”

  “What if he does?”

  “I dunno,” said Billy and drew a circle in the dirt with his big toe. “Well, she might say she’s Johnny Bryce’s girlfriend.”

  “I will return,” said Old Smoko, “if you will accompany me.”

  “I’m not scared,” said Billy. Whistling “God Defend New Zealand,” he walked back across the old pig-rooting to where Bert Brute’s carcass had lain.