The Haystack

by Jack Lasenby

  “Bagheera!” His chin wasn’t as pointed, but his eyes were still bright green.

  “You found him,” said Mr Bluenose’s voice.

  I gulped.

  “He likes having somebody to stroke him. Perhaps I do not make enough—enough fuss of him. But he is what I want.”

  “A reliable cat?”

  Mr Bluenose nodded. “Last week, he killed his first rat and dragged it inside to show me. Twice as long as himself.”

  “Milly hasn’t caught anything yet.”

  “She will.”

  “I hope she doesn’t bring any rats inside.”

  I called Bagheera a reliable cat, and he purred, like Mr Bluenose’s crosscut sawing through a log. “Milly purrs, Mr Bluenose, but she sounds like a little steam engine. She watches the chooks from on top of the shed, and her tail lashes. And Dad read me The Jungle Books about Mowgli and Bagheera and Baloo.”

  “And Kaa?” Mr Bluenose hissed so loud he had to wipe his chin.

  “I thought Kaa was dragging me into the dark, under the macrocarpas.”

  “‘We be of one blood, thee and I’,” said Mr Bluenose. “Say that, and you will be safe from Kaa.”

  “Wasn’t it scary when the bees stung the Red Dogs to death? But when Kaa hypnotised the Bandar-log, and Baloo and Bagheera nearly walked down his throat with them…I still dream about that.”

  Mr Bluenose laughed. “I also am still afraid of Kaa.”

  “Do you remember it?”

  “I read it aloud to Bagheera, this winter, as your father was reading it to you.”

  “Did Bagheera know his name when he heard it?”

  “He growled and lashed his tail. Put these in your basket.”

  Bagheera had disappeared back into the tunnel, but I called out hooray, patted Horse, scratched the sows’ backs, and ran, eating one of the Granny Smiths and swinging the basket with the other hand.

  Juice running down my chin and dripping down my front, I took the short-cut through the fern by the blacksmith’s to dodge Mrs Dainty.

  Up the post office steps that were cold today: “Hello, Mr Barker,”—into the baker’s: “Hello, Mrs Besant,”—along to the butcher’s: “Thanks, Mr Cleaver,”—and on to the store.

  “Half a pound of Bushells, a reel of white cotton, and the paper, please. Dad’s going to beat me home,” I said to the Kelly girl.

  “Mr Bluenose’s kitten, Bagheera, has grown into a black panther,” I told Mr Bryce. “He’s got a friend, a brown bear called Baloo, and they hunt together in the dark tunnel under the macrocarpas. I don’t believe in ghosts, so I’m not scared to go in there.”

  Mr Bryce handed me our paper. “You’re very brave.”

  “The black panther brought a rat home to show Mr Bluenose, but he had to go outside to see it, because it was too big for Bagheera to drag through the door.”

  “How did he kill it?”

  “You know the pumpkins Mr Bluenose keeps under the macrocarpas? Bagheera bowled them down the tunnel and squashed the rat flat, like the buffaloes and Shere Khan. And then Bagheera’s friend, Baloo, sat on the rat and squashed it flatter still. Baloo’s pretty fat, you know.”

  “Remarkable!” said Mr Bryce, looking for his glasses.

  “They’re on top of your head.”

  “Thanks. Did you see all this yourself?”

  “Mr Bluenose told me a bit, Bagheera told me another bit, and I made up the rest.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m not really very brave, Mr Bryce. There’s a giant snake called Kaa who lives in the tunnel, and he’s supposed to be my friend, too, but I’m scared he’ll forget and eat me.”

  “Give him the Snake’s Call: ‘We be of one blood, thee and I’, and you’ll be okay. Where are those glasses?”

  “Her father’ll be wondering where she’s got to,” said the Kelly girl.

  “I liked your story about squashing the rat, even if you did pinch the idea out of The Jungle Book.” Mr Bryce gave me a couple of boiled lollies out of the big jar. “I liked Baloo sitting on it and squashing it even flatter.”

  I stared. How did Mr Bryce know about Shere Khan’s death and the Snake’s Call? I was so busy wondering about that, I forgot to thank him. I had to get in our gate before it was dark and didn’t want to run into Mrs Dainty, so I only stopped to cough and roar a couple of times outside Freddy Jones’s and make some fresh paw marks, good and big.

  Dad had lit the stove. “I was just beginning to think you’d forgotten your way home. Thanks.” He unwrapped the meat. “We’ll prick these sausages, give them a few minutes’ simmer, and pop them in the oven.”

  “Mr Cleaver didn’t tell me we were having sausages.”

  “Best snarlers in the Waikato. Tea’s going to be late. There’s bread and jam on the bench. Help yourself. Just to keep the wolf from the door.”

  While Dad was pricking the sausages and putting them in the saucepan, I told him, “Mr Bluenose read The Jungle Books to Bagheera. He gave us some Granny Smiths, and I ate a big one while I was running over to the shops. I’ll feed the chooks. Where’s Milly?”

  “I fed them. She’s around somewhere.”

  “Milly! Time to—” Before I could finish, she was rubbing my legs. I picked her up, and told her about Bagheera, about his chin and eyes, and how he killed a huge rat and unrolled its skin on the Council Rock, but she jumped down and rubbed herself against Dad.

  “You’d think she’d want to hear about her brother.”

  “She’s embarrassed because she hasn’t caught a rat herself. And she might just be more interested in these.” Dad was filling the roasting dish with swollen sausages out of the saucepan.

  “I love them done in the oven,” I said. “Specially when you simmer them first.”

  “It’s the simmering makes the sawdust inside them swell up.”

  “Mr Cleaver said he’ll biff you one, if you keep saying his snarlers are full of sawdust.”

  “You didn’t tell him I said that?”

  “Mrs Dainty was there, and she sniffed and said she wouldn’t have sausages, thank you, not if they were filled with sawdust.”

  “You’ll get me hanged. What’s happening down at the orchard?”

  “The apple trees look as if they’ve had their fingers cut off. Horse was wearing his cover ‘cause he’s feeling the frosts, and most of the pigs have gone. Bagheera scared me in the dark under the macrocarpas. I thought he was Kaa.

  “Dad, Mr Bryce knew about the Snake’s Call, and he said I’d be safe if I remembered to say it before going into the dark tunnel.”

  “We be of one blood, thee and Milly and me,” Dad said, and Milly miaowed and rubbed herself harder against his legs.

  “Fancy Mr Bluenose and Mr Bryce knowing about Mowgli.” I was spreading the tablecloth.

  “They’d have read The Jungle Books when they were boys.” Dad handed me the knives and forks. “Mr Bluenose must have had a translation.”

  “Did you read them?”

  “Yes, and your mother, of course. And now you and Milly.”

  “And Bagheera. Just think, all around the world, people have been reading The Jungle Books. Except for Freddy Jones. I bet he’d be too scared.”

  Dad cooks the best sausages, gravy, and mashed potatoes in the world. He boils the potatoes in the same water, and mashes them with salt, a bit of butter, and milk. Mmm—the smell when Dad opens the oven and takes out the roasting dish full of round, glistening, shiny-brown sausages with crunchy skins. The pop as the skin splits when you stick in your fork, the juice, the first mouthful, the taste and feel in my mouth. Mmm! The only trouble is the evil cabbage.

  “If Mrs Dainty cooked roast sausages with gravy and mashed potatoes—” I wiped my mouth all around with my tongue “—then Mr Dainty wouldn’t have run away.”

  “Don’t you go saying that outside these four walls.”

  “I wonder if he had to eat evil cabbage all the time?”

  Dad said nothing.

 
; I kept half a sausage for the end, held my nose and finished the last mouthful of cabbage. My tongue wrinkled and curled up round the edges as I spread mashed potato and gravy all over it to take the taste away, then ate a bit of sausage, then another, till there was only the last little bit looking at me.

  “Sorry,” I told it and gobbled it down.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sharp Shoulder Blades Sticking Out Like Knives, Dancing Like Redskins on the Warpath, and Digging a New Dunny.

  DAD REACHED OVER and gave me half of his last sausage.

  “Are you sure?”

  “There’s a couple left over.” Dad licked his lips. “I can always eat them after you’ve gone to bed.”

  “I thought they were for lunch tomorrow…”

  The tiger smiled and licked his lips again.

  “Promise you won’t get up in the middle of the night and eat them? Why are you putting your hands behind your back? Dad, you crossed your fingers. You’ve got to hold both hands out where I can see. Now promise.”

  Dad tried to change the subject. “How are your new shoes? Not too tight?”

  I shook my head. “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “That’s all right then. When will my feet stop growing, Dad?”

  “They should have stopped by now, but it looks as if they’re going to keep growing bigger and bigger.” He looked worried. “We’ll have to get bigger and bigger shoes made. At least people won’t be able to push you over.

  “You’re teasing because I made you promise not to eat the sausages.”

  “Your feet will stop in a few years, when the rest of you stops growing—except for your hair.”

  “Our feet stop, but our hair keeps growing,” I told Milly. “Just as well for you.”

  Having tea late means you’ve just put away the dishes, swept up the crumbs, folded the tablecloth, cleaned your teeth, put on your pyjamas, and it’s time you were in bed.

  “Can Milly go down to the dunny with me?”

  “Be careful with the candle down there.”

  “Can I leave the back door open? Come on, Milly.”

  I lit the candle before taking the lid off the dunny seat and called “ ‘We be of one blood, thee and I’” down the dark hole.

  “Milly!” She must have run back into the house.

  Mr Bryce’s calendar hung inside the dunny door, a picture of roses. Cut-up pages of the Herald hung from a nail for dunny paper. The walls had yellowing pictures out of the Weekly News pasted all over them: the 1928 All Blacks; Kingsford Smith and the Southern Cross; some skinny kids at a health camp—sharp shoulder blades sticking out of their backs like knives; and winged scows sailing in the Auckland Regatta.

  I always liked an advertisement of a woman climbing into a canoe. She was holding a Japanese parasol and wearing silk stockings. “Bond’s Sylk-Arto Hose” it said. “Of course you will be purchasing Silk Hosiery as part of your holiday season equipment.”

  I recited the rest in a loud voice: “‘But you want to be sure the Silk Hosiery you select—’” I knew the words by heart, but held the candle close to see them better, and my hair swung forward. I remembered Dad singeing the chook, the smell of burnt pin-feathers, the hairs on the back of his hand frizzling, and jerked my head back.

  The flame jumped from the candle and whooshed up the bits of dunny paper on their nail. Whoosh!—up the old dry pictures out of the Auckland Weekly; Whoosh!—up the spiders’ webs; Whoosh!—the wall was on fire, flames rolling under the corrugated iron roof, and I was pulling up my pyjamas, running: “Dad! The dunny’s on fire!” and he was there, picking me up, patting me, making sure I was all right.

  “You’re not burned?”

  “The dunny!”

  “The hell with the dunny!” He had a look and said it was too late even to wrench the door off.

  Mr Harsant was running across from their place with a shovel, and Mr Murphy was coming through the hedge from the other side, waving a wet sack, Mrs Murphy after him. Voices saying, “Well, thank goodness, she’s not hurt!” Mr Harsant and Mr Murphy and Dad laughing and whooping and dancing around the blazing dunny, patting their mouths with their hands and going, “Woe! Woe! Woe!” like Redskins on the warpath at the pictures.

  “We should have a live sacrifice,” said Mr Murphy.

  “The old dunny!” shouted Mr Harsant, and they danced around again shouting, “Woe! Woe! Woe! Death to the old dunny!” raising their knees, bending their heads up and down, while Mrs Murphy and Mrs Harsant clicked their tongues, “Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!” like Mrs Dainty. The tower of flames didn’t seem funny to me either.

  “There’s a lot of resin in it for O. B. rimu,” Dad said to Mr Harsant, and I heard other voices. People came running in the gate and up the path, and I heard Freddy Jones shouting at the top of his voice. I tore inside and looked for Milly.

  By the time Dad came in, I’d tucked myself into bed and was pretending to be asleep, but he knew and had a good look at my feet and hands, to make sure, he said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I wet my pyjamas.”

  “I would have, too. Here’s some dry ones. I’ll put these to soak. We’ll have to use Harsants’ dunny in the morning.

  “Lucky it’s Saturday, the day after tomorrow, and I’ve got enough old timber under the house, for framing, and a few sheets of iron. I was going to have to dig a new hole anyway.

  “Now, you get to sleep. You’ve got school in the morning.”

  “Do I have to go?”

  “The girl who burnt down the dunny in the middle of the night? You’ll be famous. People will ask you to write something in their autograph books.”

  “Freddy Jones will point and snigger, and everyone’s going to stare. It’s not fair.”

  “There,” Dad rocked me and stroked my head. “You got a fright, but you didn’t burn yourself, thank goodness. We can easily build another dunny, but not another Maggie.”

  That made me laugh, but I was in the middle of crying, so my nose ran, my throat hiccuped, and Dad had to pat my back. My eyes went all smeary, and I could hear my voice laughing and crying at the same time.

  “Freddy Jones told his mother the policeman’s coming from Matamata tomorrow, and he’s going to handcuff me and put me into gaol.” My voice went up high at the end, like the primer kids talking to Miss Real. “He shouted loud so everyone heard him.”

  “They don’t put people in gaol for burning down dunnies. Look on it as an adventure. Tell everyone at school that your cruel father’s going to make you dig the new dunny hole, and they’ll want to give you a hand, like the time Tom Sawyer whitewashed his aunt’s fence. And tell Freddy Jones he’s too scared to burn down his dunny. No, don’t. He might just be silly enough to try it.”

  Dad chuckled as he tucked me in, kissed my wet nose, and went through to his own room. “‘We be of one blood, thee and I’.”

  “Who are you saying that to?” I snuffled.

  “I always say it just in case there’s a wild animal under my bed.”

  “‘We be of one blood, thee and I’,” I told Milly and slept.

  It wasn’t so bad, using Harsants’ dunny in the morning. Everybody was in a hurry, and at least it wasn’t Freddy Jones’s.

  He was waiting outside his place and ran backwards all the way down Ward Street to school, pointing and yelling, then he ran in the gate, shouting, “She burnt down her dunny!” as if everyone didn’t know already.

  “Dad burned down our old dunny,” said Pete Schollum. “He reckoned it was going to fall down anyway, so we might as well have a bit of fun.”

  “Ours blew over in the big storm, last year,” said one of the Tuhakaraina twins. “With our dad in it. We had to pull him out.”

  “And he still had his trousers down,” said the other twin.

  Everyone had a dunny story, and nobody took any notice of Freddy Jones, not even when he held his nose and pretended to be lighting a candle. At playtime, I joined in the s
kipping, and Colleen Porter put her hands on her hips and told Freddy Jones, “Clear off. This is the girls’ playground.” She had brothers, so she knew how to talk to him.

  Dad had dragged some timber out from under the house, by the time I ran home at lunchtime. “More of that old rimu,” he said. “Only trouble is, it’s so dry, it’ll be hard to nail.”

  We started digging on Saturday. Dad shovelled aside the black topsoil, and I tipped the lighter-coloured dirt down the old hole, just a small barrow-load at a time. As the new hole got deeper, Dad went down the ladder, and I gave a hand pulling up the bucket on a rope. After the dirt there was orangey-yellow clay that turned to light-brown pumicey-looking sand, and then to white sand which was damp. The bucket got heavy, so Dad stood on the ladder and pushed it up to help me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Why the New Dunny Seat Was Warm, Why I Felt Uncomfortable About My Old Clothes, and Why Mrs Harsant Didn’t Have the Time.

  BY THE TIME the old dunny hole was filled, I could see the bottom of the new hole glistening with water.

  “Come up,” I said. “You might sink.”

  Dad laughed and went on filling the bucket.

  “What if it’s quicksand?” I felt like crying again.

  Dad took his time climbing up the ladder and, even when he’d got out of the hole, I couldn’t help him pull up the last bucket. I felt sick, angry, and scared all at once.

  Mr Harsant came over to give a hand, pointed at the different layers of soil and said, “You can see how the district was all swamp in the early days, but since they dug the drains earlier this century it’s dried out and sunk. That sand down there looks as if it was once a riverbed.”

  I rubbed my face against Dad’s hand. I didn’t want him sinking out of sight in some underground river.

  We finished the dunny on Sunday. The rimu was so hard, we had to drill it, and that took ages, turning the little handle. The roof and walls were the corrugated iron from behind the bottom shed.