Huia Short Stories 9

by Anahera Gildea

  Friday

  Have to get up every time now and do our pepeha. I practise saying the words Aunty Lena taught me. I try to remember them off by heart but it’s too hard. I’ll never learn all this shit.

  Monday

  Anaru told us we’re having a noho marae. He wants us to learn about pōwhiri. Haven’t been to a marae since I was a little kid. Ages ago. Dad used to take us sometimes, until all the shit happened and he took off to Oz. Anaru wants us all to learn waiata. Three of the tāne will do the speeches. Ahi, Brent and Paora. Makere – she’s the one with the moko – Tūī and Sandra are doing the karanga. Three of us others have to learn too – in case someone can’t make it to the noho. I have to learn Tūī’s one. Might go see Aunty Lena again. Ask her about the karanga.

  Wednesday

  Got into trouble last night. Went to the shops with Lisa. Watched outside while she filled her backpack with stuff. I couldn’t go in. I’m banned from most of the shops in town. Yeah. I was her lookout. Bumped into someone on purpose so she could get away, but she got caught. She’s in deep shit now aye. So am I. Don’t know what will happen. Mum cried when the cops took me home. She didn’t go psycho this time. Just went all quiet and said ‘I don’t know what to do with you Mere. I just don’t know.’

  Dunno what’s gonna happen now. Might as well go back to the course until they decide. Nothing else to do.

  Friday

  Went to Aunty Lena’s again last night. She hugged me and said ‘It’s good to see you Mere. How’s your mother?’

  ‘Grumpy,’ I told her. She laughed in that way that makes you want to laugh too.

  ‘Your mother works too hard,’ she said. ‘How’s it going on the course?’

  ‘Boring,’ I told her, ‘but I like the waiata.’

  ‘Stick with it kōtiro. I see a change in you already.’

  Had to do the karakia today. We all have turns now. Didn’t even know how to pronounce some of the words. There’s way too many to learn.

  Tuesday

  Paora hasn’t been for nearly a week. His koro came looking for him today. Said he hasn’t seen him for ages. No one knows where he is. I miss his smiling face and his pink hair.

  Wednesday

  Did my pepeha today. Just about know it off by heart now. Still get stuck on the tipuna bit and those long as names Aunty Lena taught me. Anaru told us we need to know it by the time we go to the noho. Aunty Lena said I can practise with her. She’s helping me with the karanga too.

  Saw Lisa last night. She’s going to stay with her aunty in Masterton. There’s a rumour going round she’s pregnant. I asked her and she said no, but she looked away when she said it. I’ll miss her if she goes.

  Rāpare

  Pepeha is now kei te pai. Had mahi kāinga to do last night. Got most of it right. Yeah. Learning waiata for our noho. Hard as, but we sound awesome when Robert plays the guitar. A bit stink if he’s not there. Heaps of laughing when some of us sing out of tune or get the words wrong. I look up sometimes and everyone in the room is laughing. Yeah. It feels good. Like we all belong. The oldies are always trying to help us. We have a kai together at lunchtime. Everyone brings food and we take turns saying the karakia before we eat.

  Rāhoroi

  Practised waiata and karanga today. Aunty Lena is helping me. She told me about the kaupapa for karanga. Yeah. How you have to earn the right to do it. You have to prove you are ready.

  ‘I don’t know what he’s doing getting you young ones to learn,’ she said.

  I hope those three doing the karanga turn up to our noho. I don’t want to do it. Nah. Aunty Lena took me down to the park in town anyway – over by the river so no one could hear us. She did a karakia before we started, and walked beside me. She did the karanga we’ve been learning and then I copied her. My voice was shaking and weak compared to Aunty Lena’s. You have to take small steps, she said. Walk slowly.

  I tried heaps of times, until my voice was dry.

  ‘Kei te pai, kōtiro,’ she said to me afterwards. She bought me a bottle of water. She said you need to drink plenty of water when you karanga.

  Rāhina

  Practised our whole pōwhiri today. Yeah. Cool as.

  Ahi, Brent and Anaru did the whaikōrero. Paora wasn’t there. Ahi still has to read his off a piece of paper. We practised the waiata for the noho. Tūī, Sandra and Makere did the karanga. They sounded awesome as. Even though it was only a practice.

  Rātū

  Went round to see Lisa before she goes to Masterton. Her mother yelled at me before I even got to the door.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she shouted. ‘You’re the reason she’s in all this trouble. Haven’t you done enough? You’re all the same, you lot. I wish she’d never met you.’ I saw Lisa standing in her bedroom window looking down at me from the second floor. I waved at her but she didn’t wave back.

  I went round to Aunty Lena’s after that – Mum wasn’t home. She’s working the double shift again. Ever since Dad left she tries to do heaps of overtime to make ends meet. The ends might meet, but she’s never home. Nah. Aunty Lena said not to worry about Lisa’s mother – she’s just upset. Lost her mokopuna before it was even born, she said. That wouldn’t happen with us. Somehow we’d find a way to bring that child up, she said.

  Rāpare

  Paora’s koro came to the course today. Paora’s on remand, he told us. Got into a fight with someone – pulled a knife. The Paora he knew had changed. You could tell by his eyes, he said – the way they looked straight through you now. What happens to our rangatahi inside is enough to break your heart, he said. He wiped a hand over his eyes and blew his nose on his white as handkerchief, that reminded me of Paora’s sneakers. He told us Paora wanted to come back and do the course afterwards – it was the one thing he asked for.

  We asked him to come to the noho with us. Anaru asked him if he would be our kaumātua for the weekend – help us with the whaikōrero.

  Rāmere

  Our noho marae this weekend. I’m looking forward to it – like I haven’t looked forward to anything for a long time. Yeah. Last time I felt like this was when I went to Rainbow’s End with my cousins. Ages ago. Nervous as because I was worried about the roller coaster, but excited too, wanting to try out the log boat that was ‘too much,’ my cousin told me. Yeah. The roller coaster is a bit like the karanga I might have to do, and the log boat – that’s like all the other things: our pepeha and stuff that Anaru wants us to do in front of his whānau on the marae. Yeah.

  Rāhoroi

  Tūī picked me up. Mum and her had a kōrero while I packed my gears onto the back of the ute. There were tears in Mum’s eyes when she waved goodbye.

  ‘Jeez, Mum, I’m only going away for the weekend,’ I said.

  We had heaps of gears and food on the back. You’d think we were going away for a week. We got to the marae early. Ahi was already there, waiting outside. Said he’d been up till four in the morning practising his whaikōrero. Chucked his piece of paper away, he said – didn’t need it any more. We waited outside for the others to arrive. Then the kuia inside the marae started the karanga. That’s when I heard it again – the whisper behind me – like at the river.

  Haere mai, haere mai haere mai rā …

  I walk behind Tūī and look at the ground. My whole body shakes. I watch her hands doing the wiriwiri. I hold my breath. I say the words of the karanga I have learnt in my head. If she stuffs up I have to take over, but she doesn’t, and I can breathe again.

  Karanga mai ki ō mātau tini mate …

  Ten

  TC Waikato

  ‘Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!’ The relentless chanting kept perfect time with the thudding in Roimata’s chest. She hadn’t been in the water yet, but the thick film of sweat beading on her forehead made it look like she had. ‘I can do it … I can do it,’ she whispered to herself. She tried to block it out, but the chanting flew inside her ear like a drone and beat upon her eardrum. ‘Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!’ Forcing
down the lump in her throat, Roimata reluctantly peered down at her toes. On the concrete verge were ten tiny foot soldiers in full retreat, scrunched up tight to avoid hanging over the edge. Far below, the river rushed by, calm and free, a complete contrast to the drama unfolding on the bridge above.

  ‘She won’t jump. She’s a chicken just like her brother. Booook bok bok bok bok!’ The local bully, Latisha Rangi, strutted along the footpath with her arms tucked under her armpits, clucking like a chicken. The chant broke instantly into cackling laughter. A bevy of small brown faces began a barrage of clucks that seemed to come at Roimata from every vantage point. Bridge-jumping school is an unforgiving institution, and the mob could sense Roimata’s growing unease. Behind her, the knuckles on her hands began to turn white as she clung tighter still to the bridge railing. She was terrified, and they all knew it.

  Spread along the bridge beside Roimata like a line of dripping fence posts, the experienced jumpers offered her advice on everything from proper launching technique to ways of avoiding the dreaded back slap when entering the river. ‘Hold your nose! Keep your arms in! Don’t lean backwards! Keep your legs straight!’ they directed. Legend had it that the force of hitting the water back-first was enough to knock you out. Nodding continuously, Roimata tried hard to absorb every morsel of instruction, her eyes flicking back and forth between the chattering jumpers and the water. Snail trails of water from their wet clothes edged leisurely down the concrete verge before falling like rain onto the upturned faces of successful jumpers in the water below.

  ‘You can do it cuz.’ A reassuring hand patted Roimata’s shoulder. ‘You made it!’ Roimata sighed with relief. It was her cousin Mihi. She was three years older, and a bridge-jumping legend. ‘Course I did cousin, wouldn’t miss it for the world!’ Mihi smiled. Mihi was famous for making her maiden bridge jump at the tender age of eight. She was the first and only girl to jump successfully before the deadline. An unwritten law dictated that every kid in town must jump off the bridge by the age of ten, or be labelled a chicken for life. While Mihi had managed to beat the deadline by a whole two years, Roimata’s morbid fear of heights meant she had left her debut until the last possible moment. Today was her tenth birthday.

  Mihi kicked off her jandals and climbed over the bridge rail with the ease and grace of a seasoned pro. Shuffling Roimata a few steps over to the left, she used her experienced eye to line them up with the prime jumping spot. ‘You don’t want to jump there,’ she said, pointing to the sandbar just visible in the centre of the river. ‘And you don’t want to jump there either,’ she continued, pointing downstream at a small twig just breaking the surface of the water. From above it looked like a tiny branch, no bigger than a paintbrush. But everyone knew the twig was a periscope for a giant submarine: an old submerged log that stretched his gnarled arms wide and deep into the riverbed and around. A decent berth on either side of the twig was required to avoid getting caught in the old tree’s watery grasp.

  Roimata marvelled at the way Mihi casually switched her grip on the bridge railing from one hand to the other as she pointed out the various hazards. She could no longer feel her own hands, numbness taking hold from the pressure of her grip on the cold hard steel. Mihi lowered her voice and leaned in close so only Roimata could hear her. ‘You know that once you climb over this rail there’s only one way left to go, eh. Down. You can’t climb back over. Only sooky bubbas climb back over. You remember what happened to your brother when he climbed back over.’ Mihi lifted her gaze beyond the crowd to a lonely character standing at the end of the bridge. Roimata turned to see the familiar figure of her big brother, George, watching on from a safe distance. As usual, he was alone.

  Roimata remembered only too well what had happened to George after his failed initiation. The unrelenting teasing and torture started as soon as he climbed back over the rail, and still continued today, more than three years later. Every morning when George got on the school bus, the kids would cluck like a chicken and snigger all the way to school. Sometimes they would bring eggs and sneak them onto his seat before he sat down. George had to walk around all day at school with a stinky egg stain on his bum. Mum asked him why he kept coming home with stains on his pants, but he just shrugged and looked at the ground. After a while he stopped talking altogether. Nowadays the other kids would only let George hang around if Roimata was with him, so following in her brother’s footsteps was simply not an option. For both their sakes.

  ‘Hurry up Roimata stop stalling! We all know you’re a big fat chicken like your brother. Must run in the family!’ Latisha’s calculating sneer cut through Roimata’s delicate train of thought like a bull in a china shop. Hoisting herself up on top of the bridge railing, Latisha marched backwards and forwards so everyone could see her, hands on hips like a bossy drill sergeant. At the end of the bridge, George’s head slumped low in shame. ‘She’s not a chicken, she’s gonna jump!’ yelled Mihi, defending her terrified young cousin. With a final reassuring look, Mihi smiled broadly. ‘It’s easy cousin, all you have to do is step …’

  Roimata felt a gush of wind brush her face as a flurry of jumpers followed Mihi’s lead and leapt off the bridge into oblivion. One by one the sound of their bodies deftly entering the water reached back up to the bridge and was met by cheers from the spectators. Some of the jumpers were so skilled they could time their jump so that the splashes from their bombs arrived in time to wet an approaching car. Others flaunted their prowess by adding extra height to the jump and leaping from the bridge railing itself instead of the concrete verge on the other side. The steady rhythm of heavy splashing soon slowed to a stop like the popping of overcooked popcorn. Roimata stood rigid on the verge, deserted by all but the remaining spectators and Latisha’s ever-watchful gaze.

  ‘We haven’t got all day Roimata; are you gonna jump or what?’ Latisha stood like a tower on the top railing, arms folded, with one foot tapping impatiently. With Mihi now swimming to shore in the water below, there was no one left to defend her. ‘This is your last chance chicken little; you better jump now or it’s all OVER.’ Roimata’s eyes glistened and her cheeks burned bright scarlet. Latisha looked over at the crowd of older kids watching them, and they immediately joined her on top of the railing. They lined up on Roimata’s right as far as her eye could see. Every available jumping spot was soon taken up. ‘Machine gun!’ came the cry from the earlier jumpers, now standing on the riverbank below. Roimata gasped. A machine gun was when all the jumpers lined up and leapt from the bridge in rapid succession, one after the other. The loud thud of their splashes created a rhythm like a machine gun. Roimata was set to be the last bullet in the gun, and if she didn’t fire, she would be left standing alone on the bridge, her failure displayed for all to see.

  Down below, the river swirled green and sparkling. Roimata imagined how nice it would feel to escape from the cauldron of chaos around her into the silent liquid oasis. Away from the pressure, away from the laughing, away from the fear. She closed her eyes and pictured herself diving deeper and deeper into the fresh, clear water. She loved the river, and always felt at peace when she was in it, like she was meant to be there. In summer she would spend hours swimming with her friends, and in winter they would build huts on the riverbank or play war on the mudflats. ‘Time’s up chicken!’ screeched Latisha, yanking Roimata back to reality. ‘It’s now or never!’

  With a nod from their leader, the first jumper launched off the top railing and into the air. Roimata had never seen a machine gun as long as this one before: the jumpers stretched right to the edges of what was considered to be safe jumping territory. One by one they soared into flight, before crashing down into the waiting waters below. Plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk: the machine gun rattled and rolled. Latisha stood at the very end of the long line, ready for her triumphant moment. The line soon disappeared, and Latisha readied herself for victory. ‘See you when I get back up’ she mocked, as she turned her back on the river and jumped off in reverse so that Roimata could s
ee her smirking face as she passed by.

  Heavy breath heaved in and out as Roimata watched Latisha’s body enter the water. ‘You have to jump; you HAVE to jump!’ she screamed to herself. Her hands lay as still as the concrete under her feet, steadfast and resolute in their grip on the bridge. She looked around for help, but the bridge was now empty. Only the figure of her brother George remained, still watching on silently from the end of the bridge. Roimata’s heart began to sink. ‘I can’t do it,’ she thought. ‘I am a chicken, just like George.’ Her head drooped to her chest and a single tear rolled down her hot red cheek. She started to climb back over the rail.

  ‘Latisha! Has anybody seen Latisha?’ Roimata’s red-rimmed eyes lifted to see a sudden commotion on the riverbank below. The jumpers were gathered at the water’s edge. Heads turned quickly this way and that, examining their ranks for the missing jumper. But she wasn’t there. ‘Roi, over there, look!’ interrupted a familiar but seldom heard voice. It was George. He had come running to where Roimata stood while she was watching the drama below. Ignoring her surprise at George’s unexpected outburst, Roimata traced the line of sight from his outstretched finger, which pointed directly at a spot in the river. There, about half a metre from the periscope twig, Roimata could clearly see something just below the surface of the water. It was Latisha, and she was stuck.

  ‘Oh my god she’s stuck George! We have to get some …’ But before Roimata could finish her sentence, George had cleared the bridge railing in one movement and was on his way down to the water. In an instant Roimata’s feet followed automatically, and she was sailing through the air. The rush of wind and the feeling of nothingness all around her made the milliseconds it took to reach the water seem like days. Thousands of thoughts swam through her mind all at once, crammed into her head by an adrenalin cocktail of fear and exhilaration. Was Latisha still alive? Could they get there in time? Would the old tree claim them too? How on earth had the two biggest chickens in town managed to jump off the bridge?