Cry of the Taniwha

by Des Hunt

  Puff, puff, pump, pump…

  One thing in Skulla’s favour was that he didn’t appear to be burnt. The topsoil that had buried him had also protected him from the boiling mud that followed. It was the sort of luck that might just save him. That and Matt’s effort. That’s if Matt could keep it up—it seemed to be so very tiring.

  Puff, puff, pump, pump…Count to thirty. Count to two. Count to thirty, then to two. Oh, so tiring. So incredibly tiring…

  ‘Matt! Matt!’

  His eyes opened with the shock of a voice being so close. Eve was leaning over him.

  ‘You were asleep.’

  He shook his head. Asleep? Why had he gone to sleep? Why was he feeling so dopey?

  ‘Go and look after Jackson,’ she ordered. ‘Just keep pouring water over his body. You’ll have to use your hands.’

  Again Matt shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness. Eve reached out and put her hand on his arm. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I feel so tired,’ he replied.

  ‘Help will be here soon,’ she replied. ‘It’s going to be all right, Matt. But you need to go to Jackson, and I need to work on this animal.’

  Matt climbed slowly to his feet.

  Eve took a deep breath before resuming the CPR.

  ‘Pooh!’ she said. ‘It stinks around here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ mumbled Matt, as he walked away. ‘It did at first.’

  Jackson was lying in one of the deeper pools of water. Even then, it only covered a part of his body. One side of his face was a mess of red patches and blisters. So it seemed were his hands, although it was harder to see them through the surface of the water. There was no knowing what the rest of his body was like, because it was covered with clothes. As Matt scooped up some water and dribbled it around the neck of the hoodie, he thought that it was probably the clothing that had saved the boy. Maybe the heat from the mud couldn’t get through the fabric. He knew enough not to check, though; if the skin underneath was burnt, then the clothes should be removed by experts. His job was to make sure everything stayed wet and cool.

  After working for a few minutes, he was beginning to feel better. He’d been dribbling water over his own burns and that seemed to have woken him up a bit as well.

  Jackson appeared to be breathing better, too. Maybe Eve was right. Everything was going to be OK. He looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes after he’d found Skulla; ten after he’d swapped with Eve. Surely help would arrive soon. Of course that assumed that Croke hadn’t just run off. ‘What a chicken-livered coward he turned out to be,’ Matt muttered to himself, staring in the direction of where help should arrive. ‘What a useless wimp.’

  ‘Who ith?’

  Matt’s attention jerked back to Jackson, who now had his eyes open and clearly focused on Matt. ‘Whoth a wimp?’ Jackson asked again.

  ‘Not you, Jackson,’ he said, gently touching the boy’s arm. ‘Not you.’

  ‘What about otherth?’ It was obvious that he was having trouble speaking.

  ‘Don’t worry about them. Just stay there and relax,’ Matt replied. ‘Help’s on its way,’ he added, before whispering to himself, ‘I hope.’

  That seemed to satisfy Jackson, for he gave a little nod of his head and then grimaced with the pain of it.

  ‘Look,’ said Matt. ‘I need to go and get Eve. You’ll be all right for a while. She’ll be back here in a moment.’

  This time, Jackson just moved his eyes in acknowledgement.

  ‘Eve!’ Matt yelled as he moved along the path. ‘Jackson’s awake. Do you want to swap over again?’

  There was no reply. ‘Eve!’ he shouted, with greater urgency. ‘Eve!’

  A moment later, he rushed into the explosion zone to find Eve slumped over Skulla’s chest.

  ‘Eve!’ he screamed, scrambling through the rubble towards her.

  The moment he got alongside her, the smell of sulphur hit him. ‘Hydrogen sulphide!’ he cried. Then he cursed himself for not having worked it out earlier. That was why he’d gone to sleep. Hydrogen sulphide was pouring out of the crater. Now it had affected Eve.

  He shook her, but there was no response.

  It took only a moment to work out what to do. If it was a choice between saving Skulla and saving Eve, the answer was simple: already Eve meant more to him than Skulla ever would. He crouched and took her in his arms, finding her heavier than he’d expected. With difficulty he got to his feet and staggered back across the rubble.

  ‘It’s all right, Eve,’ he said, more to convince himself than her. ‘We’ve just got to find fresh air.’ At least he hoped that was all he had to do. ‘Oh God!’ he cried to himself. ‘Why didn’t I work it out sooner?’

  Walking along the track was almost impossible. The weariness was back and Eve seemed so heavy, so very, very heavy. He forced himself to keep moving, knowing that he had to make it to the stream to be safe. But it seemed so far, so much further than before. He staggered on for a few more metres before he had to stop and take a rest. If he went on any further he’d fall over. After lowering Eve to the ground, he collapsed alongside her. He’d just rest for a moment and then get going again. Not for long at all. Just enough to recover and then…

  There were voices in the distance. They were calling out, but Matt couldn’t answer, even though he knew they had something to do with him. It was so hard to think clearly. Then one of the voices was much closer.

  ‘Here’s another two.’

  Somehow Matt managed to open his eyes to see a man wearing some sort of uniform leaning over him. Then as his eyes got more into focus he saw that there were lots of them.

  ‘Smell the hydrogen sulphide?’ said one.

  ‘Yeah!’ said another. ‘Get some oxygen into them.’

  One of them moved a mask over Matt’s face. He pushed it away, and tried to get up. ‘There’re others,’ he said, weakly.

  ‘Where mate?’

  ‘Jackson’s back there.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got him. Any more?’

  Matt raised an arm and pointed to the explosion zone. ‘One dead. The other might be alive. We’ve been doing CPR.’

  ‘OK, we’ll get him.’

  After that, Matt allowed the mask to be clamped over his mouth and nose. ‘Breathe normally,’ said a woman’s voice, easing him down to the ground. ‘You’ll soon be OK. Just relax.’

  Matt didn’t need telling twice. He lay back and let the professionals take over. At one stage he felt himself being lifted, and later he sensed that he was being moved on a stretcher, but he didn’t open his eyes. The relief of others taking care of him was one of the most wonderful feelings of all time. So far as he was concerned, they could keep doing it forever.

  Chapter 24

  Matt lay on a gurney in a corridor behind the crowded A and E Department of Rotorua Hospital. Nan had arrived, still wearing her croquet uniform. Eve’s parents were also there, having rushed back from a trip to Taupo. Eve had woken soon after the paramedics began administering oxygen, and was now recovering next to Matt.

  Jackson had been admitted to hospital where his mum was supporting him. Matt and Eve had already been praised for their quick actions in getting him into water. There were no burns to his body, only to his face and hands. The face was the worst, yet it was expected to heal without any disfigurement, although that could take weeks.

  Skulla was in critical care. His heart had been restarted, but it would be some time before it was known whether there had been brain damage or not. Matt wondered whether a bit of brain damage might help create a better person. While he had acted automatically in trying to save the gang leader, the thought that both he and Eve could have died in the process wasn’t helping him to think kindly of the man.

  As Matt had correctly diagnosed, Diz was dead, and had apparently been right from the start. His neck had broken when he fell back to the ground. He never felt the scalding water or the jetting steam, and probably died without pain.

  Croke had disappeared.
He hadn’t managed to build up the courage to ring the police, but as he ran away he’d run into Cecil Hilton who’d apparently remained in the area to check on what was happening. Somehow Croke had convinced him to call emergency services. Matt smiled at the thought of Croke’s methods of persuasion—Cecil probably would’ve needed to change his underpants afterwards.

  By late afternoon, Eve and Matt had been admitted to hospital for observation during the night. It was only precautionary, as they were expected to make a full recovery.

  Matt was put in a room with three old men who snored and farted all night long. Fortunately, he only heard them when woken by the nurse for his two-hourly check. After she’d finished, he quickly went back to sleep despite the racket created by his sleeping companions.

  In the morning, Eve visited him. She’d been around the hospital getting a report on the victims. Jackson was coping OK, but was a little dopey from the painkillers he’d been given. He wouldn’t be out of hospital for at least a week. Skulla remained in intensive care, where he was reported to be still on life-support systems.

  For the next hour, Eve entertained Matt with stories about the women on her ward and the things that were wrong with them, and how they’d performed during the night. The women’s ward sounded a much more exciting place than the men’s.

  Then the newspaper came around and they discovered that they were front-page news.

  Heroes Save Gangsta

  Below the headline was a large photo of the explosion zone. Other smaller photos showed the paramedics at work. Both Eve and Matt appeared, being carried out on stretchers—neither was recognizable. However, they’d reprinted the photo of Matt using the metal detector. There was also a photo of Skulla and his gang that had been taken some time back when the newspaper had done a series on Rotorua’s street gangs. The gang members were all trying to look tough, and Matt could imagine some readers wondering why anyone would go to the bother of rescuing them.

  At ten, Eve had to return to her ward for the doctors’ rounds, leaving Matt looking at the newspaper and thinking back on his time in Rotorua. He’d been there just on two weeks and had already been in the paper twice. He had uncovered a body, been involved in shoplifting, almost died in a hydrothermal explosion, and been labelled a hero. Plus it wasn’t over yet. There were still the diamonds. Something had to be done about them. It would be so easy to keep them. If not all of them, then just a few. Only he and Eve knew they existed, and as yet not even they knew how many there were. So how would anybody else know that some were missing? It was just so tempting.

  Of course, that was never going to happen. If he stole them, then he would worry about it for the rest of his life. He suspected Eve would be the same. It was a fun thing to talk about, but incredibly scary if you seriously considered doing it. He’d been worried enough about keeping the ponga piece even before they’d discovered it was full of diamonds. The sooner the thing was handed over to the authorities, the better. He decided that it would be the first thing he’d do after being discharged.

  It wasn’t. The first thing was a fancy lunch with Eve’s parents. It was partly a celebration and partly a farewell. Eve’s parents were on their way to Wellington in the afternoon. But Eve was not going with them; Nan had invited her to stay. She would now meet up with her parents in Auckland after Matt had returned to Dunedin. It was an invitation that Eve had been very happy to accept. Matt was also pleased: he could think of lots of interesting things they could do in the coming week.

  Nan and Hone joined them for lunch. The conversation was dominated by the explosion and its aftermath. The adults were clearly proud of Matt and Eve, and what they had done. Matt was pretty proud of their achievements, too. They’d coped with the emergency better than many adults would have done. He and Eve worked well as a team.

  Naturally, the conversation got around to the reason why they’d been in the danger zone in the first place.

  ‘What sort of people are these gang members?’ asked Mr Hastings. ‘What’s their background like?’

  ‘Varied,’ replied Hone. ‘Many come from homes where there’s very little money. Maybe only one parent, and that one’s working all the time.’

  ‘So they join the gang because of the money?’

  Hone shook his head. ‘No. Crime is not the primary reason for the gangs.’ He paused for a moment, sorting out what he should say next. Then he pointed to the Lions badge on the Australian’s jacket. ‘That’s why most youngsters want to be in gangs. They want to be part of a group. They seek the company and support of others, and the gangs provide that, in much the same way as adult clubs do. But of course when it comes to money, they’re vastly different. When a gang wants money, they find crime’s the easiest way to get it, which leads to drugs and all the things that follow on from there.’

  ‘So what’s the answer?’

  Hone laughed. ‘If I knew that, I’d be prime minister.’ Then he got serious. ‘There is no simple answer. I’m a member of an iwi group that is trying to come up with alternatives. We want to provide the same support as the gangs, but without the drugs, the violence and the crime. The problem is getting leaders who the kids will listen to. It’s got to be someone from the same sort of environment; someone who lives in the same sort of street and knows what the kids’ lives are like. And there’re not a lot of leaders like that around.’

  Soon after that, it was time for Mr and Mrs Hastings to leave. Following the farewells, those who were left walked back to the house, hoping that the exercise would help settle the excessive amount of food and drink they’d all consumed.

  As they approached the house, Hone said, ‘While you were being heroes yesterday, we had a bit of excitement of our own.’

  ‘Someone broke into the house,’ said Nan. ‘Broke the glass on the back door and climbed in.’

  Matt and Eve looked at each other in dismay.

  ‘Luckily nothing was taken,’ said Hone.

  ‘Nothing!’ cried Nan. ‘You call my baking nothing?’

  Hone put his arm around her. ‘No, dear. Your baking is wonderful.’ He turned to Eve and Matt. ‘That’s all that was taken. Some food out of the baking tins that were left on the bench. I reckon it was just kids. They were probably after alcohol and money, but we don’t have either of those in the house.’

  ‘So they ate my baking instead,’ added Nan.

  By then, they were walking down the drive. Matt was becoming increasingly nervous about the break-in. How could Nan and Hone know that nothing else was missing when they didn’t know Matt and Eve’s secret? There was one other thing in particular that could well be missing.

  The back door had plywood covering the broken glass. Matt studied it for a moment and agreed that it was probably kids: the hole was not wide enough for anyone bigger to get through it.

  As soon as he got the chance, Matt rushed to his room, still hoping that he might be wrong. He wasn’t: the ponga piece was no longer sitting on top of the dresser. Something else had been stolen. Something that had more value than the person who stole it could ever have imagined.

  Chapter 25

  On Monday, Matt enjoyed a well-deserved lie-in after the events of the past couple of days. It might also have been a matter of trying to postpone the things that needed to be done that day. The number one task was to try to find Ana, the girl who had tricked them into going to see Jackson—the one who may have seen the diamonds. He’d discussed it with Eve the previous night, and they’d decided that the best move was to find Ana and ask for the ponga piece to be returned. If that didn’t work, then they would contact Burty and Lew.

  Matt had the kitchen to himself, as Nan and Eve had gone shopping and Hone was at work. It gave him the chance to think as he ate his breakfast. The starting point for the day had to be a visit to the hospital to see Jackson. He didn’t want the boy to feel that they’d deserted him. Also, Jackson might be able to give them Ana’s address.

  He was working out what he might say if he found her, when hi
s thoughts were interrupted by a loud knocking on the back door, almost as if someone was trying to bash it down. The piece of plywood stopped him from seeing who was there, so it came as a shock to go out and see that it was Croke. His first thought was that the gang member had come to get revenge for the way he’d been spoken to after the explosion.

  ‘What do you want?’ Matt asked, stepping back a bit so that he could duck inside if things got ugly.

  Croke didn’t seem to have noticed the rudeness in Matt’s voice. In fact, he didn’t even look up at him. Instead, he mumbled something at his shoes.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Skulla’s awake.’

  Matt breathed a little more easily. It looked like he’d come to deliver news, not take revenge ‘That’s good. Is he OK?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what they reckon.’

  ‘Great! I’m pleased to hear that.’ Matt waited for the man to say something more. But all he seemed to be able to do was stand and stare at his feet.

  When he finally did speak again, it was so softly that Matt barely caught it. ‘Thanks. Thanks for what you did.’

  Matt digested that for a while. ‘You could’ve been more help, you know,’ he said, not unkindly.

  Croke gave a little nod. ‘Yeah, I know.’ Then a pause. ‘Sorry.’

  It was just a small word, but Matt recognized that for Croke it was one of the hardest words he’d ever had to say. It would not be a common word in his vocabulary, especially if he meant it; and Matt had no doubts that it was true. Croke was sorry: his body language communicated more than the word ever could.

  ‘Accepted,’ Matt said, simply.

  Instantly, Croke relaxed a bit—the hard bit was over. He looked up and saw the broken glass. ‘What happened there?’

  ‘One of your friends broke in,’ replied Matt.