And Did Those Feet ... (7 page)

WHEN the days were fine we would make the trek up into the bush. The farm went all the way to where the land rears up steeply into the foothills of Mount Taranaki. There was a little stream which flowed through the farm. Iain had speared a big eel there the previous summer. The boys were determined to show me the Crystal Pool, so we followed this stream into the deep bush. I always thought that I was quite fit but picking my way through the tangle of creepers that littered the stream bed was shattering. It was a slow, hard climb in the hot sun, squeezing through gaps and climbing over rocks as big as houses. I can tell you rocks that size are tricky to climb, especially in gumboots. After about twenty minutes we all stopped talking and just moved on doggedly, trying to save our energy. The only sounds were our panting gasps and Jamie singing softly to himself. I didn’t mind the singing here because it seemed to give us a walking rhythm.

Then, just like that, we were there. It’s completely hidden until you squeeze through the manuka and there’s a pool
about the size of a tennis court with a waterfall at one side. It looks as if no one has ever been here before. It’s really quiet, all you can hear is a trickling noise, the wind doesn’t blow, it sort of passes over the top and the water is that green colour you see when you look at a piece of glass from the side.

It’s a perfect place. Everything is just where it should be. Placed with precision and care. I can’t imagine anything more beautiful. All I could do that day was sit on a rock nearby struggling to take it all in.

The others stripped off their clothes and jumped in. They’d been there before and knew what to expect. They must have forgotten what it felt like to see something like this for the first time. How you’re sort of winded by beauty.

All I wanted to do was stare at it. Let it pour into me, and fill every part with its perfection. I wished I could memorise every stone, every fern leaf, the soft green moss I sat on. Part of me knew there was something in this place.
Something
would make me stronger. Not my muscles, but on the inside where things were not good. Maybe feed the things that were shrivelled or dying.

I could have easily sat there all afternoon but the boys kept calling for me to come. I stood up slowly, my legs stiff from the climb, took my clothes off and jumped in. The water was breathtakingly cold. It shocked me like a punch to the heart. So cold in fact, that I couldn’t speak: now that’s real cold, I can tell you.

Amazingly enough, after a while my body got used to it and soon I was diving to the bottom with the best of them. Jamie and Iain showed me a trick they do. You put a
boulder on your lap and sit on the bottom. Then you can enjoy the underwater world without constantly struggling to stay down. At one stage there were three of us all
sitting
around, like we’re having a conversation: with huge globs of bubbles coming out of our mouths, hair floating above our heads, and all the while, we were nursing these big rocks like babies. From where we were seated you could look around the whole pool from side to side. I watched one of the twins dog-paddling his way across the silver surface.

Later, when we were all beginning to look a bit blue around our straggly bits we stretched out on the huge
boulders
at the waterfall end. No one had brought a towel so we dried out just lying there.

“What’s your greatest dream, Sandy?” asked Dougal.

I couldn’t think of one. “I dunno, what’s yours, Iain?”

“We often play this, it’s Mum’s game really. When I was younger I had this ambition to drive a road train across
Australia.”

“Road train, what’s that?”

“It’s a truck they have out there, a truck with six trailers. Now I think I would like to climb this mountain in Hawai’i and look into its crater. There’s a lake in it, full of molten rock.”

I’m sure he had the wrong place, Hawai’i is big waves and hula girls but Iain insisted he’s read about it in the
National Geographics
at school so that’s good enough for me.

“How about you, Jamie?”

He looked sort of thoughtful. “I’m not sure any more. I don’t seem to have those big dreams so much. I suppose
getting to sing in a big concert would be kind of cool but I s’pose that’s not the sort of thing you mean. Okay, the
concert
would be a free concert and it would be in the Sydney Opera House. Yeah, that’ll do.” He looked quite pleased that he’d been able to add a few details.

“Okay little dudes,” I said, “What’ll it be for youse?”

They put their heads together and all you could hear was mumbling for a while and then one said, “No, no, no, that’s not it,” and then they carried on again.

“Right, we’ve got it.”

“Well, what is it?”

“I would like a girlfriend,” said Dougal, like it was a bar of chocolate.

Iain gives a surprised laugh and says, “Why’s that?”

“I want a girl to kiss.”

Well, everyone laughed at that, it just came out of the blue. I like the way little kids say this stuff without worrying about what people will think. Really cracks me up. I wish I was like that.

“How about Ewan?” I ask. I was curious to see if he would be tempted to talk.

But he wasn’t. It was Dougal who piped up again. “He wants to go to the zoo and talk to the animals.”

I see Jamie nodding like it’s the most normal thing in the world. You would have got murdered for that at my school.

“So?” says Jamie.

“So what?”

“So you’ve heard ours, now what’s yours?”

My dream was hovering just above my head, I could almost
say it but I didn’t. It was about Mum you see, all the danger lights were flashing. Part of me wanted to say it so much but there was another part, a stronger part that said, “Don’t you dare, that stuff stays here.”

They all stared at me wondering what was going on. Like, what’s the big deal? Finally I said, “I would like to go up Mount Taranaki. Play in the snow.”

They all laughed and I couldn’t stand it. I felt my face redden, I know things were bad so without saying a thing I stood up and dove straight into the deepest part of the pool. There I grabbed onto a rock and stayed under until my lungs were bursting. It is a safe place down there but I had to come up some time.

When I surfaced everything had changed. There was a cloud over the sun and the two older boys were putting on their clothes. Our pool time had finished. Something had gone. We made our way down the mountain hardly
talking
for the first half hour. I was doing my best to fix the good things that happened into my head. I wanted to keep them there for my black days when everything seems wrong. Seems hopeless.

When we left the bush and clambered over the fence onto the first farm paddock, Jamie started to whistle again and I sensed that maybe things were better after all.

DURING the week the boys went off to school on the bus. Sometimes in the mornings I would go and wait with them at the gate. Uncle Frank suggested that I might like to go in with them, see what country schools were like. I couldn’t see the point. Sure it was a bit boring when the others had all gone, but then it wasn’t like I was staying much longer, was it? Before long Dad would be on the blower and I would be back at my own school, picking up where I left off.

At the end of the first week something special happened. On Sunday night there was a meeting of the New Jerusalem League. It was made up of maybe ten other families. Most of the ‘Leaguers’ lived around the mountain and would drop in from time to time, but others came from as far away as Foxton, so we only got to see them at these gatherings.

When everyone had arrived there were maybe forty people altogether. I noticed that quite a few of the men had beards like Uncle Frank, and the women dressed in sort of hippie clothes like Aunty Lorna. Some of them seemed really poor though, like they were wearing clothes from the charity shop.

The adults had this sort of routine, they would go around everyone else when they arrived, making sure they shook everyone’s hands, even the babies’ hands. This must have been some sort of New Jerusalem tradition. I remembered being impressed by it when I first arrived on the bus. After this they would wander over to the big veranda which wound its way all around the outside of the Palace of Wisdom. Uncle Frank had built seats there and everyone would sit around talking and waiting for the others to arrive.

Eventually, there would be a sort of roll call and when they were sure that everyone was accounted for, the adults would go inside. At times during the afternoon I peeped in through the door to see what was going on. There was a circle of seats and they seemed to take turns standing up and talking to the others. As well as the talking there seemed to be plenty of laughing, and a fair bit of singing and reciting poetry.

Meanwhile us kids chased each other around the lawn, just being like kids anywhere I guess. Specially kids who haven’t got television.

Eventually we tired of this and went off to the barn to show the others our huts in the hay bales. Because there were many of us now we had to make a big one which could hold everyone. It was surprising how quick and easy it was when everyone was working together. We had really
struggled
building the little huts. After a while we had a new hut built and guess what? It was six-sided. I don’t know how or why that happened but I suspect it was Iain’s design. There were twelve of us and we all sat in a circle with our backs
against the walls and our feet in towards the middle. We had to leave the top open because the room was too big to be spanned by a roof.

One of the kids was a girl about my age, called Lara. She suggested that we have a story telling contest. I figured it was because she had a big story she wanted to tell and I was right. Wouldn’t you know it, there was a magic kingdom called the Land of Doppi, where people walked round just below the surface of the earth like shadows, the soles of their feet touching our own. They did everything in a way that was the opposite of how we do things. She seemed to go on for ever about how the Doppis cried when they were happy and laughed when they were sad, and how their mothers did all the heavy work because they were so strong and how their fathers just seemed to bake cakes and look after the kids all day.

There was only so much of this I could take because it was all about details. Not enough happened. Too much about feelings and relationships, which as everyone knows, is girl territory. I started jiggling around and she got grumpy. I got the feeling that she had been told that this was a crash hot story and had been listened to for hours.

“If you’re so brilliant, you make one up,” she said.

So I did.

I made up this story about three superheroes who are a bit like Jamie, Iain and me. Their names are Justin Case, Tony Footsore, and the me-one who’s known as Bolt Upright,
Secret
Agent. We have to perform a number of difficult feats to save our tribe from Certain Doom, who is the ruler of the
neighbouring kingdom. We each have special powers and we use them in brilliant ways. Justin Case can invent things out of ordinary objects, he’s like part inventor, part
super-handyman;
and Tony Footsore is able to use his voice to mellow people out: just the story when you are being chased by angry cannibals or giant bees. Bolt Upright seems to only have one talent and that is for getting into trouble, so it’s handy to have these other two around. I’m really getting into it when the gong goes for lunch and all the others make me promise to complete it later. The twins were hanging out for more about those giant bees. I could see Lara’s face in the gloom across the circle: it looked real pouty.

We all assembled in the Palace, as the boys called it, for a feed. I was really hungry by that stage and dying to bog in but there was a little waiting period before anyone could start. We sat on the circle of chairs with the others in our families. When I saw the kids and adults combined I realised there was quite a mob of us, especially for the country where more than four people is considered a crowd. Slowly our chatter died away and I noticed that even the kids all began to “serious up”. Finally Uncle Frank stands up and recites

It’s a good poem, my mum used to read it to me in bed sometimes from a book called
Leaves of Gold.

When he got to the end a few of the adults muttered “Spoken,” which I guess is like “Amen, Brother!” After that, we all stood and Aunty Lorna began to sing a song. Now I
could see where Jamie gets his singing voice from. Her voice filled that room like warm air. It began like this:

After this everyone else joined in. Surprisingly, I did to. Somehow it’s a song I know. We used to sing it in assemblies at school. There’s a freaky coincidence eh?

When we got to the part which goes “
Till we have built, Jerusalem
…” everybody in the hall really went for it. Really rattled the windows.

After that we all got stuck in to the food. This kind of food isn’t my favourite. Once again it was honey this, honey that. Bees are pretty important to this bunch. The cakes were heavy and tasted a bit like carrots. You had to swamp them in whipped cream to get them down. Uncle Frank broke out some stuff called mead. It comes from bees too but it’s strictly for the adults, which, to put it another way, means it’s some sort of wine. After a while everyone’s cheeks seemed a bit redder and some of the men sure got loud. I know what that’s about. Same old, same old.

It was getting to be night-time so we kids organised a game of hide-and-go-seek in the dark. When night falls in the country it is very dark at first, only lightening up when the stars come out.

When it was my turn to look for everyone I had to do it with my ears rather than my eyes. I fell over Ewan who was lying right in front of me, as quiet as a mouse. It’s a hard enough game in the day time but at night, in long grass, it’s
almost impossible. You have to want to be found, otherwise you’re in for a long wait, lying there in the damp. The trick is to give the others a few signals in the form of squeaks or farting noises maybe. What it means is “I’m sick of this, how about finding me?” Before long we had found everyone except Lara.

I got the idea that she’d joined the Doppi and was now living underground doing everything the other way round. We searched everywhere but with no luck. There were no signs and no noises. She was nowhere to be found. It was like she had disappeared off the face of the planet. It was hopeless.

We were getting a bit worried. It wasn’t like a game any more. Not fun. Someone went off and told the adults. Soon I saw them all coming out of the Palace carrying torches. It was a full-on search. I noticed that there was a tense feeling amongst us, everyone knew that this had gone on too long. I heard someone say, “It’s not the first time she’s done something like this. She’s very stubborn…” I felt a bit guilty. I couldn’t help feeling that it was partly my fault. I shouldn’t have outdone her in the story telling. It wasn’t that
important
to me. Honest.

I have always hated searching for things. Now I
discovered
that this includes people. For a moment I remembered those searches I forced on poor Yoke-Lin when I hid her stuff. No wonder she left us.

After about twenty minutes I was really sick of looking but I felt I should keep on just for appearances. I wandered off to talk to Pimpernel. I was sure that at least he would
have something useful to say on the matter.

It is hard to spot a black pig in the dark so I was pleased to find that he was standing by the fence waiting for me when I got near his paddock. I clambered over the squeaky wires and sat down beside him with my arm around his neck. I had to explain the whole situation from beginning to end. He’s a good listener, never interrupts. Finally I said, “I don’t know where she is, do you?”

You can see why I kept these human-to-pig conversations to myself eh? It’s not a good look.

Pimpernel went “Nnnnnnnnnnnngh” and then flicked his curly tail in a special way. I know what that means. It means “Follow me”. We wandered across the paddock to where Satan was chained up to his kennel. Pimpernel stood just outside the range of the chain staring. He’s pretty smart when it comes to Satan, he knows to keep his distance.
Immediately
I realised what he was telling me. Of all the
possible
places on the farm to hide, she had chosen the worst. Lara was hiding in Satan’s kennel.

I wandered around peering at the dark opening. It was impossible to see anything inside. I called out “Lara!” but there was no answer. I looked over at Satan, he seemed pretty uninterested and was pulling grass noisily out of the ground nearby. Failure was not an option.

I was going to have to go in.

I knew what that meant … being on my knees in front of the goat kennel with a sex-mad Satan right behind me.

Do I go in or is it best to get the adults?

Of course getting the adults would be the easy option, but
that also meant giving away some of the glory. I wouldn’t do that. I wracked my brains for a cunning plan. I was
determined
to use my superior intelligence, to show Satan why he was just a black goat tied to a box in the paddock while I was able to wander around doing what I liked. It wasn’t a great plan but it was all I could come up with in the space of thirty seconds or so. I would rush forward and dive into the kennel before the goat guessed what was happening.

I turned away and wandered off a bit like I had lost
interest
. Pimpernel stood staring at me, knowing something was up, probably nervous on my behalf. Out of the corner of my eye I watched, waiting until the goat was occupied with a particularly tough tuft of grass, then I sprinted forward and dove into the dark hole. Next thing I knew was
clonk
! I had banged heads with Lara who had been watching me all the time from her little hidey hole.

“Gaaaar!” she screamed.

I was pretty stunned but I had just enough brain power to get my hind legs safely inside the goaty smelling chamber.

“You idiot … idiot … idiot. Why did you do that?”

I could feel a big lump coming up on my forehead. “I couldn’t see you … and I had to beat the goat.”

“You nearly knocked me out.”

“I nearly knocked
me
out too.”

My
brain damage didn’t seem to matter to her. We were both crammed into this little kennel hardly able to move. It looked as if I would have to go out bum first, something I wanted to avoid at all costs.

We waited for a while crammed tight, wondering what
to do. I managed to turn around so I was facing outwards. There was just enough room to squeeze my throbbing head along the tin roof of the kennel. My hair did a good job
removing
all the spider webs at the same time. Eventually we were both lying in the same direction and I could feel Lara’s breath on my face. I don’t think I had ever been so close to a girl before. It was strange and sort of exciting. Much as I wanted to get out of the smelly goat box there were good reasons for staying in there too.

Satan came over. He lowered his head sort of casually
until
it filled the entire doorway. His horns were gleaming in the moonlight and his jaws were chewing hard. The kennel was swamped in goat breath. This was serious. He was a truly evil goat and now he wanted to make it clear that he had us exactly where he wanted us. He was gloating. There’s nothing worse than a gloating goat.

“Well, Bolt Upright,” Lara said, “how are you going to get us out of this one?” She paused to let it sink in and then she said, “I know, you will tell the goat a few snappy one liners and we can make our escape while it’s laughing its horns off.”

Her voice was full of sarcasm. I knew that she was paying me back for not respecting her Doppi story.

“Maybe we can join the dopeys, go underground.” It was all I could manage.

She thrashed around at this and banged my nose with the top of her head. I jerked my head back suddenly and banged it against the roof of the kennel. This rescue wasn’t going well.

“Who’s in there?”

It was an unfamiliar voice. I was trying to track it when Lara yelled out, “We are. Lara and Bolt Upright.”

“Everyone’s looking for you,” said the voice. “Why don’t you come back?”

“The goat!” I yelled. “He won’t let us.”

“Oh,” was the response.

A little while later the goat’s head disappeared and there was a grunting sound.

“Come on out now. It’s okay.”

I wriggled slowly out expecting some trick to be played on me and to feel goat hooves on my shoulders. When I was completely out I turned and saw that the voice had come from Ewan. It was the first time I had heard him say anything louder than a mumble. His voice was light and sweet. Sort of delicate. But that wasn’t the only strange thing. There he was, sitting on the back of Satan holding his horns. And Satan was letting him. Lara wriggled out next and stood up slowly and stiffly by my side.