The Haystack

by Jack Lasenby

  “Just enough stitches to hold it, that’s all. Now, we’ll put it in the safe, and you can let Milly out.”

  “The sun’s gone behind a cloud.”

  “I told you I had a feeling in my funny bone.” Dad rubbed the side of his nose and tried to look wise. “By the time we’ve brought in the washing, and got the vegies ready, the oven will be hot enough to pop the chook in.”

  He paused, and I waited because I knew what he was going to say, what he said every Sunday about this time.

  “We’ve done next to nothing, and our Sunday morning’s half over. I don’t know where the time goes.”

  I grinned and let Milly out of my room. “You’ve got teeth,” I told her, “so you don’t need a gizzard.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  What I Wrote On the Roof of My Mouth, Why Freddy Jones Looked Like a Wild Animal in a Cage, and Why I Made Sure I Didn’t Have a Tail.

  MILLY JUMPED INTO THE BASKET.

  “Our clean sheets!” I told her.

  “Give me a hand to fold them.”

  “Dad, why don’t we iron the sheets?”

  “I haven’t got the time. Any damp’ll dry out in the hot water cupboard. There’s a lot of stuff doesn’t need ironing, not if it’s dried and aired. Singlets, underpants, socks, towels, face cloths.”

  He tried to snap the end of the sheet out of my hands, but I was ready for him.

  “Ha, ha!” I hung on tight to the other sheets, and Dad tried it with each one.

  “When I was a boy, everything got ironed. Socks, tea towels, even the newspaper.”

  “The newspaper?” “The ink came off on your hands, so people ironed the paper, to dry it. My mother said her father liked his paper ironed because it made it crisp and crackly.”

  “Ironing the paper? But ours is crackly already.”

  “The paper train takes hours from Auckland, so the ink’s dried. When we lived there, our paper was delivered first thing in the morning, before we were up.”

  “What’s it like, living in Auckland?”

  “Not as much to do as there is in Waharoa. Now all that’s put away, we’ll leave the shirts and hankies to be ironed, and the chook can go in the oven. In they go: spuds, pumpkin, kumaras, parsnips, onions.”

  I gulped, and wrote “Parsnip!” on the roof of my mouth with the tip of my tongue.

  “Now, the fat.” Dad dug the knife in the dripping tin, daubed wodges of fat on the chook’s back, and smeared more on the vegies tucked around it in the roasting dish. “Salt,” he said.

  I stuck my finger into the bottom of the tin, licked the dark dripping, and shuddered. “Why do we put in fat?”

  “To stop the chook drying out, and it helps brown the spuds and make the gravy. That cockerel’s in good nick, so we don’t need much. Well, you saw the fat where you sewed him up.”

  I took the sugarbag oven cloth I’d sewn with big red woollen stitches at school, and lifted the handle on the oven door. Dad slid in the roasting dish. “Clunk!” said the door. “Clonk!” said the latch.

  “What’s the time?”

  “Let me look! It says nineteen—no, eighteen—eighteen minutes to eleven.”

  “Past cup-of-tea-time. I’ll have one and, if it isn’t raining by then, I might do a bit of digging, and our dinner will be ready.”

  I ran down the street before Sunday school came out. In front of Freddy Jones’s, I smoothed the dirt on the footpath and dented a row of giant tiger footprints with my heel, like Milly’s only much bigger, and with deep cuts for the claws. It took ages, because they had to look real. Freddy would see them and be too scared to go in his gate.

  The sky darkened, as I ran home. Red and yellow, two bright leaves off the cherry tree blew across the front lawn. I thought of the swaggers and wondered what they did when it was going to rain. Around the side of the house I scratched away the dirt with a stick till the yellow scaly foot stuck out.

  “You wait,” I told it.

  I collected the two cherry leaves, took them inside, and showed Milly. “You’ll go outside and chase them in the wind,” I told her. “You’ll be more interested then.” She sniffed my hands.

  “Give your hands a wash,” Dad called. “Do you want a wing?”

  “Please.” Roast chook with stuffing and brown gravy was one of my favourites. I found the wishbone in the white meat on my plate, and pulled it with Dad.

  “What did you wish?”

  “You’re not supposed to ask.”

  “You can tell me.”

  “That you’d read us some more about Mowgli tonight.”

  “I was going to do that anyway, so you can have another wish. Best keep it secret this time.”

  I thought and wished silently. “Can I whisper it to Milly?”

  “Make her promise she won’t tell it to anyone first.”

  After dinner, Dad sat in his comfortable chair with Saturday’s paper, and Milly slept. I went along the street, and Freddy Jones was looking out through the bars on his gate.

  “You look like a wild animal in a cage. You should try roaring.”

  “You made those tracks. My mother says there isn’t any old tiger anyway. She says if she catches you roaring under my window, she’ll give you such a wallop. Anyway, Mrs Dainty wanted to know where you were—at Sunday school.”

  “I had to look after my new kitten.”

  “What do you think you’re staring at?”

  “You looked away, Freddy Jones. You’re just a jungle animal.”

  “I am not a—what you said.”

  “Even Bagheera must look away when I stare at him.”

  “Who’s Bagheera when he’s at home?”

  “And I singed Shere Khan’s whiskers with the Red Flower, and he had to look away from my eyes, too. That’s why he was roaring last night, looking for you. Tigers and black panthers don’t eat girls.”

  “Huh! I’m not scared of any old tiger.”

  “You’re just lucky his head’s too big to get in your window. But you’ve got to come out to go to school tomorrow, Freddy Jones, and Shere Khan will be waiting for you—in the dark under the lawsonianas. Grrroar!”

  I whipped the chook’s yellow foot out of my pocket, pulled the white tendons so the claws opened and closed in his face, and Freddy hissed and went for his life.

  I gave a couple more roars and ran, because I felt a few spits of rain. Mrs Dainty wouldn’t be hanging out her washing tomorrow morning.

  “I think it’s cold enough,” Dad said, and lit the open fire in the front room. Since we’d had dinner midday, he put up the green-topped card table, and we ate tea in front of the fire: cold chook, lettuce, tomatoes, bread, and cheese.

  Milly loved the bits of chook skin I gave her, but didn’t even try the lettuce. “You’ve got to eat your greens,” I told her.

  “Who didn’t eat their parsnip today?”

  “I ate my pumpkin, but Milly didn’t even sniff at her lettuce.”

  “It’s funny,” Dad said. “A dog will have a go at just about anything, but cats are choosy. How would you like a scone with strawberry jam?”

  “And cream off the scalded milk?”

  Dad nodded. “Get stuck into it while you can. We won’t have to bother scalding the milk after today. This rain’s got a cold wind with it.”

  The yellow cream was thick and hard. I liked having tea in front of the open fire, one of Mummy’s embroidered cloths spread on the card table, watching the flames, eating Dad’s scones with our own strawberry jam and dollops of cream.

  “We should have jam and cream for breakfast, too. Are you going to read us some Mowgli?”

  “I’ll clean up; there’s only a few dishes. Jump into your pyjamas, and we’ll see.”

  Dad turned off the light and held the book so he could read by the flames. I sat between his feet, and Milly lay between me and the fire, tummy bulging towards the heat. She yawned and stretched her paws above her head.

  “‘Kaa’s Hunting’,” said Dad’s voice a
bove us.

  “Who’s Kaa?”

  Dad made a terrible noise between a hiss and a huff, and read about the time when Mowgli was learning the Law of the Jungle from Baloo, and how the old bear cuffed him for not paying attention, and Bagheera told Baloo not to hit Mowgli too hard.

  When Dad read about Mowgli’s new monkey friends, the Bandar-log, I laughed and stroked Milly, but Baloo was angry, and warned Mowgli against the monkeys. Then the Bandar-log stole Mowgli, and carried him away through the trees.

  I held my breath in case they dropped him: the Monkey-People are very careless. As they swung him through the tree tops, Mowgli called up the sky to Chil, the Kite, “We be of one blood, thou and I!” and asked him to tell Baloo and Bagheera where he was.

  “We be of one blood, thou and I,” I told Milly. And when Baloo cried, “Put dead bats on my head! Give me black bones to eat!…I am the most miserable of bears!” I cuddled her, in case she cried.

  Then Baloo and Bagheera went to get help from Kaa, who was a huge Rock Snake thirty feet long. Dad made that terrible noise again, so I pushed my back against his legs. And then I heard why the monkeys’ tails turned cold at the sound of Kaa’s name.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Feeling to see if I’ve got a tail.”

  Dad hissed and read on.

  “You’re safe though,” I whispered to Milly as we sat tucked between Dad’s legs and the fire while the flames lifted and fell in the chimney, and the walls of our front room lurched in and out of the shadows like friendly elephants.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Why My Eyes Burned Like Red-Hot Coals, How Shere Kahn Clawed My Leg Under the Lawsonianas, and Why I Chose Sitting in Front of the Stove.

  WHEN BAGHEERA TOLD KAA, the thirty-foot Rock Snake, that the Bandar-log monkeys called him “Footless, yellow earth-worm”, Kaa made his terrible huff and hiss, and I hid Milly’s tail.

  “In case Kaa thinks she’s a monkey,” I told Dad.

  Then Chil, the Kite, swooped down and told Bagheera, Baloo, and Kaa that the Bandar-log had carried Mowgli to the old deserted city, buried in the jungle, the Cold Lairs…Dad stopped reading again.

  “I’m not asleep!”

  “Your head’s going nod, nod; Milly’s fast asleep; and that’s a good place to stop.”

  “Can we have some more once we’re in bed?”

  “Your eyes are falling out of your head.”

  I could feel being sleepy, but heard my voice asking, “Can we have some more tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow night,” Dad piggybacked us both to bed, “we’ll read the rest of ‘Kaa’s Hunting’.”

  “Can I bring Maisie James home to see Milly?” I asked in the morning.

  “After school?”

  “Lunch-time. She can’t come after school because she rides home on the horse with her brothers. They have to go down the shed and help with the milking.”

  “Tell her she can come if she likes chicken sandwiches.”

  The factory whistle was still going for twelve o’clock as Maisie and I ran down the street, and we were playing with Milly before Dad got home.

  “You might have put some coal on the fire,” he grumbled, poking in bits of wood so the kettle boiled quickly. He washed a lettuce, and we made the sandwiches.

  “I love the stuffing,” said Maisie. “I always help Mum to make it.”

  “I made this. Dad wanted to put in baking powder, to make it lighter, but I like it a bit on the stodgy side.”

  “Me, too.”

  We played with Milly again, teasing her with the newspaper on the string, then ran back past the hedge to school.

  “Keep out from the lawsonianas,” I said. “Freddy Jones thinks that’s where Shere Khan waits to eat him.”

  “Who’s Shere Khan?”

  “The tiger in the book Dad’s reading us—about Mowgli.”

  “Our Dad’s too tired to read to us, and Mum doesn’t have time.”

  “I make Dad read to us every night, or I won’t go to bed.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “I boss my father. He was very brave, grumbling because I hadn’t got the stove going, but only because you were there.”

  “Doesn’t he give you a hiding?”

  “Never.”

  “Gosh, ours gives us a good clip over the lugs, and if he doesn’t then Mum does.”

  “My mother never hit me.”

  “Can you remember your mother?”

  “Not much.”

  “Then how…?”

  “Dad tells me things.”

  At home-time, Mrs Dainty often went past the school on her way to the shops. I didn’t want to have to tell her why I wasn’t at Sunday school, so I went out to the footy paddock, and watched Maisie climb on top of the fence and get on the horse behind her brothers.

  “Watch out for Shere Khan,” she called.

  I waved and cut across under the goal posts. I’d crawl through the corner of the hedge, and run home. Under the dark lawsonianas, my eyes burned like red-hot coals, my tail swished with rage, and somebody ran down the path, the other side of the hedge.

  “Grrroar!” I shook my great, square, striped head, thumped the ground, and swept the branches up and down the fence wires. “Grrroar!”

  “Wah!”

  I roared and stamped a couple more times to hurry up Freddy Jones, then heard something breathing in the dark behind me, and dived through the fence.

  “What on earth are you up to now?”

  “Wah!” I yelped louder than Freddy. How was I to know she was hiding, waiting to catch me? I yanked my other leg through the fence, and felt something sharp. “Ow!”

  “Why weren’t you at Sunday school yesterday?”

  “I had to stay home and keep Milly company. We’re keeping her inside so she doesn’t run away.”

  “You’ve scratched your leg. It’s not surprising. Running wild. It’s no way to bring up a girl. No respect for—”

  But I was going for my life. Dad said be polite, so I’d told Mrs Dainty why I hadn’t been at Sunday school. I could hear her yelling, but kept running.

  “Grrroar!” Freddy Jones called out, very brave behind his gate, but I didn’t stop to roar back, just showed him my powerful claws and teeth. Milly might be needing me. And I had to get the basket and do the shopping.

  From our gate I looked back, but Mrs Dainty had gone. She’d be trotting down the road, head nodding like an old chook.

  “Cluck! Cluck!” I said aloud. “Plook! Plook! Old chook!”

  As Milly sniffed at the red trickle down my leg, I gabbled, “Shere Khan was waiting under the lawsonianas. He scratched my leg with one claw, but I got away. I wish he’d eat Mrs Dainty.”

  What was left of the chook was for our tea, but I picked a bit off the bones for Milly, while I had a glass of milk and one of the oatmeal biscuits Dad had taught himself to make. It was better than his last lot, quite chewy. I got a Golden Delicious, left Milly inside, and ran, hoping Mrs Dainty had gone home the other way.

  “You’d better wash that scratch,” Mr Bryce said, giving me the paper. “Put on plenty of iodine.”

  “It was Shere Khan.”

  “I know Shere Khan. Is that what you called your kitten?”

  I couldn’t explain because somebody was wanting benzine. I trotted home. Freddy Jones had rubbed out the paw marks. I was making new ones when I heard Mrs Jones coming and went for it.

  Dad came in, saw my leg, washed and put iodine on so it stung, tore a strip off an old sheet and bandaged it. As he tied the knot, he said, “It’s quite a deep scratch, but it looks as if it washed itself out.

  “The blood, it washes out the dirt. Better still, wash it with soap, warm water, and disinfectant. What’s a little sting? Better than blood poisoning. How did you do it?”

  “I was under the lawsonianas, roaring at Freddy Jones, and it’s dark under there, and I thought I heard Shere Khan behind me, so I dived through the fence, and Mrs Dainty
was waiting, and she started telling me off, and I yanked my leg through and scratched it on the barbed wire. The iodine stings, Dad.”

  “That’ll teach you, for scaring Freddy.”

  “She said why wasn’t I at Sunday school, and I told her Milly was waiting and ran for my life.”

  “Mrs Dainty’s going to be after me again,” Dad grinned. “‘You have no right. Bringing up a daughter on your own.’”

  “Why don’t you tell her to mind her own business, Dad?”

  “She’s a lonely poor old thing. I think perhaps she’d like to mother you.”

  “She’s not my mother.”

  “That’s not what I mean. It can’t be easy for her, getting long in the tooth, and all on her own.”

  “Mr Bluenose lives on his own, and he doesn’t tell me off and want to mother me.”

  “He’s got too much to do, with the orchard, the garden, the pigs, and Horse, and keeping an eye on you.”

  “Does he keep an eye on me?”

  “All last summer, when school was closed because of the epidemic, and I had to go to work, he kept an eye on you. So did Mr Bryce, and a whole lot of others around Waharoa.”

  “I didn’t see them.”

  “They don’t go around staring at you.” Dad walked around the kitchen, turning his head and staring till I giggled. “But, if anything went wrong, you know you can go to them for a hand. And they’d let me know at once.”

  I thought about that. “What about Mrs Dainty? Would she give me a hand and let you know?”

  “Mrs Dainty’s too worried about herself to be of much help.”

  “Is she as old as Mr Bluenose?”

  “It’s as if she is. Now, what about this story? Jump into bed, or sit in front of the stove?”

  “Sit in front of the stove, so I can put my feet in the oven.”

  “Then pop on your pyjamas, and you and Milly can sit in the wicker chair.” He looked for the place.

  “I know where we were. Bagheera was talking, and he said ‘…and now we must go to the Cold Lairs’, and there was that bit about the tanks holding a little water.”

  Chapter Eighteen