Billy and Old Smoko (4 page)

T
hat night, while Billy dried the dishes, his father said, “How about givin’ us a gink at you doing some of that there reading they learned you at school?” So Billy read the
New Zealand Herald
aloud from front to back.

His father sat at the table and watched proudly. His stepmother looked at the reflection in her mirror and whispered to it, then sat down and listened, too.

In those days, the paper started off with the Births and Deaths Notices on the front page and finished with the advertisements on the back. “‘Whimble’s Finest Swingletrees, Five horse set. Two pounds, four shillings, and fivepence each,’” read Billy. “‘Dr Percy’s Pink Pills for Piles. One and tuppence ha’penny a jar.’”

He looked and saw his father and stepmother were almost asleep. Billy piggybacked and tipped them on to the bed which had a soft mattress stuffed full of downy feathers.

“You read the
Herald
real good,” his father said sleepily.
“I enjoyed them Death Notices.”

Billy’s stepmother sniffed. “Do you want to give him a swollen head boy don’t you think it might be an idea if you was to tell us a bedtime story?”

“Yes, Mum.” Billy told them a story from the book he’d found under his own mattress, about a princess who slept on top of twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdowns yet complained because she could feel a pea under the bottom one.

“She was a real princess,” Billy said, “so sensitive, she couldn’t sleep because of one pea!” He tucked his father and stepmother in, and blew out the candle.

“Mighty good story!” said his father and began to snore.

As Billy tiptoed out the door, his stepmother said, “Come back here and stick your hand under the mattress boy I’m sure I can feel something.”

Billy stuck his hand under the mattress, but found nothing. He knew he must tell the truth. “Perhaps there might have been a pea,” he said, “but it’s gone now.”

“I told you so!” said his stepmother and elbow-jolted his dad so hard his ribs rang. “Now you’ve got a horse to ride to school you’ll have time to feed the chooks and collect the eggs before you go down to the shed in the morning and no reading in bed do you hear?” she told Billy.

He sat on the edge of the bath and scrubbed the dirt off his knees and the cow muck off his feet. His thin mattress was full of hard lumps, but he was so tired, Billy went straight to sleep and dreamt he was eating roast pork and crackling
that his real mother had cooked. Out in the paddock, Old Smoko ground his teeth in his sleep. He was dreaming of eating roast pork and crackling that his mother had cooked, too.

“Come wind come rain!” screeched Billy’s stepmother in the morning, and the Waihou River rose over its banks. Old Smoko did his powerful breaststroke and kicked his huge hairy feet, but the flood twirled him like a feather and swept them down through Te Aroha and Paeroa, and out past Thames. They came ashore at Te Mata Bay.

Two seagulls squawked and gave cheek, as Billy broke in half the withered carrot top his stepmother had given him for lunch. “Here’s your share.” He gave Old Smoko the biggest bit.

“Squawk! Squawk!” said the seagulls. “Here’s your share.”

“Half a carrot top is an insufficient repast for a Clydesdale,” said Old Smoko. “And we have still to get to Waharoa.”

“Half a carrot top is an insufficient repast for a Clydesdale!” repeated one seagull.

“And we have still to get to Waharoa,” repeated the other. They grinned and squawked because they thought they sounded just like Old Smoko.

“We’ll have to forget school today,” said Billy. “Here, have my share.”

“You are a generous youth.” Old Smoko chewed Billy’s share of the carrot top, and watched the seagulls out of the corner of his eye.

“You are a generous youth!” one seagull said to the other
It bent its neck till it looked just like Old Smoko and plodded up and down, its red beak wide open. “Squawk! Squawk!” it said to the other seagull.

“We’d better hurry,” Billy told Old Smoko. “I’ve got to give Dad a hand with the milking.”

“I do not know about you,” said Old Smoko, “but I am still rather peckish.”

“Squawk! Squawk! I do not know about you – ” the seagulls started to say, but Old Smoko caught them both and wrung their necks.

“Was that for giving cheek?” Billy asked.

Old Smoko nodded. “Fit punishment for impertinence!” He plucked the seagulls, gave one to Billy, and ate the other himself. “Come on,” he said and galloped home through Thames, Paeroa, and Te Aroha.

Billy’s stepmother turned from smiling at her reflection in the mirror and asked, “Why have you got feathers all around your mouth?”

“I had a seagull for lunch.”

“If you’ve filled yourself up on seagull then you won’t have any room for afternoon tea you can hurry down to the shed and you’ll be just in time to help your father with the milking.”

Down in the shed, Billy’s father asked, “What’d they learn you at school today?”

“The Waihou was flooded. We got swept away.”

“What you want is an outboard motor,” said Billy’s father. “It’s a wonder nobody thought of inventing it before.”

After milking, his stepmother said, “You had a big lunch
today so you won’t need any tea tonight.”

Billy washed and wiped their dishes dry, read the
Herald
to his stepmother and father, piggybacked them to bed, told them a story of an old soldier and twelve spoilt princesses who loved dancing, tucked them in, and blew out their candle.

As they snored, Billy sat in the kitchen and invented the world’s first outboard motor. He bolted the propeller on to the shaft and said to Old Smoko who stood with his head in the window, watching him, “I’ve had nothing to eat all day but that seagull.”

“Thinking of that,” said Old Smoko, “I appropriated these out of the fowl house.” He handed Billy a basket of eggs. While Billy scrambled them, Old Smoko climbed in the window, let down the firebox door on the Shacklock coal stove, and made toast.

Faces greasy, full of scrambled eggs and hot buttered toast, Billy and Old Smoko sat in front of the stove, opened the oven door, and put their feet inside to warm. “We will both sleep splendidly this night,” said Old Smoko.

Next morning, Billy’s stepmother said, “What on earth can have made these marks on the bottom of my oven?”

“They’re the shape of a horseshoe,” said Dad.

“Don’t be stupid how could a horse get into my oven use your brains.”

Down by the river, Billy tied the outboard motor on to Old Smoko’s behind. Although the water was still high, the only trouble they had was dodging logs and dead cows coming down on the flood.

At school, Mr Strap looked at the outboard motor as Billy hung it beside his hackamore in the saddle shed. “Who invented that?” he asked.

“Me ’n moi farver.”

“Syntax! Syntax! Speak proper grammar!” Mr Strap blew down his nostrils till his moustache shook. “My father and I.”

“Moi farver ’n oi.”

“Oh, that repugnant, whiny, nasal New Zealand voice!” For the rest of the day, Mr Strap taught nothing but syntax, grammar, and pronunciation.

“What did Mr Strap think of the outboard motor?” Billy’s stepmother asked as she let him have half a used apple core for his afternoon tea.

“He didn’t say, Mum. He was too busy blowing down his nose, and teaching us syntax, grammar, and pronunciation.”

“I thought I warned you about wasting your time on frills we send you to school to learn the basics not to talk la-di-da!”

“Oi’m sorry.”

“And you’d better not forget it now get going and give your father a hand.”

Down in the shed, Billy’s father said, “What about inventing a milking machine to make it easier to milk the cows?”

“That’s a good idea, Dad.”

His father nodded. “I do come up with some pretty good inventions, I must admit. Look at the outboard motor!”

“There is no end to your cleverness.”

“Take it easy,” said his father, “there’s no need to talk posh at me.”

“We learned syntax, grammar, and pronunciation today,” Billy told him.

“Yeah? Well, just remember who you are. None of that there high-falutin la-di-da here, or your mother will make me take my belt to you.”

“Orroight!”

“Good boy!” Dad told Billy and whistled two lines of “Home On the Range”.

Old Smoko listened and stamped one huge hairy foot. “‘That there high falutin la-di-da!’” he said aloud. “‘Orroight!’ What sort of English is that?” He thought for a moment. “What the boy needs is proper meals – preferably roast pork and crackling with lashings of apple sauce – and plenty of syntax, grammar, and proper pronunciation. Most of all he needs his real mother. Until we discover her whereabouts, I can at least see that he hears appropriate language, and eats wholesome and nutritous meals!”

W
hile Billy put his stepmother and father to bed, told them the story of “Rapunzel”, and put out their light, Old Smoko climbed in the kitchen window and cooked a couple of chooks who’d given him cheek while he was collecting the eggs.

“The skin is nice and crisp,” said Billy.

“Not, alas, to be compared with the crispness of the crackling on roast pork,” Old Smoko told him.

“I wonder if I’ll ever taste crackling?”

“I shall see to it that you will,” Old Smoko promised, and they sat with their feet in the oven, while Billy invented the first milking machine.

By the time they had gone out into the dark, caught a cow, and tried the machine, it was time for them to go to bed.

“I wonder if my real mother used to cook roast pork with crunchy crackling and lashings of apple sauce?” Billy said
to Old Smoko. “The trouble is, it’s all so long ago, I’m even forgetting what she looked like.”

Old Smoko lashed his tail. “She had curly brown hair and bright blue eyes, your real mum, and one leg just a bit longer than the other. Of course she cooked roast pork!” he said. “I’m pretty sure I remember smelling it cooking every Sunday.” Billy was amazed at the informality of his language.

“We’ll find your real mother, Billy, if it’s the last thing we do!” Old Smoko assured him.

Billy wrote in his mother’s book, before he went to bed, “Old Smoko’s language is less bombastic when he is deeply moved.” He dated and wrote the time of his observation, hid the book under his mattress, and went to sleep smiling and thinking of his real mother.

Down in the shed, next morning, Billy’s father leaned against a cow and showed him how the milking machine worked. It got through the herd so fast, Billy’s stepmother shook her fist and said Billy had time to mow the back lawn before going to school.

Halfway into Waharoa, Billy and Old Smoko caught up to the Bryce kids walking to school. Old Smoko said to them, “Mount behind Billy.”

“There’s not enough room,” said Johnny Bryce. “Anyway, my Dad’s got a longer horse than yours. It’s the longest horse in the Southern Hemisphere.”

Old Smoko rolled his eyes. “There is ample space for everyone!” he told Johnny Bryce.

“There’s only room for me,” said Johnny Bryce, climbing
up behind Billy. “You can walk,” he told his little sister, Lynda.

Old Smoko pig-jumped, and Johnny Bryce fell off. His little sister climbed up and held on with her arms around Billy, and Johnny had to walk behind them all the way to school. He got there late, so Mr Strap made him stand on his head in the corner. Old Smoko leaned in the window and said to him, “This afternoon, we will see if you have learned your lesson.”

“Kids who talk get the whacks!” Mr Strap shouted, spinning around from the blackboard, but Old Smoko had disappeared.

After school, Old Smoko stood beside the gate while Lynda Bryce climbed up the bars and got on behind Billy. Johnny climbed on behind Lynda. “There’s room for me, after all!” he said.

“Ample space indeed,” said Old Smoko, “as long as you look after your little sister.”

When he stopped at Bryces’ gate on the way home, Lynda gave Old Smoko a piece of pavlova she’d saved from her lunch. Johnny had eaten his, but he took out his bag of marbles and gave Old Smoko two dubs, a glassy, and a couple of steelies.

“I didn’t mean to to give you cheek this morning,” he said.

“Had I thought so,” Old Smoko told him, “I should have wrung your neck and eaten you.”

“I’m going to tell my father on you,” Johnny said and ran bawling up their drive, and Lynda ran bawling after.

Billy and Old Smoko shared the pavlova for their afternoon tea. “That feels rather better,” said Old Smoko, licking whipped cream off his nose. “My appetite was not appeased by the dry thistle your stepmother gave us for lunch.”

That night, Billy told his stepmother and father the story of “The Babes in the Woods”. His stepmother grinned savagely and said, “Those kids deserved to die!” And Dad said to her, “Remember the time you tried to make me abandon Billy in the bush, when he was little?”

After they were asleep, Old Smoko cooked a couple of lambs whom, he said, had been giving him cheek. Billy flapped a tea-towel so his stepmother wouldn’t sniff the roasting meat.

While his father leaned against a can, next morning, and admired the machine, Billy did most of the milking. They finished early.

“No point in saving time if you then go wasting it you can top that row of pines and trim the hedge before you to go to school,” Billy’s stepmother said.

“What were you given for breakfast?” asked Old Smoko, as they rode into Waharoa.

“My stepmother let me sniff the stink off my father’s burnt porridge.”

“Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Insufficient protein for a growing boy.” Old Smoko clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Here are the Bryces. Johnny, Lynda, what delicacies have you got in your lunch today?”

“Roast pork sandwiches,” said Johnny Bryce, and he licked his lips. “With crunchy crackling.”

“Offer one to Billy.”

“No!”

“Do you wish to be borne to school on my back, or would you prefer to ambulate?”

Johnny grumbled but handed over a sandwich. As he and Lynda climbed on, Billy ate the roast pork sandwich and gave the crackling to Old Smoko. “It is delicious cold,” said Old Smoko.

“It’s even better hot!” said Lynda Bryce. She gave Billy one of her sandwiches, and he crunched the crackling this time while Old Smoko chewed the roast pork and nodded approval.

Johnny bolted the rest of his sandwiches in case Old Smoko told him to hand them over. “Anyway,” he thought to himself, “I’ll take my little sister’s sandwiches off her at lunchtime.”

Further down the road, they met the Rawiri kids walking to school. “Do you wish to be transported to school?” Old Smoko asked them.

“Do we want a lift!” exclaimed the older Rawiri girl, Maggie, who had a good memory for myths. “Have you got room for the lot of us?”

Old Smoko murmured that he thought so and stood beside the fence. Maggie climbed up and put her arms around Lynda Bryce’s waist. Meredith got on and put his arms around Maggie’s waist. Tama put his arms around Meredith’s waist, and there was ample room for everyone.

By the time they got to the Te Aroha turnoff, they’d picked up the three Williams sisters, and the five Ellery
brothers – including the twins. And there was ample room for everyone.

At the Wardville corner, they stopped and picked up the kids from down the pa – the Tarapipis, the Wilsons, and the Warawaras. They were just starting off again, when the kids from out Soldiers Settlement came running and yelling.

“Give us a lift?” they yelled. Old Smoko stopped and let them climb on, and there was ample room for everyone, all twenty-six of them, counting Billy as well.

“Did you kids do your homework?” asked Peggy Turia, as they rode into Waharoa.

“Nope!” said everyone but Billy and Old Smoko.

“Mr Strap will give us the whacks.”

“Let him but try!” Old Smoko said, and everyone giggled and repeated, “Let him but try!”

Just then the Rotorua Express came huffing and puffing along the railway line from Morrinsville and saw Old Smoko with twenty-six kids sitting in single file along his back. The Rotorua Express shied and showed the whites of its eyes. It whistled, bucked, blew steam out of its ears and nostrils, and bolted up the line to Matamata without stopping at Waharoa.

“It’s never seen a school bus before,” said the stationmaster.

In the horse paddock, they slid to the ground, and each of the Rawiri kids handed Old Smoko a roast pork and crackling sandwich out of their lunch, for giving them a lift. “Bon appetit!” Maggie said.

“What’s that?” asked Billy.

“Maori for good luck.”

“It’s what Dad says every time he lets off,” said Meredith.

“And he says, ‘Better out than in,’” said Tama, the littlest Rawiri.

Maggie laughed. “You should hear Mum tell him off. ‘You’ve no right, talking like that in front of the children.’ And Dad says, ‘Bon appetit!’ again, just to tease her.”

“My dad used to tease my real mum, too,” said Billy.

“Why doesn’t he do it now?”

Billy looked down at his feet.

“You tell your dad it’s his job to tease her,” said Maggie.

“My dad’s gone all lackadaisical,” Billy told Maggie Rawiri. “Besides, he’s too scared to pull my stepmother’s leg.”