and even my toes and I looked up at the sky and let my words grow wings and flutter away… I heard voices calling, soft and far away. ‘Cousin, where are you coz?’ Then giggles rippled round me and whispered words said, ‘Sssh!’ ‘Ssssh!’ So I closed my eyes pretending I had not heard them coming. ‘We've found you! We've found you!’ the voices screamed. ‘What are you doing here?’ Kara asked. ‘Come on! We're going to have a ride on the horses!’ She grabbed my hand, and we ran down the hill, chasing the sun as it rippled over the fields. ‘There they are!’ Albert pointed. Far away, grazing near a small cluster of trees, were three old horses. We scrambled over the fence and ran toward them. The horses looked up, startled, pricking up their ears and whinnying anxiously to each other. ‘Don't frighten them,’ Sid whispered urgently. ‘Don't frighten them!’ We divided into groups. Each group surrounded a horse. Closer and closer we circled. ‘How we going to catch them?’ I asked Sid. ‘Just jump on,’ he answered. ‘It's easy.’ I wasn't so sure. We drew nearer to the horses. ‘Easy, boy, easy,’ Albert whispered to the one we were after. ‘Easy, boy.’ His words were liquid and cunningly kind. He put his hand on the horses's mane. The horse quivered and shied away. But it was too late, for in a trice, Albert had leapt onto its back. He gave a yodel and kicked the horse with his bare feet. Away the horse went, drumming across the paddock. I watched with admiration; my cousin was clever! By now, the other two horses had also been mounted. Sid was on one and Grace on the other, grasping hold of the manes and flying quickly in pursuit of Albert. We ran after them and Grace looked back at us, her hair streaming and her dress hitched into her pants. ‘Heiaho. Heiaho!’ she screamed. At the other end of the paddock, we bustled round the horses, trying to get the first ride. ‘Let me ride too!’ Pare yelled. ‘I want to ride the horthy too!’ So Grace leant down and pulled her up behind her. Away they went, thrumming across the grass, Pare's little bottom bouncing up and down as she clung tightly to Grace. ‘Come on,’ Albert said. ‘Let's get after them. We'll show that Grace!’ I tried to jump on behind him but the horse was too big. So Albert gave me his arm and hoisted me on. He kicked the horse in the flanks and away it went. I closed my eyes because I was scared. Kara, Pare and I had never ridden on a horse before and it was harder than it looked, especially without a saddle. It was very bumpy and the horse was so slippery! ‘Hang on, coz,’ Albert yelled when he felt me slipping off. ‘Hang on!’ He kicked the horse faster still and we were almost at the fence! Surely we would crash, or maybe we would jump! I held on tight and screwed up all my fears, but just before we reached the fence, the horse staggered to a stop. But I'm sure my heart jumped over, because I felt all empty inside. ‘You all right?’ Albert asked. I nodded. ‘Good ay?’ I nodded again. Grace jiggled her horse over to us and we sat watching the others coming towards us. Kara was riding behind Sid and no matter how hard he was kicking the horse, it just ambled along in its own sweet time. ‘You porangi thing!’ Sid was yelling. ‘Come on, gallop, you porangi thing!’ But the horse just kept ambling along, disdaining any encouragement. The other kids were trying to make the horse go faster, too. But no luck. When Sid got to us, he said, ‘Let's swop horses.’ Grace shook her head and so did Albert. ‘You can keep your tutae horse,’ Grace said. And Albert said, ‘It's not the horse, it's the driver!’ We all laughed then, and Sid got wild. He hopped back on again. ‘I'll fix you!’ he said. He slapped the horse. ‘Ana to kai!’ he said, but the horse just kept standing there. Sid got off again. He picked up a stick and you know what? He chased that horse around the paddock all afternoon, yelling out to it, ‘You stink horse, you porangi, you hoha thing!’ When the day began to wane, we thought we'd better go home. Grace had to do the potatoes and Sid had some wood to cut. But we were too lazy to walk all the way back. Poor horses! Having to carry the 13 of us! But we were very small, and somehow, we managed to put six on our horse: Albert, Kepa, Sally, Hone, Pare and myself. I was in the middle with Pare. We got