by Jack Lasenby
Mrs Strap missed the kick. “You’re going to be sorry!” she shouted at Mr Strap.
The School Inspector fired a shot for half-time, licked his ink pencil, and added up the points he’d written on the back of his left hand. “Horis: 63!”
“Hooray!” shouted the Horis.
“Boo!” shouted the Honkies.
The School Inspector licked the ink pencil and added up the points on the back of his right hand. “Honkies: 63!”
“Hooray!” shouted the Honkies.
“Boo!” shouted the Horis.
When they found Mr Strap had gutsed all the pieces of orange, they all shouted “Boo!” together, and the little boy from out Soldiers Settlement cried because somebody sat down on him without looking. “I want my mummy to come home,” he told Harrietta; Billy said, “What’s that?” again; and Old Smoko looked up his sleeve for another trick.
The School Inspector fired a shot for the second half. Old Smoko kicked off so hard, the football knocked over Mr Strap who cried, “Holy-Smokus!” The ball bounced off the cross-bar, stuck on the barbed wire fence at the Kaimai end, hissed, and went flat.
“That’s not much of a trick,” Harrietta told Old Smoko.
“Bang!” the School Inspector shouted. “I’ll write and ask the Prime Minister for another football. Till she sends one, it’s a draw.”
“It’s your fault!” Mrs Strap hissed at somebody. “You’re going to get such a thrashing when I get you home.…”
“Thrashus-bashus, crashus-smashus!” said the voice from the back.
“We were going to vers them Honkies real good!” Harrietta complained.
“Three cheers for the Horis! Three cheers for the Honkies. Three cheers for the ref. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!” said the School Inspector. “School closes early today. Tomorrow’s the Governor-General’s birthday, and she said you can all have a holiday.”
“Hip-ray! Hip-ray! Hip-ray!” everyone shouted. “Where are you going, Sir?”
The School Inspector was donning his disguise: long black coat, wig, glasses, beard, nose, and teeth. “I’ve got to gallop out and inspect Turangaomoana School this afternoon.” He gave a terrible smile with the long black false teeth and somebody at the back burst into tears and said, “Turanga-karanga, kanawa-banana!”
“Come and stay with us tonight, Sir?” Harrietta Wilson said. “We’re having roast pork and crackling with apple sauce for tea!”
“My favourite tucker!” shouted the School Inspector. “Thank you, Harrietta!”
Billy ran to open the gate, and the School Inspector leaned down and whispered something in his ear. Billy noticed his lips were tattooed blue from licking the ink pencil, and he also saw Mrs Strap was trying to hear what he said.
“Hi-Yo, Sylvia! Away!” the School Inspector’s horse shouted and jumped the gate before Billy could get it open.
Mrs Strap saw Billy looking at her, and she cuffed Mr Strap and tied the ends of his moustache together in a granny knot. “I’ll show you!” she hissed.
“Mmmff!” said Mr Strap.
Billy looked away and ran with the other kids to watch the School Inspector gallop out on the Turangaomoana Road. But all they saw was the Rawleighs Man trotting along in his buggy.
“He looks a bit like the School Inspector,” Billy said aloud. Harrietta Wilson must have heard him because she whispered, “Maybe they’re brothers.”
When he got home, Billy told his stepmother and father about the footy, but didn’t say anything about Old Smoko playing.
“Mrs Strap used to play hooker for the All Blacks. The School Inspector’s going to Harrietta Wilson’s place for tea ’cause they’re having roast pork and crackling with apple sauce. He gave us the rest of today off and a holiday tomorrow for the Governor-General’s birthday. She’s ninety. And he put everyone up several classes.”
“Wait till I see that Mr Strap I made it perfectly clear to him that you need at least another couple of years in the primers before going up to standard one goodness only knows what are things coming to?” said his stepmother.
“If Mr Strap can’t spell collywobbles, the Prime Minister’s going to kick his behind. And Mrs Strap tied the ends of his moustache in a granny knot for eating all the bits of orange at half-time.”
“I thought I told you not to answer back since you’ve got nothing better to do you can spend your holiday grubbing all the ragwort out of the front paddock the Ragwort Inspector’s coming if she finds any left she’ll see you hanged.”
Billy glanced at his father, but he just stuck his finger in his ear and whistled “Home On the Range” out of the corner of his mouth.
“Yes, Mum,” said Billy.
“And after milking you see you scrub down the yard properly and don’t go expecting a lavish meal tonight I’m not spending all day slaving over a hot stove just so you can fill your face playing footy at school and having holidays you get down to the shed at once.” As his stepmother walked across and smiled at the mirror, Billy ducked so he wouldn’t see her reflection and ran outside.
“This isn’t much fun,” he said to Old Smoko, the following morning, as they chopped out ragwort with long-handled grubbers. “Harrietta Wilson says Mr Strap growls us because Mrs Strap growls him all the time. She told me the little boy from out Soldiers Settlement was crying because his mother ran away and his dad’s gone all lackadaisical.”
Old Smoko straightened his back and said, “I heard him.”
“I’m sick of grubbing ragwort anyway,” Billy said. “I wonder where she ran away to?”
“Here comes your stepmother! She must not see me using a grubber.” Old Smoko lay on his back, all four feet in the air, and pretended to be asleep.
“Get on with it!” said Billy’s stepmother. Her green eyes slanted and narrowed, and she looked closely at Old Smoko.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Why Billy Said Old Smoko Wouldn’t be Very Reliable, Why Horses Spend So Much Time Laughing, and Why They Have Very Large Hankies.
“A pity you can’t teach that donkey to work,” said Billy’s stepmother, “or he could give you a hand.”
“I don’t think he’d be very reliable,” said Billy.
“Useless old nag don’t forget you’ve got to burn all the ragwort flowers when you’ve finished grubbing otherwise they’ll seed and come up again if you haven’t got rid of every last scrap by milking time then look out you’re asking for trouble my boy!”
When Billy’s stepmother had gone, Old Smoko looked at him and said, “That was not very nice, telling your stepmother I would not be very reliable.”
“We mustn’t let her think we’re friends.”
“Nevertheless,” said Old Smoko, “I pride myself on my reliability. Tell me, what did the School Inspector whisper in your ear as he was departing yesterday?”
“He started saying something like: ‘Your real mother –’ but his horse saw Mrs Strap listening, and it shouted, ‘Hi-Yo, Sylvia! Away!’ and jumped the gate so I could’t hear the rest. Then I ran to watch him galloping out towards Turangaomoana, but there was only the Rawleighs Man trotting along in his buggy.”
“There is something strange about the School Inspector and the Rawleighs Man,” said Old Smoko.
“Harrietta Wilson thinks they might be brothers.”
“They bear a remarkable resemblance to each other,” said Old Smoko.
They grubbed the last of the ragwort, threw it all down a hole in the paddock, burnt the flowers, did the milking, and sledged the cans down for the milk launch.
“Hop on the konaki. I’ll give you a ride up to the house,” Old Smoko said. “I have a peculiar feeling in my funny bone about what the School Inspector started to say to you.”
“Do horses have funny bones?” asked Billy.
“Twice as big as yours.”
“So that’s why you spend so much time laughing!”
Old Smoko kept a dignified silence till they neared the house, when he repeated, “A peculiar feel
ing in my funny bone. Perhaps the School Inspector possesses a clue to your mother’s whereabouts.”
“I’m sorry I tried to be smart about your funny bone, Old Smoko,” said Billy. “I just want my real mum to come home, and my dad to stop being lackadaisical.” He would have said something else, but saw his stepmother watching from the kitchen window, so he unharnessed Old Smoko and turned him loose.
“You can’t expect to find anything left for your tea after taking your time grubbing a bit of ragwort milking a few cows and taking the cans down to the river did I see you talking to that horse?” Billy’s stepmother said as he walked in the door.
“Not talking,” Billy explained. “He was just hearing my seven and nine times tables and my spelling, for homework.”
“That’s all right then so long as you don’t start pretending he can talk here’s your tea these lovely chop bones your father left them on the side of his plate lots of nutritious chewing for you.”
Unfortunately, his father had polished the chop bones clean. Billy pretended to gnaw them, then read the Herald aloud from front to back, put his father and stepmother to bed, and told them the story of “Hansel and Gretel”. “I’d have given those two what for!” said his stepmother.
“I’d have stuffed them with breadcrumbs sage and onion stuck apples in their mouths popped them into the oven and that’d teach them!” She took his father’s false teeth out of the glass beside their bed, snapped them at Billy to show what she would have done to Hansel and Gretel, fell asleep, and snored.
Billy tiptoed out to the kitchen. “Boy, that sure smells bosker!” he said.
The smell was coming from the oven. Old Smoko had roasted half a dozen fat weaners who’d given him cheek when he caught them up an apple tree in the orchard.
As Old Smoko carved, Billy narrowed his eyes, pretended he had a pigtail and was Bo-Bo, the Chinese boy in Mr Lamb’s essay. Old Smoko put his plate in front of him, and Billy fumbled with his fingers for the hot pork and crackling.
“Ow!” He dabbled his burnt fingers in the apple sauce, and stuck them into his mouth like Bo-Bo. “Mmm!” he said as he chewed the pork, crunched the crackling, and licked the sauce. “The meat tastes meaty, the crackling crackly, the apple sauce saucy.”
He opened both eyes wide and saw Old Smoko staring at him. “I was being Bo-Bo,” Billy explained, and pulled back the corners of his eyes so they slanted.
“I understand,” said Old Smoko, “though some would consider that gesture racist. Besides, when we find your real mother, she will be displeased if she finds her son has developed the table manners of a small gorilla.”
“Taste the crackling, Old Smoko!” said Billy, and thrust a piece of smoking-hot pork into his hands. Old Smoko burnt his own fingers, dipped them in apple sauce, stuck them into his mouth, and sucked them. He chewed the meaty meat, crunched the crackly crackling, and licked the saucy sauce.
“Mmm! There is some pleasure in eating with one’s hands. Just this once, Billy, we will be Bo-Bo, the pair of us!” He laughed and seized a large handful of roasted weaner. “Delicious!” Old Smoko said.
“Scrumptious!” said Billy. “I wonder what wild pork’s like hangied?”
“Delicious,” said Old Smoko. “Some day we will get new hangi stones, and you will find out.”
After a good wash, Billy did the dishes and scrubbed the pots and pans, while Old Smoko made enough sandwiches to fill two pikaus for tomorrow. Then they sat with their feet in the oven.
“Crikey!” Billy rubbed his stomach. “That was a feed and a half!”
“Thank you. It is gratifying to have one’s culinary efforts appreciated. I still have that strange feeling in my funny bone, Billy. About what the School Inspector was going to say.”
“Me, too.”
As Old Smoko breast-stroked across the Waihou River next day, he paused, trod water for a moment, and said, “I will wager that the School Inspector enjoyed his dinner of roast pork and crackling with apple sauce at Harrietta’s place, the other night.”
“You bet!” said Billy. “Everyone says Mrs Wilson’s a corker cook! My real mum used to say her scones would win first prize at the Women’s Institute Cookery Competition, but she’s a Maori, and Maoris don’t belong to Institute.”
“Why not?”
“Mum said they’d be embarrassed. When I asked what that meant, she told me I was too young to bother myself with things that don’t concern me, and I’d understand when I grew up. I wonder if it’s what the School Inspector called Institute racism?”
“I think he probably said institutional racism.” Old Smoko shook his head. “You kids get on at school okay. Why can’t your mothers get along, too?”
Billy noticed that his language was rather informal and remembered that Old Smoko only spoke that way when deeply moved. “Hey, look!” he said. “They’re both crying.”
Bawling their heads off, Johnny and Lynda Bryce ran down their drive, climbed on behind Billy, and hoed into the roast pork and crackling sandwiches he gave them out of the first pikau.
“Are the sandwiches to your liking?” asked Old Smoko.
“Bonzer!” Lynda Bryce said, her nose running. “Me’n Johnny ’n Dad got sent to bed without any tea last night, and this morning we only got half a puha leaf between the three of us for breakfast.” She would have cried again, and Johnny, too, but they were busy chewing. Old Smoko raised his eyebrows at Billy who raised his eyebrows back.
“These are the best roast pork and crackling sandwiches in the Southern Hemisphere,” Johnny Bryce blubbed, and he wiped his nose on his school bag.
“I am gratified to hear you say that,” Old Smoko told him, “but please remember to use your handkerchief.”
“I haven’t got a hanky. Our mum –” but Johnny burst into manly tears and couldn’t say any more. Lynda tried to say something but she burst into tears, too, only hers weren’t manly, Billy noticed. “That’s an interesting natural phenomenon,” he thought to himself.
“You may borrow my handkerchief,” Old Smoko was saying. “Blow your noses, the pair of you, and make sure you chew each mouthful of your sandwiches thirty-two times which, whilst benefiting your digestion, will help you compose yourselves so you may tell us what ails you.” By the time Old Smoko had finished his rather complicated advice, they were halfway into Waharoa.
At the Te Aroha and Wardville turnoffs, they picked up the Rawiri kids, the Williams sisters, the Ellery brothers, the Tarapipis, the Wilsons – including Harrietta, the Warawaras, the kids from down the pa and out Soldiers Settlement, and Peggy Turia. All upset, all without hankies, runny-nosed, and unable to speak for crying.
Old Smoko handed his hanky around the lot of them.
“How fortunate that you have such large nostrils,” Billy remarked.
“Sometimes,” Old Smoko told him, “you push your luck.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Why All the Kids Cried and Were Sick of “Home On the Range”, Why Mr Strap Blew His Nose On His Fingers, and Why Billy Said Not to Look In the Mirror.
Before Billy could reply, the Rotorua Express caught up and passed them. Seeing twenty-five children blowing their noses on Old Smoko’s hanky, it sneezed and forgot to stop at the Waharoa station.
“You’d think it’d be used to the school bus by now,” said the stationmaster.
Old Smoko turned off at the church corner, trotted along Seddon Street and asked, “What is it that has so upset you?”
As one, the twenty-five kids said, “There’s a beautiful wicked stepmother in our kitchen, and she reckons our real mother ran away, and we’ve got to call her Mum now.”
“Has she got black hair, green eyes, a white face, and red lips?” asked Old Smoko.
“How did you know?” cried twenty-five voices.
“Does she talk without punctuation, and has your dad gone all lackadaisical?”
“How did you know?”
“Did you and your dad get sent to bed last night without any
tea?”
“Who told you?”
“And did you get half a puha leaf between the lot of you for breakfast?”
“How did you know?”
Old Smoko looked over his shoulder at the crying kids. “And did your stepmother say she was too busy to go making sandwiches for your lunch this morning, and you could blooming well find something to eat for yourselves?”
“That’s what she said,” everyone wept. “But how did you know?”
“Billy has had a wicked stepmother for ages. Beautiful with black hair and green eyes and white skin and red lips, and she told him his mother ran away, too, and he has to call her Mum. What is more, she talks without punctuation,” said Old Smoko who was so particular about his own. “In addition, Billy’s father not only went all lackadaisical, but he whistles ‘Home On the Range’.”
“Our dad can’t roll his tongue,” June Williams said. “He has to carry a shepherd’s whistle on a string round his neck so he can work the dogs. But he hums ‘Home On the Range’ now. All the time!”
“Our Dad used to whistle ‘Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes’, and he knew ‘Auld Lang Syne’, too. Now he whistles nothing but ‘Home On the Range’, and it gets pretty boring,” said Albert Tarapipi.
“We’re all sick of ‘Home On the Range’!” everyone cried.
“My real mum was really my stepmother,” said Peggy Turia, “and I love her, but now I’ve got one of those beautiful wicked stepmothers with green eyes and red lips, too, and she talks without punctuation and says my real stepmother ran away and I’ve got to call her Mum now.”
“I understand what you mean.” Old Smoko nodded.
“I want my real stepmother to come home,” cried Peggy. “I love her, and I hate my wicked stepmother!”
“We are going to find everyone’s real stepmothers and mothers, the ones that you all love!” Old Smoko told them.