other kids. I felt she had forsaken me and was very hurt. I turned to Pare and kissed her, but she was busy playing with the cat. I was alone and I felt very sorry for myself. Kara came in and said, ‘You're up at last.’ She laughed and the other girls laughed too. I ate my kai and then sat silently for a while. Hone came in. He had just finished milking the cow. ‘Gidday, coz,’ he greeted. ‘Gidday,’ I said. He put the milk pail down and some of the milk sloshed onto the floor. But Nanny didn't seem to mind. Hone came and sat by me. Then he said, ‘You want to come?’ I asked, ‘Where?’ ‘Just to look around.’ I nodded. Hone was about two years older than me and taller too. He had big shoulders and a lot of muscles. He swaggered a lot, but that was only for show. I liked him. We climbed to the top of the cliff and rested without speaking to each other. I looked back at the house and gasped. Hone laughed. ‘What's wrong, coz?’ he asked. ‘Look at your house,’ I said. ‘It's almost in the sea!’ He laughed again. ‘That's because it's high tide,’ he explained. ‘You want to come here in winter, we turn into a boat then!’ For a long time, I couldn't take my eyes from the house. It was very old and made of rusting corrugated iron, nailed firmly together. It was very small, a small tin shack standing on the sand, lazy smoke curling from the chimney. But the most surprising thing was that the sea lapped just a few feet away, like the edge of a slice of bread that someone had bitten. I could just imagine the house suddenly floating among the waves, floating, floating away…. ‘Don't you get scared?’ I asked. Hone shrugged his shoulders. ‘If we drown, we drown,’ he said. ‘Look over there.’ Hone pointed out to sea. A small row-boat bobbed among the glistening waves. I shaded my eyes. ‘Who's that?’ I asked. ‘That's Dad and Tamihana,’ he answered. ‘They're having a look to see if they caught any crayfish today. That's how we live.’ I looked at him, puzzled. ‘Does it take long to catch crayfish?’ He laughed. ‘You are a townie! You use pots to catch crayfish.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. Is that all that Uncle Pita does?’ ‘That's all, that's how we live. A good life.’ I looked out again. I wasn't so sure. Hone stood up. ‘Come on coz, there's still a lot to show you.’ We walked together along the cliff, Hone pointing out all the landmarks; where an old pa used to be, a small sandy cove where they usually went swimming, the cow bail, the neighbours' house so far away. We went down the track to the main road and watched the cars whiz past, the kids in back seats staring back at us. A big sheep truck rumbled by and the driver waved and honked his horn. ‘That's Uncle Jackie,’ Hone informed me. ‘He's one of your bones too.’ After a while, we turned back. ‘What you do at school?’ Hone asked. I told him that I was in Standard One and he said he was in Standard One as well, so I said I was dumb anyway. Because Hone was two years older than me, and he looked embarrassed. He said he was leaving school as soon as he was 15 and going to work on a station. I was envious. ‘What you going to do?’ he asked. I told him Mum wanted me to stay at school for a long time. ‘What for?’ I couldn't tell him. I didn't know. When we arrived back at the house, some of the other boys were playing Four Square with a tennis ball. Every now and then, they had to run after the dog, because he would rush up and grab the ball in his teeth and run away with it. ‘Get away, Spot!’ they would yell. And they would squabble that the ball had gone into somebody else's square. ‘Cheat! Cheat!’ they yelled. They saw me. ‘You want a game, coz?’ I joined them. We played for a long time and it was very exciting. I won a few games and Kopua told me, ‘You can play good.’ That made me feel very proud, but I wasn't so sure that I could because sometimes it seemed that they were letting me win. Especially Kepa who made such a fuss when he lost a point. ‘Don't be sore, snotty nose!’ one of the other boys would yell. The girls decided to join us, so Kopua made some more squares in the sand with a piece of stick and we played with ten squares. That was more exciting!