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 mob had disappeared, and thought he saw something move. He yelped again. What if it was a cannibal swagger coming to punish him for taking a step too far? After Jack had told Harry and Minnie about the swagger down Cemetery Road, Harry told his mother, and she warned him that swaggers eat little boys. Mrs Jackman told Jack that was nonsense, and he had believed her—but now he wasn’t so sure. He looked again, and saw the road was empty, but he was sure he’d seen something move. He looked at the deep drain beside the road, one of that network of drains his father had described to him, which finished up running into the Waihou River. The drain was overgrown. A hungry swagger could creep along it, and you’d never see him till he leapt out.
