Flight of the Fantail

by Steph Matuku

  She went off to inspect the wreckage. Theo let out a faint sigh, partly with relief that she wasn’t standing over him, partly because he felt slightly queasy from bolting a bar of chocolate in nanoseconds. From across the slope, she shot him a suspicious look, and he quickly flicked his eyes down to the Nokia and nodded thoughtfully.

  Theo knew he was in trouble. He just didn’t know how deep.

  17

  The first fat drops of rain fell just as Jahmin nearly fell off the edge of a cliff. He teetered dangerously, windmilling his arms for balance, and managed to catch hold of a ponga tree trunk leaning out into space. Ferns and bushes dotted the slick grey sides of the gorge, and far below the water churned and boiled.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Jahmin gasped as he steadied himself.

  Liam peered over Jahmin’s shoulder. ‘I thought we were headed straight. The river must have bent round. I don’t remember that.’

  ‘I dunno. All I remember is trying not to drown.’

  ‘It’s heaps skinnier. It must be an offshoot. We’ll have to cross it.’

  ‘How are we going to get down there?’

  ‘Helicopter.’

  ‘Nice. Here’s one I prepared earlier.’

  The rain was heavier now, spraying off the leaves and leaving dark round patches on their barely dry hoodies.

  ‘Let’s wait till the rain stops,’ Liam said.

  ‘But we’re going to get wet down there, anyway.’

  ‘Maybe not. See?’

  Liam pointed down to a line of dark round shapes protruding from the water. ‘Stepping stones.’

  Jahmin raised a doubtful eyebrow. The stones looked quite wide apart, even from a distance. ‘Maybe if you’re a Russian gymnast.’

  ‘Let’s get undercover, anyway. That hole in the bank. It’ll do.’

  Liam led the way back. They broke into a run as the rain came down harder, drumming against the leaves. They shouted to each other, playfully, as though it was some kind of game.

  For a moment, Jahmin lost himself in their breathless haste. He was someplace else, someplace happier. It felt good.

  Shelter wasn’t far. Liam swept aside the curtain of vines and they tumbled into the space behind it.

  It only took a moment to realise that the hole wasn’t a hole at all.

  ‘Wow,’ Liam said, staring at the old wooden beams shoring up the entrance, the rusty rails half-buried in dirt. ‘It’s an old mine.’

  His voice echoed in the small space. They could see a fall of rocks a few metres in, cutting off the rest of the tunnel.

  ‘Might be part of Seddon Corp, maybe?’ Jahmin said. ‘Dad said they’ve got land around here.’

  ‘I thought this was the national park? Government owned?’

  ‘Maybe we crossed over or something.’

  Jahmin started and yelped, banging his head painfully against a beam. He brushed frantically at his halo of ginger hair, now covered in a thick skein of spiderweb.

  ‘When are you going to cut that frizz ball?’

  ‘Never,’ Jahmin hissed, wiping sticky bits of web off his fingers with a handful of wet vines.

  ‘Glad we don’t have to build a shelter,’ Liam remarked, settling down on the bare earth. The rain was sheeting down. It was like being behind a waterfall.

  ‘Me too. Wouldn’t know where to start.’

  ‘Beth and me used to play huts all the time when we were little.’

  ‘Life skills, huts.’

  ‘What’d you used to play?’

  ‘Computer games.’

  Liam laughed. ‘Not much help out here.’

  ‘Not unless the big boss shows up,’ Jahmin snapped his fingers, ‘and then that mother is going down.’

  He felt a tickle on the back of his neck and automatically raised a hand to scratch it, but he froze as the tickle moved. ‘Liam! There’s something ...’

  Liam leaned over. ‘Don’t move. I got it.’

  He reached out and gently picked something off Jahmin’s neck. Jahmin shuddered involuntarily.

  ‘What the hell is it?’

  Liam opened his hand to reveal a large, brown wētā covering his palm, long feelers circling, jagged legs twice the length of its body.

  Jahmin let out a high-pitched scream and threw himself into the rain, slapping at his shoulders and body, hopping from leg to leg. Liam almost choked with laughing. He placed the wētā down carefully and it crawled away into a mass of dead leaves, not bothered at all by the uninvited visitors.

  ‘It won’t hurt you.’

  ‘It scared the shit out of me!’

  ‘You’re getting wet.’

  ‘Like I care. I’m not going back in there. There might be more!’

  ‘Prob’ly. But they won’t hurt you. Okay, sometimes they bite but they’re not poisonous.’

  ‘Bite? They bite?’

  ‘You can always bite it back. Harden up.’

  Reluctantly, Jahmin returned to the shelter. He took off his sweatshirt, hung it across a broken beam to dry, and thoroughly checked the ground before settling next to Liam.

  The two rested quietly for a time and then Jahmin said, ‘I wonder what we’ll find.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘The bus. Who else made it, you know? Maybe no one did. Maybe it’s just us.’

  ‘Nah, no way. Can’t be.’

  ‘What if they’ve all been rescued already? Gone home?’

  ‘Doubt it. We’ve only been gone, like, twenty-four hours. There’ll be heaps of searchers. Divers and rescue teams. They’ll want to find everyone, dead or alive.’

  ‘I still can’t figure out what happened. I thought Awhina was going to smash the driver.’

  ‘She’s so perfect, he prob’ly deserved it.’

  ‘Perfect, you reckon?’

  ‘Nah, not really. She’s not my type. Eva’s more me.’

  Jahmin was surprised. ‘Evs? You know she’s a lesbo, right?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m kinda hoping it’s a phase.’

  Jahmin grinned, remembering the uproar two years earlier when Eva had broken into the principal’s office during third period and announced she was gay over the school intercom. ‘I just wanted to get it over and done with,’ she’d protested, but the principal had given her detention for the rest of the year regardless. Breaking and entering, vandalising school property (she’d smashed a window to get in), interrupting students’ work time, inciting insubordination, the list went on. Eva had tried to play the homophobic card, but the principal had trumped her by outing himself as well. Consequently, Eva and Jahmin often sat next to each other in detention, and he’d got to know her quite well. She’d helped him pass History.

  ‘It’s not a phase, Liam, it’s who she is.’

  ‘Maybe she just hasn’t met the right guy.’

  ‘Yeah, she has ... and his name is Mandy. But good luck with that, bro. We all need dreams.’

  Liam rubbed at his temples, wincing. To Jahmin’s questioning look he replied, ‘It’s just a headache. It’s nothing. Nothing heart related, anyway. Probably lack of– what was that?’

  Jahmin groaned. ‘Not again!’

  Liam shushed him and the two listened, Jahmin with an attitude of pained resignation, but it was hard to hear anything over the sound of the rain and the river.

  ‘There! What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing, bro! Jeez!’

  But Liam was already scrambling out of their shelter, scanning the bush intently.

  Jahmin lingered at the cave entrance, loath to go back out into the rain.

  ‘There! Look!’ Liam said. ‘That flash of blue. See it?’

  Jahmin squinted. ‘I can’t see shit.’

  Liam groaned. ‘Nah, he’s gone.’

  ‘Who?’

  Liam turned back to Jahmin, his face strained. The rain streamed down his face like tears. ‘Who d’you think? Eugene.’

  18

  Devin, Eva and Rocky were congratulating themselves on a job well done. Their slanted
roof of sticks, flax and fern leaves kept the rain off surprisingly well, although Devin doubted it would be any good if the wind got up. The rock wall stood at an angle to the cliff face so they had a view of the river, and a fire smouldered within a little triangle of stones, protected on top with a piece of rusted old roofing iron that Rocky had found half buried under the driftwood.

  ‘Maybe I should be an architect,’ remarked Rocky, looking approvingly at his fire as they huddled in the shelter, away from the heavy rain. He wasn’t much use at carrying rocks and dragging branches, so the girls had given him the job of making the fireplace.

  ‘Stuff that.’ Eva was scathing. ‘Years of study, student loans, grotty flats and no job at the end of it? No, thanks.’

  ‘I have to do uni,’ Rocky said. ‘Mum and Dad didn’t get a chance to go, so it’s all up to me. They want letters after my name more than I do. Mum’s been saving for yonks, and I’m applying for scholarships.’

  ‘You’ll get them.’ Eva rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve always had amaaaazing grades.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Dad’s always like, “You’re Māori, so you have to be twice as good as everyone else, but don’t worry, it’s not that hard.” I guess I just got in the habit. It’s no big deal. If you put the work in, it comes easy.’

  ‘I thought you were going to be an All Black?’ Eva asked, her tone mocking. ‘You won’t need uni when you’re a mega rugby star.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Ever seen an All Black in a wheelchair?’

  ‘There’s the Wheel-Blacks. You have to be in a wheelchair or they won’t let you play.’

  Rocky glared at her. ‘Great. Good to know I’ve got options.’

  ‘Just saying.’ Eva shrugged. ‘Me and Mandy were going to do our OE. We had it all worked out. Get after-school jobs, save enough to get to London. We were gonna work in pubs, travel round Europe for a year, then head to Asia. You can live real cheap in Asia.’

  ‘Depends where you go,’ said Rocky. ‘Singapore, Japan – forget it.’

  ‘Not there. India, maybe. Or Thailand. Backpacking and that.’ She poked at the ground with a stick. ‘That was the plan. Mandy’s mum had sussed us out jobs at her work and everything.’ Her eyes clouded. She murmured, ‘Who’s going to tell her? Maybe she doesn’t even know yet. Maybe she’s thinking Mandy’s having the time of her life, or … Mothers are supposed to know, aren’t they? Like, she’s got an acidy feeling in her stomach, or maybe she went to bed last night and dreamed of Mandy falling. They were so close. Mandy told her everything – well, nearly everything. So who’s going to tell her about Mandy?’

  Tears fell. Devin and Rocky exchanged alarmed glances. Rocky gestured to Devin to give Eva a hug. Devin hastily shook her head. She wasn’t really a huggy person.

  Rocky cleared his throat and put on his jolly old Uncle Timoti voice. ‘So, what about you, Devin? What are you going to be when you grow up?’

  Eva gave a shaky laugh, wiped her eyes, and managed to regain control of herself.

  Devin, relieved that Eva wasn’t going to collapse, turned her attention to the question. What was she going to be? The answer was easy. She was going to be free. Alive. When school was finally over, she could be the person she’d always wanted to be. She couldn’t tell them that, though. Even the practical answer to the question was going to be embarrassing. She had the impression Eva and Rocky were beginning to respect her, which of course wasn’t the same as actually liking her, but it was better than being ridiculed or ignored, and she didn’t want to go back to that.

  She lifted her chin. ‘I’m going to be a plumber.’

  Eva and Rocky broke into twin shouts of laughter.

  ‘A plumber?’

  ‘Serious?’

  Devin nodded. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot. I’m not book smart, like you guys. And I do work hard. It just doesn’t go in.’

  Rocky felt himself flushing. He and Eva knew about Devin’s problems with schoolwork. Dummy Devin, Doongy Devin, Duh-vin. They’d all heard the casual insults many times before.

  ‘We can’t afford uni, either,’ continued Devin. ‘So me and Dad reckon I should learn a trade, do an apprenticeship. I’ll get paid to learn. I’m good with practical stuff. And everyone needs plumbers. They charge heaps, ’specially on the weekends.’

  ‘But it’s … toilets,’ Eva said, grimacing with distaste. ‘Other people’s logs and tampons clogging up drains.’

  ‘Well, yeah, that’s why they charge heaps. But I bet it’s mostly dripping taps and leaky washing machines and things.’

  Rocky smiled. ‘When I’m a famous architect, I’ll hire you to come and install washing machines and things in my mega-awesome apartment buildings in Japan and Singapore. Mates rates though, right?’

  Devin’s smile lit up her face. Rocky was struck by her even white teeth.

  Eva noticed the dimples that came and went, her vivid green eyes.

  They stared at her, vaguely aware, without thinking about it, that they were seeing something new, spring growth after a long hard winter.

  ‘Mates rates,’ Devin nodded. ‘All right.’

  There was a comfortable silence.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Eva complained.

  The three of them looked out through the driving rain. The surface of the river was grey and choppy.

  ‘You can’t see fish in this weather,’ Devin said. ‘They’ll all be hiding under the rocks.’

  ‘I can see something, though,’ Rocky said. His grim tone caught the girls’ attention. He motioned with his head. ‘Check out your spear.’

  Water was lapping at the pole that Devin had anchored in the bare gravel barely an hour before.

  The river was rising.

  19

  As the first drops of rain cratered the dirt, Theo painfully and slowly collected up all the electronic equipment, and only then did Idelle let him shelter in the tent. It was a six-person affair, spacious and watertight, meant for teachers and aides.

  Theo huddled in a corner as far away from Idelle as he could get. Because she kept looking over to see how he was doing, he alternated between shaking his head seriously and nodding wisely. Nothing worked, not a thing, and he couldn’t figure out why. Nor did he know how long he was going to be able to keep up the pretence.

  Idelle was getting impatient. Her head ached. She contemplated her collection of sparkling earrings and moved the pinks next to the blues.

  ‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘No … well … I’ve read about a similar situation and I’m … just trying to … there!’ He quickly wound a long red wire around a prong in the back of the transistor radio.

  ‘What’s that do?’

  ‘It … er … enables the … er … current to divert along here,’ Theo said, improvising, pointing at a wad of silver mesh.

  ‘You said you didn’t know anything about computers.’ With every moment that passed with no result, Idelle was getting more suspicious, and her head was really beginning to throb now.

  ‘This isn’t computers. This is electronics.’

  ‘What’s the diff?’

  Theo snorted. ‘Big difference, Idelle. Big, BIG difference.’

  Idelle narrowed her eyes. ‘Like what?’

  Theo clicked his tongue, faking exasperation to cover his increasing discomfort. ‘Look Idelle, I’m sorry, but I can’t keep working if you’re going to interrupt me all the time, okay?’

  Idelle pursed her lips. ‘Fine, whatever, but ...’ She came over and hissed in his ear. ‘If you can’t fix it, you’d better tell me now. If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’m going to be very, very cross. You might find I become ...’ she waggled a long, scarlet nail at Theo’s head bandage before giving it a quick clip, ‘a bit of a pain.’

  Fire flared through Theo’s skull. His arm went numb and stars flashed behind his eyes. He clenched his teeth to prevent a moan escaping. He couldn’t let her see how much she’d hurt him, how scared he was. But what was he going to do? What w
as he going to do?

  Idelle stared at him for a few seconds, satisfied, and then backed out of the tent. Theo needed some space to think about where his priorities lay.

  She moved a little way away and tipped her head back, rain stabbing at her face and upturned hands. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that Theo would get them out of this. He was a geek, and geeks had special powers like that. She did enjoy tormenting him, though. The little burst of independence, of belligerence, had been squashed out of him. It felt good. And when they got back to school, he would help her in class, and she’d do a damn sight better than she had with Chantelle helping her. Chanti was pretty and rich, but she didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.

  Especially not now, Idelle reminded herself and giggled.

  Her feet slid sideways on the slick clay. She regained her balance and looked down at her favourite blue and white sneakers, clogged with mud. She tugged one foot free and sank back in further with her other foot.

  ‘Ger-ross!’ she said crossly, and as if in answer, there was a low rumble, like thunder, but not from overhead. The ground was shaking.

  She lost her balance completely, slipped sideways and landed full length in the sludge with a muffled cry. Lifting her face free of the mud, she was just in time to see, less than two metres away, half the hillside slip away. Rocks, flax, bushes, dirt slid slowly into the river, sending up a wave of water like the surf at Muriwai Beach on a really good day.

  The ache in her head increased tenfold; a throbbing, pulsing pain that took over her whole body. She scrambled back to the tent, although, if she’d stopped to think about it, a bit of flimsy nylon wasn’t going to be much protection against an avalanche. Theo was crouched at the far end, the old Nokia held shakily in front of him like a weapon.

  Idelle was almost incoherent with fright, little blurry patches dancing across her vision, making Theo look as though he were suspended in clouds.

  ‘It fell down! The hill!’

  Her face was caked in muck, her eyes wide. She looked like a rabid grizzly bear.

  Theo couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing.