Billy and Old Smoko

by Jack Lasenby

  His real mother cried when she heard that and said, “Of course, only you’ll have to top and tail or there won’t be room.” She piggybacked them both to bed, told them the story of “Bluebeard”, and put on his voice, and did all his fierce gestures and terrifying noises, too. And all with punctuation. Then she kissed Billy and tucked him in, and he made her kiss Old Smoko and tuck him in, too, and she blew out the candle, and they slept.

  Both Billy and Old Smoko had nightmares, and woke up screaming, but whether it was from hearing “Bluebeard”, or from eating all that roast pork, crackling, apple sauce, apple pie, rhubarb crumble, golden syrup pudding, trifle, pavlova, hundreds and thousands, and fresh cream, and fried scones and golden syrup, nobody will ever know.

  Old Smoko fell out of bed and slept curled up on the mat. He found it more comfortable, and Billy was relieved because getting kicked by a draught horse having a nightmare wasn’t much fun.

  In the morning, Billy’s mum found them both still fast asleep, and smiled and closed the door so she wouldn’t wake them with the noise she made giving her kitchen another good scrub from top to bottom.

  When they woke, they had a look at the cloned witches standing in a long row across the Waikato from south to north: tall, four-legged, steel skeletons with their arms sticking straight out from their shoulders, and their hands hanging down. Already, the Electricity Department had run up long ladders and painted them silver, men were stringing cables between them, and people were saying, “They sure put up them power pylons mighty fast!”

  Billy and Old Smoko would have been late for school, but Billy’s mother had told his father to do the milking himself. Pleased to be off the chain, he jumped around barking and wasn’t the least bit lackadaisical, but Billy’s mother put him back on as soon as he’d finished.

  The other kids grinned, cheered, and waved their school bags filled with roast pork, crackling, and apple sauce sandwiches for Billy and Old Smoko who’d forgotten their lunches.

  “How did you get on, pouring the oil of wintergreen?” asked Harrietta.

  “Yeah!” said Johnny Bryce. “How’d it go?”

  “Nonchalantly,” Billy said modestly.

  “You are my hero!” Harrietta told him and smiled with her blue eyes until he felt himself turning all runny inside.

  Mr Strap was in a good mood and taught embroidery the whole morning, and his wife came to show the kids some of her body building exercises. However, she struck an attitude and bulged so alarmingly between the bits of her bikini, all the primer kids burst into tears, and she went home in a huff. “I’ll show you!” she told Mr Strap, and he cried louder than the primer kids.

  In the afternoon, the School Inspector called in disguised as the Rawleighs Man and gave everyone a free bottle of oil of wintergreen. When Mrs Strap smelled it, she bounded over and took Mr Strap’s bottle off him, and they heard her slapping it on as she jogged back to the school house.

  “That proves she’s not a Gorgon,” said Johnny Bryce.

  “Did Mrs Strap really play for the All Blacks?” asked the little boy from out Soldiers Settlement.

  “You saw her jersey, didn’t you?” everyone told him.

  When Billy got home, his dad was doing the milking again but, as soon as he’d finished, Billy’s mother put him back on the chain. After tea – fried scones and golden syrup with roast pork, crackling, and apple sauce – Billy was allowed to give his father the lunches he and Old Smoko had forgotten to take to school. He also slipped him some pork bones which had lots of lovely gristle on them and, when his mum wasn’t looking, he gave his dad a quick pat and let him lean against his leg.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  How the Railway Tunnel from Waharoa to Tauranga Got Built, Why Billy Tied Himself in a Granny Knot, and What He Was Far Too Young For.

  Before it got dark, Billy and Old Smoko explored the mad scientist’s underground laboratory and unlocked a door that led to a tunnel. At its eastern end, they heard voices and found the lost children who had vanished into the Kaimais, digging their way out the other side just north of Tauranga.

  “You can come out now,” Old Smoko told them, and the lost children came out and sold their tunnel to the Minister of Railways who built the railway line through it from Waharoa to Tauranga.

  When their cruel parents found out how much money their kids got for the tunnel, they advertised in the Matamata County Mail saying, “We love you! Come home and you can do the milking and all the hard work around the farm.”

  But the lost children said, “No!” They bought their own farm on the steep hills under the Kaimais next to Billy’s, and built a house big enough to hold them all. They got themselves up in the morning, did the milking, made their own breakfast, cut their own lunch, and rode to school on Old Smoko, too. And they all started growing one leg longer than the other – on the downhill side.

  Billy’s mum was looking through his book, one day, and she saw the page on which he’d drawn a heart with his initials, and H.W., and an arrow sticking through it. “Who’s H.W?” asked his mum, but Billy was too embarrassed to say. “What’s this nonsense I hear about you and some little girl from down the pa? Look at me when I speak to you, Billy!”

  Even though embarrassed, Billy knew he must tell the truth, especially to his mother. He wriggled nonchalantly, bent in a circle, tied himself in a bow knot, pulled himself undone, and said, “I suppose it must be Harrietta Wilson. She says she’s my girlfriend. That’s what the other kids reckon, anyway.”

  “And do you say you’re her boyfriend?”

  “I dunno. I suppose so.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said his real mother with a little laugh.

  It was that time of year when the marbles season stopped, and the boys started swapping cigarette cards. Harrietta reckoned it came earlier than usual because she’d won all the boys’ marbles off them. Anyway, it was that time of year when the girls stopped skipping and started hopscotch instead.

  The boys swapped cigarette cards for about a month, then they swapped stamps, and then they swapped comics while the girls swapped The Girls’ Crystal, and then it was time for birdnesting, then time for cricket, and then time for acorn fights, and then one day there was a smell of oil of wintergreen and they heard “Hi Yo, Sylvia!” and in galloped the Rawleighs Man – disguised as the School Inspector – with a new football from the prime minister, and it was time for footy, and basketball, and knocking chestnuts down out of the school trees with your shanghai, and daring the others to eat the sheets of ice off the puddles on the way to school, and pointing at them and saying, “Oooh! I saw a dog piddle in that puddle!”

  And everybody else said, “Oooh!” and, if you’d just eaten the sheet of ice, you looked very thoughtful and ran home at playtime, and just before you got to the back door you rubbed your eyes to make them red, and you went in crying and told your real mummy that you didn’t feel very well.

  The school nurse came one morning with her huge blunt needle and jabbed everyone in the arm which made them cry, Mr Strap loudest of all. And she told them never to eat the ice off the puddles because they didn’t know what was in it. That was probably why most of the primer kids went home crying that morning. Then suddenly there was no ice on the puddles in the morning any longer, and it was time for birdnesting, marbles, and skipping again.

  The lackadaisical dads were still chained to their kennels but, one by one, they were allowed back inside. The first was Mr Rawiri, but he forgot himself and whistled “Home On the Range” in the bath. He hadn’t got to the end of the first line before Mrs Rawiri got him down and put the Octopus Clamp on him, and the next thing he knew he was back on the chain. Fortunately, Maggie felt sorry for him, and she used to sit on top of the kennel and read Greek myths to him after school.

  When blackberrying time came round again, Billy’s dad was the only one who still had to sleep in the dog kennel. Billy sneaked out after tea one night and gave him an extra sack because it looked like a frost.


  “Can’t Dad come inside?” he said to his mother.

  “Certainly not!” said his mother. “I can still smell something in my kitchen. It’s not dog, and it’s not roast pork, and it’s not oil of wintergreen – I think it’s that woman! He can stay on the chain a while longer.”

  For helping the kids win against the wicked stepmothers, the prime minister gave the School Inspector an Austin Seven car, but the first time he parked it outside the school, Mr Farley’s cow jumped the fence and licked holes in the canvas roof. Mr Farley said it must have smelled of oil of wintergreen.

  After that, the School Inspector went back to riding his horse. The kids thought it was more fun, anyway, because it always neighed, “Hi-Yo, Sylvia!” whenever it saw Mrs Strap striking attitudes, glistening with oil, and terrifying in her bikini on the front lawn of the school house.

  The prime minister gave the Rawleighs Man a new buggy which he still drives out to the farms under the Kaimais and sells the farmers laxatives, liniment, and ointment for their piles, but nobody’s sure whether he’s a brother or a clone of the School Inspector. Most people have forgotten they ever wondered about it.

  One day, Billy’s mother told him he could leave his father off the chain after he’d finished milking. “Not for long, mind,” she said. “And while he’s off the chain tell him he can dig the potato paddock and when he’s finished that he can chop down that old pine tree out the back and cut it up for firewood.”

  Next time she said he could be let off the chain for a while, Billy asked, “Can’t he come inside tonight?”

  “Not on your Nelly!” said Billy’s mother but, when she saw his face, she said, “Well, perhaps he can sleep on the back doorstep. Only you make sure he lies on an old sack. We don’t want his hairs tramping all through the house. And if it rains, he can sleep on the back porch, but that’s as far as he’s coming inside till I’m sure he’s stopped being lackadaisical and whistling ‘Home On the Range’.

  “The idea of him letting that woman into my kitchen. Not to mention the downright cheek of her, rearranging my linen cupboard, and altering the knives and forks around in their drawer.

  “Just the thought of her makes me itch. You can give your father a thorough going-over with the kootie comb and, while you’re doing that, I’m going to give the whole house a good spring cleaning from top to bottom, and I’ll use caustic soda this time and see if that gets rid of the smell.

  “I think you’re growing one leg longer than the other,” she said to Billy. “I noticed when you were climbing on Old Smoko this morning.”

  “I have noticed, too,” said Old Smoko. “The boy is growing up.”

  “Goodness, me!” said Billy’s real mum. “For a moment, I thought Old Smoko said something!”

  “Before you know where you are,” said Old Smoko, “the boy will have a girlfriend.”

  “Oh, he’s far too young for that,” said Billy’s mother, and she took off her pinnie and flapped it at his father, who looked as if he was trying to sneak in the back door.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  How Billy’s Mum Fumigated Her Kitchen, and the Story That the Older Kids Tell the Little Kids on the School Bus Each Day.

  “It was all the burnt porridge made me lackadaisical,” Billy’s father barked at him one day.

  “I wouldn’t repeat that to your mother,” said Old Smoko, but Billy knew he must tell the truth, so he did.

  “I’ve never burnt the porridge in my life!” said his mum.

  “No, it was my wicked stepmother who burnt it. And Dad said ‘Mighty good porridge!’ and ate it. And mine, too.”

  “So that’s what the smell is in my kitchen! Well, I’ve got the cure for that.” And Billy’s mother burned cow muck and sulphur on a shovel to fumigate the kitchen, and they all had to go and sleep in the shed till the stink had gone.

  “Can’t Dad come inside?” asked Billy, when they’d moved back into the house. “Just for a little while?”

  “Not yet, he can’t. Maybe in another few years.” But his mother saw Billy wipe away a tear. “You make sure he’s house-trained,” she said, “and perhaps he can start sleeping on the floor of your room. You can put a sack down for him. But he’s not setting foot in my kitchen; he needn’t go thinking that. Not when I’ve just gone to all that trouble, getting rid of the reek of that woman’s burnt porridge.”

  * * *

  As they go home on the school bus each night, the older kids at Waharoa school tell the little kids a story about how the power pylons across the Waikato were once four-legged witches who stole their real mothers. Perhaps that’s why the little kids won’t go near the pylons. But, as Johnny Bryce always says, some people let their imagination run away with them.

  Billy is still Harrietta Wilson’s boyfriend, and his mother still gives a little laugh and says, “There’s plenty of time for that sort of thing when you’re grown up.” But Harrietta already wonders if she’ll grow one leg longer than the other when she marries Billy and goes out to live on the farm under the Kaimais.

  Old Smoko still carries all the kids to school in the morning and home again in the afternoon, all fifty-odd of them sitting in single file along his back, singing, rolling their eyes, stamping their feet, wiriwiri-ing their fingers, whataro-ing their tongues, and doing the actions to some song or other. Last time I saw them, it was “Pounds, Shillings, and Pence”.

  “Pounds shillings and pence,

  The elephant jumped the fence.

  He fell in the dunny

  Right up to his tummy,

  Pounds, shillings, and pence!”

  Then the Rotorua Express comes chuffing along the line from Morrinsville, sees them singing and doing the actions, and gets such a fright it blows off and forgets to stop at the station.

  “You’d think it would be used to the school bus by now,” grumbles the stationmaster.

  A Concluding Note for the Intelligent Reader Who Is Interested in Natural Phenomena.

  The intelligent reader who is interested in natural phenomena may wonder where the bread came from for all the sandwiches in this story. Old Smoko baked it himself. The intelligent reader may also ask where all the flour came from to make the bread. Old Smoko used to buy it from the general store of Mr J.D. Bryce, in Waharoa. Again, the intelligent reader may wonder where the yeast came from. Old Smoko used to collect it each week from Besants’ Bakery in Waharoa.

  Today, Bryce’s grocery and Besants’ Bakery have gone. There’s no dairy factory, the saddler, the blacksmith, the post office, the sly-grogger, and the bookie have all gone from Waharoa and, instead, there’s a pub which isn’t nearly as much fun. But out on the farms under the Kaimais, the other side of the Waihou River, people still grow one leg longer than the other on the downhill side. They say it’s all because of the steep paddocks. But Johnny Bryce told Maggie Rawiri he reckons it’s because they let their imaginations run away with them.

  Yours truly,

  Jack Lasenby.

  Also by Jack Lasenby

  Charlie the Cheeky Kea 1976

  Rewi the Red Deer 1976

  The Lake 1987

  The Mangrove Summer 1989

  Uncle Trev 1991

  Uncle Trev and the Great South Island Plan 1991

  Uncle Trev and the Treaty of Waitangi 1992

  The Conjuror 1992

  Harry Wakatipu 1993

  Dead Man’s Head 1994

  The Waterfall 1995

  The Battle of Pook Island 1996

  Because We Were the Travellers 1997

  Uncle Trev’s Teeth 1997

  Taur 1998

  The Shaman and the Droll 1999

  The Lies of Harry Wakatipu 2000

  Kalik 2001

  Aunt Effie 2002

  Harry Wakatipu Comes the Mong 2003

  Aunt Effie’s Ark 2003

  Aunt Effie and the Island that Sank 2004

  What Makes a Teacher? 2004

  Mr Bluenose 2005

  The Tear
s of Harry Wakatipu 2006

  When Mum Went Funny 2006

  Copyright

  This book is copyright. Apart from any 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 written permission of Longacre Press and the author.

  Jack Lasenby asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  © Jack Lasenby

  ISBN 978 1 775531 19 7

  First published by Longacre Press, 2007

  30 Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand.

  A catalogue record for this book is available

  from the National Library of New Zealand.

  Book and cover design by Christine Buess

  Cover illustrations by David Elliot

  Printed by Griffin Press, Australia

  www.longacre.co.nz