‘Good cow, good cow.’ Hone laughed. ‘You want to have a go?’ ‘I've never milked a cow before,’ I said. ‘Come on, have a try.’ So I squeezed over and sat down on the stool. From below, Lottie was huge, and I was scared she might kick. ‘Good cow, good cow,’ I whispered. But I was scared. I pulled and pulled but no milk came out. ‘She's got no more,’ I said. But Hone was too busy laughing. ‘You look hardcase,’ he said. Lottie began to get impatient, and she moved. I jumped up. ‘You better finish,’ I said. He grinned and sat down. I was glad that at home we got our milk in bottles. We went back to the house and had breakfast. Afterwards, I went and watched Uncle Pita put the boat out. I wished I could go with him but he said, ‘Tomorrow, mokopuna, tomorrow.’ I watched him rowing quickly out to sea. All that morning, I played with my cousins. We went up a hill to some cabbage trees, and chopped some leaves off. Then we sat on the leaves and went sliding down the hill. That was fun! Afterwards, we made spears from toitoi and played war, yelping and screaming along the beach. Only, the girls didn't play fair. They refused to stay dead. ‘You missed, you missed!’ they would say. ‘Cheat! Ee, you cheat!’ we would yell. Nanny called out to us to come and have lunch, so we hurried back because we were very hungry. ‘You like pipis and pupus?’ she asked. Kara and I looked at each other. What was that? The children grinned and Nanny was very surprised. ‘E kore!’ she said. ‘What that Julia been feeding you kids?’ She shook her head and mumbled something in Maori. ‘Right.’ she said. ‘We'll get some this afternon and have a big feed at tea.’ ‘Hooray!’ my cousins yelled, so we did too. We hurried up, then, and the girls rushed through washing the dishes while I went with the boys collecting the kits and knives. Nanny said that we may as well get some pauas for Uncle Pita as he loved them. ‘So do we!’ yelled the kids and rolled their eyes and licked their lips to show Nanny how much they liked pauas. So we took knives to prise pauas from the rocks. ‘Hurry up!’ Nanny kept saying. ‘We haven't got all day.’ She cut some slices of Maori bread to take with us, and filled a flagon with cordial. ‘Kia tere!’ she called. ‘We're ready! We're ready, Mum!’ my cousins answered. We pushed through the door and skipped along the beach. Nanny puffing after us. ‘Hold your horses!’ she yelled. We looked back at her and giggled. Even Pare could run faster than Nanny. We circled the beach, skipping through the sand and waded across a small inlet where seagulls were basking. The seagulls flapped away with furious noises cackling, ‘How dare you, how dare you disturb us!’ A bright blue kingfisher scooped low across the inlet, flashing its reflection across the water. ‘Hurry up, Nanny!’ we called. She picked up her petticoats and splashed carefully towards us. ‘Wait your hurry!’ she yelled. When she joined us, we ran away again, towards the reef. When Nanny caught up, she plonked herself on the beach. We were already in our togs and running into the sea. ‘Come on, Nanny!’ But she just sat there, her puku heaving, and flapped her hand. ‘You go ahead,’ she said, ‘Nanny's going to have a little moe, she's tired.’ We waded into the sea. We had shoes on, because Nanny had said that the reef was sharp. Albert and I paired up. He gave me the sack to hold. He reached into the water, underneath a ledge, and tugged. ‘This a paua,’ he told me. In his hand, he had a big shell and inside was a long black rubbery looking paua. ‘You got to be quick,’ he said, ‘because if the paua feels your hand, he sticks tight to the rock and you got to use a knife to get him out. Here, you have a try.’ I put my hand down among the seaweed. I was scared because a crab might bite me. Or maybe a giant clam would clamp my hand and not let go, just like I'd seen in the pictures. ‘Ouch!’ I yelled. ‘Something prickly down there!’ Albert laughed. He grabbed underneath and pulled out a brown spiny thing. ‘This is kina!’ he said. ‘You eat that?’ I asked in wonder. Albert licked his lips. ‘Kina's beaut!’ he said. I opened the bag and he dropped the kina in.