If that meant what I thought it meant, that was shocking and horrible, but she said it as though she was telling me that the fries weren’t cooked properly.
“Why didn’t you do something?” I asked.
“I did,” she said. “I told my mum. She just said I was lying. But she knew I wasn’t lying.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“Nah, that’s nothing,” she said. “You should ask little Allan why he’s on the street.”
She considered that for a moment then said. “Nah. Don’t ask him. It makes him go all freako when he talks about it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” she said. “How ’bout you? Why you on the street?”
I thought that was obvious. “You know why,” I said. “My mother disappeared.”
“Stink,” she said. “What about your old man?”
“You mean Mr Kavanagh?” I asked, a little confused.
“I mean your father,” she said. “He still around.”
I shook my head. “No. He beat us up, so we ran away.”
“Happens a lot,” she said. “Real stink.”
“Real stink,” I said.
“Did you and your mum go to the refuge?” she asked. “My aunty is there now. The one on K Road.”
“I don’t know what that is,” I said. I considered whether or not to tell her about my life in the bush, but then decided that it wasn’t really a secret any more. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell the police.
“We went to live in a forest,” I said. “In an old cottage. Where he couldn’t find us.”
“Awesome,” she said. “That’s like Tarzan or something. How long were you hiding there?”
I think she expected me to say how many days, or even weeks, I was there, because when I said, “Fifteen years,” her mouth dropped open and her eyes opened wide.
“Are you shitting me?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Egan Tucker,” I said without thinking. Then I wondered if that was telling her too much. There was something about her that made me want to do that. Something about her and me when we were together. It made me feel safe and warm.
When we left McDonalds she put her hand on my arm and gave me a quick kiss on the lips and said thanks for lunch.
“See you, Reggie,” I said, a little unsettled by the kiss.
“You sure you’re not just after a squeeze?” she said.
“I’m sure,” I said.
“’Cos if you were, that might be okay,” she said.
“No. No,” I said. “I just like being with you.”
She looked at me strangely. “You serious?” she asked.
I nodded. I didn’t say anything. I could taste her on my lips and I didn’t want to lose it. Although, in hindsight, that might have been a bit of sauce from the hamburger.
“I never met nobody like you before,” she said.
Words of the day:
Chur bro
I think this means thanks, or something like that.
Thought for the day:
I wonder if this is what love feels like.
Another thought for the day:
Ice cream is my new favourite thing.
January 12th
Today I went to the DOC office and got my usual shake of the head from June.
After that I stayed in the forest, which I have learned is called the Auckland Domain. I really wanted to go and see Reggie again, but I decided that would be too much. She would think I was weird if I turned up again.
I think tomorrow I might go and walk in that direction, in case I happen to bump into her on the street.
I painted a picture of her. It’s not very good. It’s a bit like a Picasso.
But I wasn’t trying to paint like Picasso.
I forgot to say yesterday, that when Reggie and I got back to the cave, little Allan was playing with Jack. Not only that, but he had somehow found Jack’s bunny in my rucksack and they were playing with that.
Jack has never let anyone touch bunny before. Not even me!
Thought for the day:
I really miss Moma.
January 13th
Shake of head from June.
Painted another picture of Reggie. I did it like the Mona Lisa by Da Vinci.
I went for a walk near the freeway but didn’t see her.
Went to the museum, which is at the top of the hill in the Domain. It was free to enter, but there was a box for donations so I gave them an apple and the plastic toy they gave me at McDonalds. It wouldn’t fit through the slot, so I just left it on the top.
There is so much stuff inside the museum. I still can’t quite believe it.
So many things that I have read about in books, like elephants (not a live one) and Maori canoes and …
I think I will write a list of all the things I saw, so I can remember them. It was awesome!!
For a while I forgot about how much I miss Moma.
Thought for the day:
I still really miss Moma.
Things I am afraid of:
That she is never coming back.
Things I Saw at the Museum
There were hundreds of things, but these are the ones that most stick in my mind:
•A volcano
•Polar bears (not live)
•Elephant (not live)
•A giant New Zealand bird called a moa (it’s extinct, so definitely not live)
•Maori carvings of men with really big pee-pee guns
•A clay pot from ancient Rome
•A fighter aeroplane from World War 2
•Dinosaurs (live… nah, just joking)
•A village of how settlers lived when they first came to New Zealand (This made me sad because it reminded me of home)
•A Maori canoe which looked a lot like the cloud I saw in the sky that day (This made me sad because it reminded me of Moma)
January 14th
I saw Reggie today.
I also got chased by the police and lost my home and nearly drowned.
But I saw Reggie today!
I am writing this sitting in the entrance to the cave. That’s what I call the dark place underneath the freeway where Reggie, Junior, Mohawk and little Allan live. It reminds me a bit of our winter cave in the forest. But it’s not as warm, and it’s much noisier.
In fact it’s so noisy that I don’t know how anyone could sleep here.
Cars have been driving on the freeway above us all night. They drive really fast and there are lots of them. It’s like a huge droning sound.
When a big truck goes over it vibrates the walls. And there are often sirens which are either:
•Police cars
•Ambulances
•Fire engines
It also gets quite cold in here at night, even though it’s January. Reggie and her crew wrap themselves in blankets made from old sacks and cardboard boxes. Except little Allan. He has a real blanket that Reggie stole from a shop for him.
Stealing is wrong, but these kids don’t live by a code, so I guess they don’t know that.
Allan is crying as I am writing this. He cries himself to sleep most nights. That is one of the reasons the kids sleep here. There are better places in the city. Old buildings, which are quieter and warmer. There are even shelters set up for street kids by a group called Friends of Auckland Street Kids.
But the other kids don’t like it when Allan cries at night. So Junior, Mohawk and Reggie all live here with him. They look out for him.
Allan doesn’t talk much. When he does, he usually just copies what someone else is saying as if he is not confident enough to come up with something on his own. But he al
ways seems to be drinking everything in, sitting in the corner with eyes that are far too wise for a 13-year-old.
Right now Reggie has gone to cuddle Allan to help him sleep.
Okay. About today.
I was woken up very early this morning, well before it was light, by shouting and barking. There were lights everywhere and a helicopter flew overhead with a huge spotlight that was like the sun had come out at night.
I think they were chasing someone, but I don’t know who or what.
One of the police dogs ran right past us and, before I could stop him, Jack barked at it, and next thing there were lights shining in my little bush hideout and I was being told to come out of there.
I grabbed my rucksack on one shoulder, my crossbow on the other, then slithered out the opposite side of the bushes from the policeman and ran for it.
Next thing I was being chased by a police dog, and the police dog was being chased by Crackerjack and somewhere behind him was a policeman chasing the lot of us.
I think police dogs are trained to jump up and grab you by the arm and pull you down because that’s what this dog kept trying to do. He was a big dog too, brown and black, and he was twice the size of Jack.
But he couldn’t jump up and pull me down because Jack wouldn’t let him.
I also think the police dog must have been trained not to get in a fight with another dog, because he kept ignoring Jack. But before he could get a grab of my arm Jack would jump up on him. Then I’d yell, “Down Jack” because I didn’t want him to get in a fight with the police dog.
Not because of the size of the thing. Jack might be smaller but he’s hunted down some pretty big pigs and he can be a whole bucket of nasty when he wants to be (even if he does go to sleep cuddling a stuffed toy bunny). I just didn’t want the two dogs to get in a fight because that would slow us down, and the policeman wasn’t far behind.
I was worried that they might shoot me too. (Although I found out later that police officers in New Zealand don’t carry guns. I was quite surprised!)
We ran across a few roads without even looking for cars, so it was lucky it was so early in the morning and the streets weren’t busy yet.
I realised we were heading down towards the wharves, so I went straight for the place I usually go to bathe. I ran down the concrete steps and jumped in, holding the rucksack on top of my head to keep it dry. It was really hard swimming like that, but I didn’t want to ruin my diary or my paintings. Jack’s a good swimmer and he kept up with me easily. The police dog stayed on the steps.
On the other side of the wharf there was a boat just moving out, so I swam across to it and grabbed hold of a rubber ball thing on the side that stopped the wharf from scratching it.
I got there just as it was about to take off.
I had one hand holding on to the rubber ball thing, one hand holding my rucksack out of the water and one hand holding Jack’s collar. Haha, nah. I’m just kidding about that.
On the back side of a big wooden pillar, I had noticed a huge rusted metal bolt, and I hung the rucksack and my crossbow on that. It was well out of the water, unless the tide came in.
Then the boat took off. I grabbed Jack’s collar and held him next to me.
We started off really slowly, but as soon as we were away from the wharf, the boat picked up speed. The wake along the side of the boat was hammering at us. If I hadn’t got my hand hooked in the rope that held the rubber ball thing, I would have fallen off for sure. The water was coming over my head and I was swallowing it and it was really hard to breathe.
Then I got worried about where the boat was going. Maybe it was going to Australia! It didn’t seem like a big enough boat to go to Australia. It was a lot smaller than the ferry I had been on. But I don’t know a lot about boats.
I saw a flashing light out on the water – a buoy. It must have been moored there to show the boats where to go.
It wasn’t far away, so when we were as close to it as I thought we were going to get, I let go of the boat, which disappeared into the darkness.
Then Jack and I swam across to the buoy.
I was quite tired and winded from all the running and swimming and getting dragged by boats, so I just clung onto it for a while. I put an arm around Jack and held him up so he wouldn’t have to swim all the time.
Back on the shore I could see flashlights around the wharf where I had jumped into the water. They were looking under the wharves and around the wharves and in the water near the wharves.
They didn’t think to look out where we were. I guess they didn’t think we could have got so far so fast. All their activity seemed to be around the wharf where we had gone in and the wharf on either side, so after I had rested for a bit, Jack and I swam to the west where there was a big hotel right on the end of one of the wharves.
We got out of the water there – and just in time, because a police boat with flashing red and blue lights came along the waterfront, shining a big spotlight everywhere.
If we had stayed on the buoy I am sure they would have found us.
We kept moving, to get as far away from the wharves as possible.
We stayed away till the afternoon, and only when I was sure there weren’t any police around did I go back and retrieve my rucksack and crossbow. That was a close thing.
I didn’t think I could go back to the domain, so instead I went to where Reggie lived.
She and the boys didn’t even seem surprised to see me, although they asked why I was so wet.
I told them about the police chase, but I am sure they thought I was making it up. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I just stayed there.
The boys all had a snooze in the afternoon, but Reggie was still awake. She came and sat next to me. “When you said you liked being with me,” she asked quietly, “was that true?”
“Of course it was,” I said. “I can’t tell lies. I really like you.”
She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I just never had nobody say that before. Not without they wanted something.”
“Then they were stupid people,” I said.
That made her cry for some reason.
I don’t think I understand women yet.
“Why can’t you tell no lies?” Reggie asked a bit later when she had stopped crying. “Is it like a curse someone put on you?”
I shook my head. “It’s a code I live by.”
“And you couldn’t hurt Tonto and his dickhead friends until they put the bash on you,” she said.
“That’s right,” I said. “It’s wrong to hurt other people, unless it’s to stop them hurting you.”
“Is that part of your code too?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
I realised that Junior, Mohawk and little Allan were all listening too.
“That’s all stupid shit,” she said. “Don’t tell no lies. Don’t give nobody the bash. Man, you wouldn’t survive coupla days on the street like that.”
“You wouldn’t survive coupla days,” Allan said.
“I’ve survived two weeks so far,” I pointed out. “There’s some other stuff too.”
I listed some of the other code stuff for her.
“Why?” Mohawk asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Why? Why you wanna bother?” Mohawk said. “No other brother does. You act all good and shit, world still going to beat you down. You can’t change the world.”
“You a stupid arse,” Reggie said. “Of course you can’t change the world. You just some dumb-arse street kid. Every brother sister got to change themselves.”
“Every brother sister got to change themselves,” Allan said.
Allan has stopped crying and gone to sleep. Reggie is sitting beside me with her head on m
y shoulder. I like that.
She wants to know why I spend so much time writing in this book, so I explained. She wants to read it but I said not till I’m dead. She laughed. I like her laugh.
It’s hard to write though, so I will continue tomorrow.
Reggie is da bomb. She da coolest sister on da planet.
Reggie wrote that last line.
Egan is strange but he cool.
She wrote that too.
January 15th
I found out what a shower is.
It is a little room in a bathroom in a house where water comes out of the ceiling like it was raining inside the house. You can make the water warmer or colder just by turning a tap.
It is awesome!
I found this out when I told Reggie I was going down to the ocean to have a bath. She said not to swim in there, it is polluted.
I didn’t know that and hope I haven’t caught some horrible disease from all the other times I have been down there.
I asked her if she bathed, but she seemed to think I was being mean.
“Of course I wash,” she said. “Every week. Even if I don’t need it. What, you saying I smell?”
I shook my head. “Where do you go for a wash?” I asked.
“There’s toilets in Albert Park, but better ones down at the train station,” she said. She seemed to think about something. Deciding whether or not to let me in on her confidence. “But I know a secret place. Hot water and everything. Don’t smell like old piss or nothing neither.”
Her secret place turned out to be an apartment building down on Federal Street. One of the apartments was empty. It had electricity, hot water, everything. But nobody lived there. Reggie thought they lived overseas and kept the apartment only for when they were visiting New Zealand. Somehow she had found a key.
First we went to Maccas and took heaps of paper towels out of the bathrooms and stuffed them under our clothes. Reggie said that wasn’t stealing because they were free.
At the apartment building we had to go up lots of flights of concrete stairs that had signs saying ‘Fire Exit’. Reggie said there was an elevator, but she didn’t want the other residents to see us, and they never used the stairs. On the very top level of the stairs, she used a plastic card to open a big heavy door. (She checked inside first through a small glass window.) Inside was a corridor with numbered doors. There was a red door labelled ‘Fire Hose’ on the wall and she opened that and felt around at the back and found a metal key.
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