the children were asleep, but Wiri widened his eyes at them in surprise. ‘Where's your mother, Wiri?’ she asked, knowing the answer already. ‘She at the party, Miss. Pungas', they having the party.’ ‘You shouldn't let Ra go off like that. She'll be getting into trouble. You don't want her growing up a bad girl, do you, and going off to gaol?’ ‘No, Miss,’ answered Wiri, dutiful but unconvinced. He remembered it was gaol where Lena went that time, and came back so clever, sewing clothes for the kids and all. Gaol couldn't be so bad. Ra crawled in obediently beneath the tattered blanket. ‘Now, off to sleep, and no more prowling, d'you hear?’ The candle was snuffed abruptly. Ra waited till the padding footsteps faded along the pathway; then she leant over the sleepers, and shook them awake urgently. They stirred, muttered, and looked at her with drugged eyes, over which the lids fluttered weakly. Ra turned to include Wiri in her ecstatic beam. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘hey, you fellers, you know what?’ The moon, shining mistily through the cobwebbed window, caught the gleam in her eye. ‘You know what?’, she asked again, triumphantly. ‘I rung it … I rung the bell!’

TWO POEMS by Valerie Fox

The Burial Cave They told me not to go. It was wrong for a stranger To walk such hallowed soil. To mock such sacred rite: They told me not to take their only god To stifle him between black printed text. I laughed. Could land so warm Could a hole of ancient myth This my home Harm so strong a love? Being a gentleman, he said ‘You wait here, I'll go first.’ Green fern fronds Waved for him His last goodbye. I dined alone that night.

Taku Kainga When I was a child we had to leave our home: It was a great adventure to me, but the others— old enough to learn shame and know the meaning of probing eyes went about with heads down, eyes squinting against tears that would, that must not show. It was like opening a story book and stepping in; only the covers would not quite fit, people could see. On that final morning, after we had all slept in a fowlshed, spread out on mattresses, pressed against the walls, I left without even saying goodbye.