too good alright,’ he muttered to himself as he strode inside, stooping to avoid the door. He was tall and gangly like Gary Cooper, well a Maori Gary Cooper if you get the idea. ‘Yes and last night, Arapera, I throwing my hinaki into the racoon so in the morning you coming for some eels,’ he said, bending over his gaff again. He grinned at me and rolled his cigarette round in his mouth. His teeth were all stained brown and chewed down like he had grown them back to front. ‘Funny teeth you got Whaaki?’ ‘Yes, I’m the only fullah with a teeth like this Arapera,’ he laughed. Whaaki was tying the string round and round to secure the hooks at the ends. Auntie Wai only used bits of rag, usually white, when we went torching. The eels would bite on the rag and get thrown onto the riverbank where we had to bash their heads in quick because they were slithery like lightning. But Whaaki was an expert, he lived out of the river, so I didn't say anything. Sometimes we gave him mutton. This was tahu'd over the open fire in his camp oven half full of fat. He did the same with pauas, just threw them into the hot fat to boil. As soon as they were cooked he took the pot off the bars that sat over the fire and let it set with the meat inside it. The eels and fish he caught in the river were split, smoked and hung out to dry. When he wanted a meal all he had to do was gather a kit of puha, put the pot onto the bars to boil with the tahu'd meat, throw in a spoon of salt and let it boil away for an hour or so. The potatoes and kumara went on top with a nice fat piece of eel added at the last minute. You always had to muku the puha first. Tea was made in the old billy can, now blackened by the flames that licked the bottom and sides. When the water inside began to boil, a big spoon of tea was tossed into the billy, then it was put onto the hearth to settle the leaves. The tea smelt like the bush, all leaves and damp moss and grass, but Whaaki never used sugar so it tasted like water which was tainted. That was the only thing that spoilt his tea. I never accepted it from him. I loved sugar. ‘How's the kumara, e Arapera?’ he asked. ‘Spreading like the weeds.’ I hated planting kumara. We had to cart all the water to the patch from the river in kerosene tins and water each individual plant as it was pushed into the ground. It would have been much easier to plant in the rain. Afterwards it was a good splash about in the river to cool off. ‘Only one way to planting the kumara,’ Whaaki was saying. ‘That's with the moon.’ ‘Don’t know too much about the moon planting Whaaki,’ I answered. Then he was telling me how one should plant with the phases of the moon. ‘That's the Chinese way,’ I retorted. ‘No. Is the only way to get a big kumara.’ The next lot of kumara was put in by Whaaki, but I didn't notice any difference myself. We still had a lot of weeding to do by hand. ‘Kaete Kati Kati a Arapiu?’ Arapiu was my father. ‘Yep, shearing at McIntyres.’ I loved the shearing season, but Dad took me only when they were really short of fleecos. I was a pretty good fleeco too. Mum taught us how to throw a fleece and pick it up from the board, by using a tea towel. ‘Now this is the shearing stand—one, two, three, four shearers flat out. This is the shearer and this is the sheep being shorn. Don’t put your hand under the wool when the handpiece is busy. Just pull the wool like this.’ She would tug gently at the wool, demonstrating how it was done. ‘Now you pick up the wool as soon as it has left the sheep's back, fold it under and over, tuck in the sides, and hold the fleece firmly under your chin while you walk to the table. You can pick up a second fleece in the same way, holding it under the other. ‘If three shearers finish at once, you take the one furthest away, then the next along moving towards the table. By the time you get along to the last fleece the shearer will be coming out of the pen with another sheep, so you’ll only have time to kick it towards the table.’