THE TOY

Te Ao Hou, 1971, Page 12

THE TOY One afternoon coming home from school, Nick found the engine of his toy was missing (the one with the man on a motor cycle inside a wheel that turned over and over when you wound it up). Someone had removed it. He was struck numb on discovering this. He had kept the toy under the spare bed in his room out of sight but knew that it could easily be found. He began to wonder who could have held a grudge against him to do a thing like that. Who had he offended? Or who had he argued with lately? His thoughts went immediately to his sisters, his playmates. One of them had done it. But surely they couldn't have done a thing like this, he thought? This was malicious, unforgivable. No, he was positive they couldn't have stooped so low. Then he was aware that someone was standing in the doorway. The boy looked up with a start. Tears were already beginning to come into his eyes now, after the initial numbness. It was Luke. He was standing there with a half grin on his face, looking at the ravaged toy that the boy held in his hand. ‘Surely he couldn't have done it’, Nick thought, ‘and if he did, why?’ But the way his brother stood there with that half grin on his face, left no doubt in the boy's mind that he did. Already the poison was beginning to rise into the boy's brain. He was never sure what his brother was capable of doing. The boy's mind became numbed and confused and he looked at his brother with incredulity. ‘I'll put it back for you later on.’ Luke was saying. But the boy hardly heard what he had said. Finally he could contain his emotions no longer and blurted out. ‘What have you done? Why did you do it? My toy.’ I'll put it back for you later on, I promise,’ Luke said. He was trying to laugh to show the boy how silly he was for taking it so hard. The boy was crying aloud now, holding the toy to him, no longer trying to restrain his emotions. ‘You've broken it,’ he cried, ‘you'll never fix it again.’ Luke grew a little annoyed at this. ‘Course I'll fix it,’ he said. ‘I just took it out for a little experiment. I'll put it back when I'm finished.’ ‘Just for an experiment,’ the boy thought. And his toy was hardly a month old. ‘You'll never fix it again,’ he cried. And in his heart he knew that his toy would never be the same again. He hated his brother in that moment, hated him with an intensity that almost made him scream. He hated that person who could do such a callous thing and then was able to stand there and say in a calm voice, as if nothing was really the matter, that he was ‘just trying out a little experiment’, with no show of feeling whatsoever. And the toy had been almost the whole world to the boy at the time. Luke got into a bit of a panic then. He had not expected his brother to get into such a state over it. Trying to compensate for his action, and with the silly grin still playing round his mouth, he said, ‘Come on. I'll show you what I did with it.’ The boy went with him out onto the verandah, stumbling blindly along, telling himself that nothing could make up for the loss of his beloved toy. In one corner of the verandah, sitting on top of an empty tea chest, Luke had a truck of his own designing and make. It was a crudely made thing but quite cleverly done. And as he lifted the thing and exposed the underside, Nick saw the engine of his toy. The boy almost wailed in anguish. Luke put it down quickly. Stand-

xing there, Nick waited for his brother to start the thing up. ‘It doesn't go yet,’ Luke said. ‘I haven't finished it yet. It still wants a few things done to it. But it'll go all right.’ He sounded so self-assured. But the thing never ever went, apart from a few lurches on the work-shop bench much later on when Luke said he finally had the thing finished and all the children gathered in there to witness it. And Nick somehow knew that the thing never ever would go. His engine wasn't made to propel as heavy an object as Luke's truck. But Luke doggedly persisted, and the engine of Nick's toy remained there for over a month, the spring getting weaker and weaker, the more Luke wound it and the more it strained to push that great weight along. Finally Luke gave up and one afternoon when Nick came home from school he found the engine of his toy back in place again. But by now the spring in it had been so weakened that it didn't go nearly as well as it had done before Luke had taken it out. On hearing this all Luke had to say was, ‘Course it does. It's just as good as it used to be. What's the matter with you boy?’ After that it didn't take much for the boy to grasp hold of as an excuse for hating his older brother. Mental and Social Health Week About 1,000 people attended one or more sessions during a five-day Mental and Social Health week organised at Taumarunui by the Taumarunui and District Maori Education Advancement Society. The Mayor, Mr L. A. Byars, who declared the week open, commended the Society on its initiative. There was no suggestion that because a Maori organisation arranged the campaign Maori people suffered more from mental or social illnesses than the European or that they were more prevalent at Taumarunui than at any other town. But social and mental health laws a community concern on a National basis, which could not be taken for granted. As the official party arrived for the opening addresses at the Taumarunui War Memorial Hall it was greeted by a powhiri by members of the Te Rangatahi Maori Group. The opening address, on bi-cultural relations, was given by the Director of the Mental Health Division, Dr S. W. P. Mirams. Other speakers included the medical officer of health, Wanganui, Dr C. M. Collins, a child psychologist from Hamilton, Dr J. Blackburn, the assistant director (medical) for the Plunket Society, Auckland, Dr Margaret Liley and the head nurse at Tokanui Mental Hospital, Mr J. Nolan. There were several panels, some of which were questioned by teenagers. Mr M. Te Hau, Auckland University, took part in two of the panels, one on factors causing mental stress and the other on ‘Areas of Assistance’. New Telford Trainee A Manunui boy, Derek T. Kapinga, was the only Maori boy selected by the Department of Maori and Island Affairs for the 1970 intake at the Telford Farm Training Institute at Balclutha. Derek was accredited his University Entrance examination at Taumarunui High School during 1969. He was a prefect, senior champion athlete for 1969, a member of the first fifteen and of the King Country secondary schools Rugby team. He is a member of the Ngati Tuwharetoa and Ngati Maniapoto tribes and his parents farm in the Ngapuke Valley at Manunui. After completing his year at Telford, Derek hopes to take an agricultural course at Lincoln.