THE DREAM Patricia Grace It was still dark when Raniera awoke from a disturbed sleep. In the night the dream had come to him. Carefully he groped back through the fuzz of his awakening, pushing his thoughts back into the dark moments of oblivion. The dream … What was it now? He had seen himself in his dream. Alone—standing on the soft bank of a deep muddy creek. Stooping, peering into the murky water, and something in his hand … a rope. Yes, a rope. Now it all came to him … the hinaki. His hinaki, sucked deep into the soft grey mud, and himself pulling on the rope knowing that the hinaki would be full of eels, because pulling took all his strength. Slowly the wire cage had surfaced and he had seen then that it was full, not with several cels as he had thought, but with one big eel … a tremendous eel—thick, black, coiled round in the hinaki like an inflated inner tube. And in his dream he had dragged his hinaki with the eel in it up the bank, and tipped the eel out onto the grass … the biggest eel he had ever seen. He had seen himself stoop over the eel, put a hand under each gill, and push his fingers around its slimy girth until his fingers touched under the belly. Then he had pointed his thumbs together over the eel's back and his thumbs had just touched. … There the dream had ended—with him stooping over the eel and measuring its girth with his hands. A hand on each side, thumbs touching, fingers touching. This, he felt, was the important part of his dream. What did it mean? He felt under the pillow for his Best Bets, then reached out to light the candle which was on a chair by the bed. Best Bets was open at the ‘second leg’. Slowly he read down the list of names, turning each carefully in his mind—looking for a connection with his dream: ‘Gay Ring, Prophecy Gold Stripe Fair Fellow' … Nothing about eels there. … ‘Lonely Boy’—lonely? Alone? He had been alone in his dream. … ‘Black Knight’—the eel was black, the creek dark … ‘Black Knight’. … ‘Prophecy’—hadn't he tried to prophesy what was in the hinaki? But he had been wrong, and that mean ‘Prophecy’ wouldn't come in. He scratched a line through ‘Prophecy’ with the burnt match head. … ‘Blue Smoke Dark Beauty Royal Sun Lucky Touch Guardian Foxwood' … He went over the dream again in his mind, then he put the book down, tipped his fingers together, tipped thumbs. A big eel. As big as that. There must be a winner there somewhere. He'd better get to town early to see Ben and the others, and they could all talk about the dream. Work it out. Must be a winner there somewhere. “E Hika. He aha te moemoea?” called Ben as Raniera stepped from the taxi and waved to the driver. “What's the dream?” “E tama, he tuna.” “Ei! Kia tika ra!” “Yeh! A big one this eel. Ka nui te kaita!” He showed Ben with his hands the size of the eel of his dream. And there under the white verandah of the T.A.B. his friends gathered to listen. Ben, Lucy, Monty, Hone, Ritimana, Haua. Raniera told them how he had been stooping, looking into the mud. They watched him carefully as he showed them how he had pulled the hinaki in, pulled it up the bank, tipped the eel onto the grass. ‘Wii!” he said. “A big eel—that size.” And he showed them how he had measured it with his hands … fingers touching under the belly, thumbs touching over the back. “Pai. Good dream ne?” said Haua. “E champion.”