‘To a funeral, Moko. My goodness what a dirty face! Did you wash before you came to school?’ Moko opened brown eyes in injured astonishment. ‘Oh, yes, Miss. Course I did, Miss. Big tangi, Miss?’ No, Moko, no tangi. And don't tell stories. You go right off and wash now, go on.’ She watched him disappear round the corner of the school, bare feet dragging, heard him muttering to himself, and the sudden angry spurt of the tap. Why did they have to tell lies, she thought, vexedly. Perhaps it was her fault, the way she went about things. Maybe she wasn't positive enough. She remembered the lines of the college text-book, almost their exact position on the page—‘Be positive. Never frame your questions so that the child is tempted to lie. Confront him with the fact.’ Hmm, very easy in theory. She turned, and went in out of the sunshine, into the cool porch that never quite lost its smell of old coats, and discarded tennis shoes and disinfectant. On that morning of all days, there had to be a new entrant. She had thought she knew all the ones coming on, but not this one. Where did this one spring from? Back from a prolonged loan to some aunt or other, she supposed; you could never get them sorted out into proper relationships. The newcomer was a girl. She came as they all did, unheralded and unsung, hiding behind the others, and discovered only when the bell brought some sort of order out of the play-ground hurly-burly. She hung back at the door, and refused at first to come in at all. ‘Who is she? Whose sister is she?’ ‘It's Ra, Miss.’ ‘Your sister, Wiri? Well, don't leave her there. Bring her in. It's nearly second bell.’ Ra was as shy as a rabbit. Every time she was spoken to, she put both hands over her face, and hung her head, so that her hair hung down like a curtain. She stayed that way by the blackboard, unmoving except for one splayed brown foot, which, pivoting back and forth on the big toe, explored a dusty crack. Only when the bell was rung did she stir. First one hand, then the other, slid downward; one stayed at chin level, the mouth opening automatically to receive a dirty thumb; the other stayed poised in mid-air curled over on itself like a frond of summer bracken. Her eyes lit up at the sound of the bell, and she smiled with sudden pleasure. The woman smiled back, warmly. ‘It's a nice bell, isn't it, Ra?’ You couldn't help being fond of them, especially when they smiled at you like that. Though they often let you down so that you swore ‘never again’, though they sometimes got into moods so black it was like looking into a bottomless pit, yet, in spite of it all, when they turned on that eye-dancing smile, you felt it was the best job in all the world. The day didn't go so badly in spite of her having two rooms to watch. She set the standards to work, and left them to it. Riki and Monica, the big girls, she let off to help with the infant reading and to take the smallest ones out to play. At the end of school she knelt down beside the newest entrant, and sitting back on her heels, asked kindly— ‘Well, Ra, how did you like school?’ Then, hastily, (be positive) ‘School was good, wasn't it, Ra?’ But Ra was not to be drawn. She clenched one hand over her pocket, and hid her face with the other. The woman's eyes followed the direction of the lowered hand, idly, with amusement, until … ‘Ra, have you been taking … Ra, you have something in your pocket. Let me see.’ Confront them with the fact, said the book. ‘You have some of teacher's crayons, haven't you? Show me.’ No answer. ‘I thought so.’ The crayons, disinterred and laid out, were like so many pitiful little corpses on the desk top—a red one, two black, and a yellow. ‘That was very naughty, Ra. You mustn't take things that belong to teacher. Do you hear? You must never take things from school. It's very bad. Now run along home.’ Young monkey, she thought to herself, as she crossed the playground wearily on her way to the house. I'll have to watch her. First day at school, too. There was a high wind that night. It made a roaring in the poplars like the sound of the sea. At each fresh gust the branches of the lilac swept fretfully against the house wall. She lay restless in the big bed, listening to the scrabbling branches with growing irritation. I meant to cut it back, she reproached herself, now it'll scratch all night. Borne fitfully on the wind came the sound of singing. There was a party after all; she had forgotten it was a year since the Pungas' baby had arrived. Anyone's birthday was a good excuse for a party. Now they were hard at it—the guitars