Aunt Effie is restless. She and her twenty-six nieces and nephews are off again in the scow Margery Daw on a treasure hunt across the pirate-infested waterways of the Hauraki Gulf and The Waikato. However, boat and crew become marvellously sidetracked: the scow is converted into a travelling cows...
In this sequel to The shaman and the droll, Ish attempts to rescue children terrorized by a cruel and primitive society where fear and supperstition rule.
When I wanted to see my father, Rose said his body was lost in the weeds. I lost my temper and hit her so she cried, Rose, my sister whom I loved. “You lying shit!” I spat. She ran after me. People watched, but nobody interfered. Bad luck is catching. &nb...
JACK PULLED BACK THE FOOT that had taken a step too far, turned, and bolted towards home. He stopped, crept back to the corner, and stood on the same spot—he knew exactly where he’d stood before because of a whitey bit of stone. Jack looked past Middletons’ lawsonianas towards the bend where the ...
It would keep getting out of the barn, and we’d warned it often enough. Even so, we were still upset when we heard it baaing, and the chewing and swallowing noises of the wild beast.We were even more upset when the wild beast finished eating the foolish sheep and looked at us through the keyhole....
We crossed and recrossed the Tungaro, taking only shingle fords. The spring floods were finished, the level low, the water warm as it would ever get. The smallest lambs and kids, and two of the older ones, I carried across. That was one of the few memories I had of Hawk, my father: helping the we...
“Just that smelly old dog sitting up in the cab and imagining he’s a Christian,” she said, coming back in. “You see your uncle doesn’t go bringing it inside.” “Aw.” “All right. Your uncle can bring it around so you can say hello through the window, ...
We filled our school bags and Aunt Effie’s waders with fat silver-belly tunas. “Throw the yellow-bellies back,” Aunt Effie said. “They taste of mud. “What did you learn at school today?” she asked on the way up to the house. “Kingaseeny,” Lizzie sai...
Chapter Five A Nice Time to be Coming Home; Mr Strap and the School Thumbscrews, Stocks, and Gallows; and The Rawleighs Man.After a big breakfast of two burnt crumbs of toast and half an empty eggshell, Billy put on his school bag and set off to walk to school in Waharoa. ...
Snip! 3 Snip! Snip! Most days flying to school we had to fight off attacks from Billy Kemp on his pony, Hiccup. Sometimes he was a Messerschmitt 109, sometimes a Spitfire that the Nazis had forced down and captured, it just depended. He’d come hurtl...
I SLID OFF THE STILE and took a few steps towards the stack. The cut ends of grass felt prickly under my feet. I took ten more steps, then another ten, and nobody noticed. By the time I got to where Clop finished his walk, I’d given up counting. Jerry grinned. “G’day, Maggie.” His face brown with...