When Words Die

by Jenni Francis

  Unfortunately, the only seat available was just in front of Wiremu and Hemi. Her cousin and his friend. Not however, her friends. She sat down quietly and hoped they would keep talking to the kids behind her. No such luck. Wiremu leaned over the back of the seat.

  “Gonna talk to me these holidays? Huh?” He turned to the boys behind him. “Think we can get her to talk?”

  They sniggered. Chloe put her head down and tried not to cry. Wiremu lost interest in her soon after that. Chloe got out at her stop and sighed with relief as she saw her little sister and her mum waiting for her.

  “Chloe, hey, look what I got,” Lily yelled. “It’s a certificate from school! I got best!”

  “That’s cool,” Chloe said quietly. “Let’s look at it at home.”

  As the bus moved away she could see Wiremu, his eyes wide with surprise as he looked at her. He turned to Hemi and was pointing out the window. She just knew they were talking about her. In two terms she’d spoken to no one at school, and now here she was talking to her sister. She felt the colour creeping up her face and she turned away towards her mum.

  “Have a good day, love?” Mum asked.

  Chloe nodded. There were people walking towards them, and her voice departed, again.

  Chapter 4

  Keri

  Two days after Jess had come home, I took her to meet Mereana. It was not an easy meeting. I had known Jess for the longest time, and Mereana only for the last few years. We’d gone to the same school together since the beginning, but Jess had never really got to know Mereana before she went away. Now I was introducing my two best friends to each other. After two years, Jess and I were getting to know each other all over again. We had changed in that time.

  To look at, the three of us were very different. Mereana, small, brown-skinned, and black-haired. Me, average height, mousey brown hair, tanned, and Jess, tall, curly auburn hair and white skin. She hadn’t spent much time out in the sun, that was certain. She hadn’t been as pale before.

  I was desperate for my friends to like each other. But we were also different in our likes and temperament. Mereana was a bit of a do-gooder. That was how we met – we both won scholarships to a private school. Hers was for citizenship as well as academic, and it was Mereana who came to help me out when William went missing. I had lost him in a shopping mall and he was gone for a few weeks before Mereana and some other friends came up with a plan. She was bouncy, and funny and smart.

  Jess was sporty, not keen on school work and she was also smart - but with her words, not so much academically. I’d been on the end of her sarcasm a few times, and it wasn’t easy to take. She had a bit of a temper on her. I’m so average I could get lost in a crowd. Average size, average looks, average academically, but I was pretty good at art and sport. I watch anxiously as Mereana and Jess warily moved around each other, looking to see if there was a connection. After fifteen minutes of me trying to get a conversation going, I gave up.

  In frustration I said, “Come on, let’s walk down to the school and throw a few hoops.”

  Mereana looked a bit desperate, but she found a ball. It was somewhat flat, so on the way down we called in to the service station to get it pumped up. Around in front of the classrooms the playground, fields and courts were empty but there were kids and a few adults enjoying the school pool in the warm afternoon. We went to the furthest court and started throwing the ball around to each other and into the netball hoop. Jess hadn’t lost her touch – every throw went straight in. Mind you, the courts were designed for primary kids, and the hoop was quite a bit lower. But still, Mereana and I didn’t have the same success.

  I loved playing the game but not as a goalie. I preferred wing attack or centre. Mereana didn’t play at all, now we were at high school, but she was still pretty nimble on her feet. After throwing the ball around and racing up and down the courts for half an hour, laughing and giggling over silly things, we took a walk around the school, reminiscing.

  “Hey, do you remember when Russell McDonald brought wattle flowers in to Miss Lane, and it turned out she was allergic to them?”

  “Oh my god, she threw a fit. It was awful.”

  “We heard her from our classroom,” Mereana said.

  “Which room were you in?” Jess asked.

  “Next to you, that year. We had Mr Thompson.”

  “I wanted to be in his class – but instead we got the dragon,” Jess said. “Mr Thompson was cool.”

  “Was that the same year Russell got picked up for doing over the speed limit down Sunrise Avenue by the traffic cop who was coming to school to do a safety talk?”

  “Yes, it so was! I remember. He had to walk to school for the next month.”

  I listened to my friends bouncing school stories off each other, giggling about teachers we’d all had, and other kids who had been in our classes - and sighed with relief. Maybe it would work after all.

  Chapter 5

  Chloe

  Chloe headed down to the back of the farm to feed the chooks and collect their eggs. The best part of moving north was the animals on their small farm. A few sheep, six chickens and a stray cat that had adopted them when they moved in. Lily decided it was to be called Snowball, on account of it being mostly white. Chloe wasn’t too fussed on the name, but Lily was hard to say ‘no’ to.

  Chloe opened the door to the chook run and let the chickens out to have a scratch around under the trees in the orchard. In one of the nesting boxes she found Snowball curled up on a clutch of eggs.

  “Come on, Snowball, hop off.” She gave the cat a shove, but Snowball wasn’t going to be moved. She left her where she was and collected the other eggs.

  Looking up the slope behind the house, she could see three dark shapes running from shrub to shrub. No prizes for guessing who. Since the holidays had started properly, Wiremu had been hanging around every day. Sometimes by himself, and sometimes with his mates, Hemi and Walter. They threw pinecones at her and yelled out stupid things as they passed her gate.

  Once she had caught them letting the sheep out of their paddock. She had gone running inside to let Mum know, and her mum had yelled at the boys in words Chloe had never heard her use before. Then they had to spend fifteen minutes rounding the sheep up to move them back in. They were very reluctant to go – they had discovered Mum’s vegetable patch, and the lemon trees, and their own paddock was a bit thin on grass. Each time they got them almost through the gate, one would turn tail and escape between them, followed by the other four.

  “Why don’t we put them in the orchard,” Chloe suggested. “The trees are big enough that they won’t destroy them, and it will keep the grass down in there.”

  “Good idea, Chloe. Run and get Lily to open the orchard gate, and then tell her to go right round the house to come up behind the sheep. The three of us should be able to move them.”

  Lily was not keen. “I’m doing SingStar,” she complained. “I can’t stop now, it’s my favourite song!”

  “If you come and help me, I’ll do SingStar when we’ve finished.”

  “Promise.”

  “Promise. Now run and open the orchard gate, then come around the front of the house. All the way round or you’ll spook the sheep.”

  Chloe joined her mum outside, trying to move the sheep quietly along the fence line to the orchard. They nibbled all the succulent treats as they went. Unfortunately, Lily did not follow instructions, and came yelling around the house that the gate was open and scared the sheep into turning back towards Mum and Chloe. They scattered all the ways possible, and it took another ten minutes to get them into one small mob.

  “Lily, walk between me and Chloe. Put your arms out wide and walk s-l-o-w-l-y behind them like we are. Chloe, stay fairly close to the fence line, and I’ll guide them around into the gateway.”

  The sheep must have caught a whiff of long grass. They jumped excitedly through the gate and spread out across the orchard, eating ravenously as they went.

  From behind
the hedge at the front of the property, Chloe could hear sniggering. She motioned to her mother that the boys were there.

  “Thanks, boys,” her mum sang out. “We wouldn’t have thought of moving the sheep to the orchard if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Chloe smiled to herself.

  “I’m going to get a padlock so they can’t open that gate. If you want to go into the orchard for the next day couple of days, you’ll have to climb over the gate.”

  Chloe sighed. Chickens were her job, so she’d be over that gate several times a day. She went back inside to join Lily on the SingStar machine. It was no burden. Chloe loved to sing too.

  Chapter 6

  Keri

  Christmas and New Year were over, and Mereana, Jess and I were packing to go and stay up north with Mereana’s family. Mereana’s family on her dad’s side had not accepted her for a long time, especially after her dad had died, as they felt her mum had taken him away from them. But over the last few years, after Mereana had stayed with them in the holidays a few times, she felt much more comfortable with them. Mereana’s nanny had invited her to bring her friends.

  We were taking the bus to the nearest town and being picked up from there to go to Mereana’s nana’s house. It was a long trip, five hours by bus, as it stopped at every town and settlement on the way. People got off and people got on. The area we were traveling through was called the winterless north. It wasn’t really winterless, but it was usually a couple of degrees warmer than where we lived in the main city.

  We finally arrived in the small town and we unloaded the bags from under the bus. Then we stood there, as the other passengers moved off, or were greeted by family picking them up. Aside from us, there were only a pair of Scandinavian tourists, backpackers, who were also waiting for a ride.

  It was hot. The air was still and the temperature seemed to rise a degree each minute. It was a dusty, untidy looking area, not the sandy beachy resorty place I been dreaming of.

  After thirty minutes of waiting and getting scratchy with each other, Jess said in exasperation, “Can’t you call your nana?”

  “No. She doesn’t have a phone. She uses my uncle’s phone if she needs to.”

  “Well, can’t you call him?”

  “I don’t know the number. Don’t worry, she’ll come. It’s not like the city. Things happen at a different pace around here.”

  A short while later, an old van pulled up. A big smiley Māori man climbed down from the driver’s seat.

  “Hey, yous guys. Hop in. I’ll take you back. Chuck your bags in the back. I’m Sonny.”

  “Do you know him?” I muttered to Mereana.

  She looked a little worried. “Maybe,” she said. “It’s hard to tell, there are so many in the family.”

  “Well, what if he’s not a good guy? What if he takes us off into the sand dunes and kills us, or keeps us as his harem?”

  Mereana giggled. “Wait up, I’ll check.”

  She walked over to the van driver, who was by now trying to communicate with the backpackers. They spoke English, but with an accent, and Sonny spoke in the local lingo, and the conversation was going nowhere.

  “Excuse me,” Mereana said. “What’s happened to Nanny?”

  “Oh, hey – you Mereana?”

  She nodded.

  “Nanny is back at home cooking up a storm and had some visitors turn up, so I said I’d get you. Sonny,” he said and stuck out his hand.

  “Nanny Anahera? From Awanui?”

  “Yep, that’s the one. I’m supposed to take these two as well, but they thought I was going to be a taxi. No taxis around here, mate.”

  “Are they going to Awanui too?”

  “Not far away. They’re some of them wooffy people.”

  “Oh, wwoofers. Nanny told me about them.”

  “To help out on the farm. Simpson’s farm.”

  “Okay, wait on, I’ll ask them,” Mereana said.

  But they had already heard the name Simpson and were nodding and holding out a piece of paper with the address on it.

  Mereana came back to us as we sat expiring in the heat on our bags.

  “Okay, we’re sorted. I don’t think we can go wrong with five of us.”

  The two Scandinavians looked pretty fit and strong, so Jess and I followed and deposited our bags into the back of a very grimy and somewhat smelly van.

  Twenty minutes later we were pulling up outside a large farmhouse with many outbuildings. The backpackers got out and said ‘thank you’ many times to Sonny. Then we drove a short way down the road to an old but tidy looking house, with wonderful flowers growing in the garden, and sheep grazing in a paddock to the right.

  Mereana shot out of the passenger seat and ran to the front door, which stood open.

  “Nanny, Nanny,” we heard her yell.

  Jess and I pulled the bags out the back with help from Sonny and carried them to the house. We hesitated at the front door.

  “Come in, come in,” Sonny said. He went through the house, so we left the bags at the front door and followed him. He was giving an old lady a kiss on her cheek and she was swatting at him good-naturedly.

  “Thanks for picking up the girls,” she said.

  “Sweet as,” he said.

  “Here’s my friends, Nanny,” Mereana said. “This is Keri and this is Jessica.”

  Nanny looked surprised to see us. I wondered why.

  “Kia ora, girls,” she said. She seemed a little reserved.

  “Kia ora,” I said.

  Jess just said, “Hi.”

  “Come,” she said, “have some kai. You must be hungry and thirsty after your trip. Do you want a cup of tea? Sonny? Have a cup of tea and some kai? Help yourself,” she said. “Eat up.”

  “How’ve you been, Nanny?”

  “I’m fine, Sonny. Busy getting ready for tomorrow. Will you be there?”

  “I will,” he said stuffing a sausage roll into his mouth and drinking down his tea at the same time. “Thanks, Nanny. See you tomorrow. Gotta go.”

  He headed out the front door while we washed up in the bathroom sink, and then sat down to the best food I’ve had in a long time. The table was laden with cakes and pies and all manner of treats.

  “How come you have so much food prepared, Nanny?” Mereana asked.

  “There’s a big hui tomorrow,” she said. “At the marae. You can all help out and meet the whānau.”

  “What’s the hui for?” Mereana asked.

  “We got a settlement from the government. It’s part of the Waitangi Tribunal recommendation for our iwi. It’s a celebration, and some of the elders will be asking for our advice about what to do with the money. They want to start a corporation. I don’t know about that. Leave that to the young ones. It will go on all weekend, but we will just go for some of the time.”

  Jess was looking sceptical. “Will we have to do anything when we go?” she asked.

  “Oh you mean the pōwhiri? Yes, we will have some other new people coming to visit us and a news crew. You will be part of the manuhiri, the visitors. But don’t worry, there will be someone to help you. Then after that, we can go and help get the kai ready.”

  By the look on Jess’s face, she clearly hadn’t considered this aspect of staying with Mereana’s nanny. I’d thought about it a bit, because of what Mereana told me after her previous visits, but I hadn’t thought what going to a hui would entail.

  Nanny showed us to our room. We would be sharing the room. It had a double bed and a mattress on the floor. Again, that look on Jess’s face.

  “You have the mattress, and Mereana and I can share. What do you think?”

  Jess sighed with relief and dumped her bag on the mattress. She was going to find this tough, I could tell. This was such a little house, only two bedrooms and a shared bathroom, and Jess had an ensuite in her own room at home.

  “Girls, can you do something for me?” Nanny asked. “Can you take this pie down to my neighbours? The mum has been sick and the da
d is away, so she might like the pie for their tea tonight.”

  “Sure, and we’ll have a look around after that. I’ll show the girls around the town and down to the river and maybe the beach. Is that okay?”

  “Okay, darlin’. Haere rā.”

  We took the pie wrapped in a clean tea towel and headed next door.

  Chapter 7

  Chloe

  Chloe took a glass of water, a little sandwich and medication in to her mother’s room. It was dark and cool in there, with the blinds drawn tight against the light.

  “Come on Mum,” she said. “You need to sit up and take this.”

  Her mother moaned from under the blanket. “No, I can’t.”

  “You have to, the doctor said. I’ve made you a little sandwich.”

  “Leave it there,” Mum whispered. “I’ll have it later.”

  From outside, Chloe could hear voices. There was a knock at the door and Chloe froze.

  “Mum, there’s someone here.”

  But her mother was asleep. Lily was away at the beach with her friend. There was only herself to deal with it.

  At the second knock, she crept to the door. Carefully she opened it. There were three big girls there. She didn’t know any of them. With difficulty she thought of what her therapist had said. She took a deep breath, and as she breathed out she managed to whisper, “Hi.”

  “Hello,” the shorter girl said. “Nanny Anahera said your mum was sick, and she’s sent over this pie for your dinner.”

  Chloe smiled at her and held out her hand for the pie. Still smiling, she took the pie and gently closed the door. She peeked out the little window beside the door and saw the girls walk away, talking together. She knew what they would be saying.