Cry of the Taniwha (2 page)

The present day

Matt Logan was enjoying his first-ever flight. He had a window seat, and the weather had been fine all the way from Dunedin. In the past hour, he’d seen more of New Zealand than he had in all his previous thirteen years. That was mostly because he’d never been to the North Island before: never seen Wellington harbour, the volcanoes on the Central Plateau, Lake Taupo, nor the lakes around Rotorua which were now coming into view.

He studied the scene, knowing that somewhere down there would be his home for the next few weeks; a thought that dampened some of the joy of the flight. Three weeks staying with old people whom he hardly knew was not his idea of a fun summer. But there’d been nothing he could do about it. His mother had just come out of hospital, and everyone thought it would be better if he was out of the way. So, when his grandmother, Nan, had said he could stay with her, his parents had thought it was a great idea, especially when she offered to pay for the air fares.

The speaker above his head chimed, indicating an announcement. ‘We are now making our final approach into Rotorua airport. This will take us over Mount Tarawera, giving those on the port side of the aircraft a view of the craters left after the 1886 eruption. As you can see, the weather in Rotorua is beautifully fine, with the temperature a pleasant—’

Matt blocked out the sound to concentrate on the view through window. Almost directly below he saw steam rising from small lakes. Then they were over Mount Tarawera itself. There was no mistaking that this was a volcano. A chain of craters stretched from the lakes into the heart of the mountain. The eruption had almost ripped the mountain in half.

Soon they were passing over several lakes, each of them sitting in its own eruption crater. Finally, they turned and moved towards the largest one—Lake Rotorua. As the plane dropped down to the runway, Matt began to have horrible thoughts. What if he and Nan didn’t recognize each other? He’d been only six when they’d last met. He could remember the yummy biscuits and cakes she’d baked, but not her. He had a vague image of Pop, but that wouldn’t be any help, as he’d died three years back. She had a new husband now. A Maori man: a bus driver she’d met on a tour around the North Island. The marriage had been the subject of much heated discussion within the family, and Matt suspected he was being used to repair the damage, which was another reason for being fearful. Why should he have to be the first to meet this person?

As the plane taxied towards the terminal, Matt’s fears increased. What if they weren’t there; what if her husband was working today; what if they were so old that they’d forgotten he was coming; what if…?

Fifteen minutes later he walked out into the concourse, and discovered that all his fears were groundless. A man and a woman moved forward, and soon the woman was taking him in a hug so huge that she almost engulfed him.

‘Hello, Matt,’ said Nan as she released him, stepping
back to look him up and down. ‘It’s good to see you again. You’ve grown so much.’ She turned and grabbed hold of the man’s hand, pulling him forward. ‘This is my husband, Hone. No need to call him Pop or Grandad, or anything like that, just Hone will do.’

The smiling man stepped forward and took Matt’s hand. ‘Kia ora, Matt. Welcome to Rotorua.’ Matt nervously nodded in reply. As they led him towards the luggage pickup, he had the chance to study the pair. They were an unlikely combination. Whereas Nan was large, Hone was slight, much smaller than the few Maori men Matt had come in contact with before. Judging by their looks and amount of grey hair, he was the younger of the two, although both of them must’ve been in their sixties. Old, but not ancient, and their manner and movement suggested that there might still be plenty of life within.

The luggage arrived and they made their way to the car park. The car was almost as old as the one Matt’s mum drove, yet it seemed to go all right, and soon they were heading along a stretch of two-laned highway towards town. After a while, Matt noticed a sulphurous smell filling the car. He looked at the two sitting in front of him, deciding that one of them must have passed gas—old people did that all the time. He eased the window down a bit to clear the air, hoping they didn’t notice. But when he looked up, he saw Hone watching him in the rear-view mirror.

Hone nudged his wife with his elbow. ‘Did you fart?’ he asked.

‘No!’ replied Nan, indignantly. ‘Ladies don’t fart.’

‘Then it must’ve been Matt,’ continued Hone. He looked at Matt in the mirror. ‘Was it you?’

‘No!’ Matt all but shouted. Why were they blaming him when it was obviously one of them?

Then he saw that Hone was smiling. ‘Wind the window up, Matt. The smell’s coming from outside.’

Nan turned around. ‘You’ll soon get used to it. After a while, you won’t even know it’s there. I only smell it on a cold, frosty morning now.’

‘It’s hydrogen sulphide,’ said Hone. ‘Comes out of the ground all around here. You ought to see the tourists when they first get out of their air-conditioned buses. They screw up their noses and start looking sideways at the person next to them.’

‘Does it do any harm?’ asked Matt.

‘It corrodes everything. Metals in particular. Even wood. You’ll see that all the wood is black around here.’

‘What about humans?’

‘Only if you get a heavy dose. There was a newly married couple that died a long time back. They were in a motel with all the windows closed and the gas was seeping in through the floor. The problem is that it desensitizes the nose, and you stop smelling it. That’s what happened—they died in their sleep.’

Matt was thinking about this when Hone turned the car into a driveway alongside a wooden house, which was neater than those on either side of it. The house was dwarfed by the backdrop of hotels just a couple of blocks away. Steam was drifting into the air from all over the place.

‘Whakarewarewa,’ said Hone, pointing to the steam. ‘That’s one of the reasons why all the tourists come here. I’ll give you the guided tour if you like.’

‘Not now,’ said Nan. ‘Matt will be tired after his trip
and it will soon be dinnertime.’ She climbed out of the car. ‘Come on, Matt, and I’ll show you your room.’

Matt’s room was small and very tidy—tidier than any bedroom he’d ever had before. ‘This is your own private space,’ said Nan. ‘I won’t come in unless you want me to make the bed or do the vacuuming.’ She stepped back out to the hallway. ‘The bathroom and toilet are just there. You can have a shower if you want. Or a lie-down. Dinner will be in an hour.’

Matt didn’t need a shower or a lie-down, so he unpacked his things and went outside to have a look around. He wandered about the backyard, taking in the smell and feel of Rotorua. The smell of hydrogen sulphide seemed to come and go. It was not strong enough to be unpleasant, and Matt found that he liked it, now that he knew it had earthly origins and not biological ones. He hoped that he didn’t get used to it, the way Hone had said he would. He wanted to continue smelling it as a reminder that he was living in a volcanic zone—one that might blow up at any moment.

His wanderings took him behind the vegetable garden, to the corner of the section where there was a rusty arrangement of pipes and taps. It seemed to be a well of some sort, although one that was past its use-by date. He touched the pipe close to the ground and found it was warm. The rustcoated taps tempted him for a moment, until he imagined a great fountain of boiling water going everywhere, and quickly withdrew his hand.

‘Wouldn’t do anything, anyway.’

Matt jumped. He looked around to see who had spoken. There was no one. Maybe he’d imagined it.

‘They were all closed down.’

This time, Matt sensed the direction. He looked up and saw the brown face of a boy peering over the side fence. He must’ve been standing on something, for his head and shoulders were well above the top of the fence. Matt guessed that he was aged about eleven or twelve. His scruffy black hair was cut short on top and left long at the sides.

‘Why?’ Matt asked. ‘Why were they closed?’

‘Cos they were stopping the geysers. That’s what Mum says anyway.’

‘What was it used for?’

‘Heating. But instead of hot water going up the geysers, people were using it all.’

Matt nodded.

‘Who’re you, anyway?’ asked the boy.

‘Matt Logan. I’m staying here for a while.’

‘Why?’

‘Because my mum’s been in hospital.’

‘Why here?’ The boy’s tone was becoming more aggressive, as if Matt was an intruder.

‘Because they’re my grandparents.’

‘Doubt it!’ said the boy. ‘Hone doesn’t have any mokopuna.’

‘He does now, since my grandmother married him.’

‘That’s not real mokopuna,’ sneered the boy.

‘Hone thinks it is, and that’s good enough for me.’

The boy was quiet for a while, before asking, ‘Do ya bleach ya hair?’

It took Matt a moment to decode the boy’s words. Then he laughed. ‘No, it’s always like this. It’s the way I was born.’

‘I’m gunna get a mohawk,’ said the boy. ‘Soon’s I get the cash.’

Matt tried to hide his disgust.
What a loser,
he thought. Out loud he asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Juzza,’ the boy replied, tilting his head proudly.

‘Never heard that name before.’

‘Ya will! Round here it’s fame.’

‘Does that mean you’re famous?’

Instead of answering, the boy made squiggles in the air for a moment, as if he was writing something. Then suddenly, he thrust both his hands towards Matt and yelled ‘Juzza!’ He held the ‘ah’ sound for a few seconds, before pulling his hands back dramatically, and suddenly disappearing behind the fence.

Matt was so surprised he just stood for a while, not sure what to do. Maybe if he waited, Juzza would reappear just as spectacularly. However, he didn’t; and a short time later Matt was called in to wash his hands before dinner.

The meal was excellent: chicken pie, mashed potatoes, carrots and beans—just the sort of food Matt liked.

Clearly dinner was a serious time in this house, because neither Hone nor Nan spoke while they were eating. When Nan took the dishes away, Hone asked, ‘Who were you talking to out there?’

‘A boy from over the fence. Juzza, he said his name was.’

‘Juzza, eh?’ Hone shook his head slowly from side to side. After a while he said, ‘That’s not his name. It’s Jackson. Jackson Peters.’

‘Juzza must be a nickname, then.’

Again Hone shook his head. ‘Juzza will be his tag name. I’ve seen it all over the place recently. I just didn’t know it was him.’

Suddenly Matt recognized what the squiggles in the air had been: Juzza had been practising his tag.

Hone continued. ‘He’s been getting into a bit of trouble lately, so I’ve been hearing.’

‘Who’s that?’ asked Nan, returning with dessert.

‘Jackson Peters.’

‘Oh that boy,’ growled Nan. ‘He’s really bad news is that one.’ She turned to Matt. ‘Keep away from him or you’ll end up in trouble.’

‘He’s not that bad, dear,’ said Hone.

‘He will be soon,’ said Nan, forcefully. ‘Next thing he’ll be in the gangs.’

Hone sighed. ‘If he’s already into tagging, then you’re probably right. I’ll go and have a chat to Mere tomorrow. See if we can stop things now before they get any worse.’

After that they started on the dessert, which was yummy apple strudel. Again the eating was done in silence, which Matt didn’t mind. He now realized that Juzza’s hand actions had been a gang symbol. The boy was already in a gang. Matt’s only past contact with street gangs had been with some older kids at school, and they
were
‘really bad news’. Maybe Jackson wasn’t that bad yet, but Matt suspected Nan was probably right: hanging around Juzza would be asking for trouble.

Hone was already having his breakfast when Matt got up. The size of the meal was huge: bacon and eggs, with a hash brown and grilled tomato on the side. It was more than Matt usually ate in the main meal of the day.

‘Sit yourself down, Matt,’ said Nan. ‘Do you want the same as Hone?’

‘Just a hash brown and an egg will do, thank you.’

‘You sure? In this house breakfast is an important meal, because we often don’t have lunch.’

Matt agreed that perhaps she could add another egg and some bacon.

Hone pointed a fork at him. ‘Sit down, Matt, and tell us the things you’d like to do while you’re here.’ Apparently talking was OK at the breakfast table.

Matt thought for a moment. ‘Mum said I should make sure I go to the Buried Village, do the luge, and see Whakarewarewa. Those are the only things I know about.’

Hone nodded. ‘The luge is best first thing in the morning, before it gets too crowded. We can do Whaka any day, because it’s just around the corner. So the Buried Village it is today. I’ve got a Chinese tour group all morning, but I’ll be free about one, so we’ll go then. We’ll do a bit of a tiki tour so that you know what’s where in Rotorua.’ With that decided, Hone got on with his breakfast.

‘Why the Buried Village?’ asked Nan.

Matt smiled. ‘I want to try out my metal detector.’

Hone looked up. ‘You got a metal detector?’

‘Yeah, I made it myself.’

‘Ah!’ said Nan. ‘Your mum said something about that. Didn’t you win a prize with it or something?’

Matt gave a little nod. ‘The Year Nine technology prize.’

‘Tell us more,’ said Hone.

‘Well, we had to research a problem, and then use several different technologies to solve it. The school newsletter had been asking parents about a time capsule that was buried in the 1950s. Nobody knew where it was because the records were destroyed in a fire. I decided to make a metal detector and find it.’

‘And did you?’ asked Hone.

‘Yes.’

‘And what was in it?’ asked Nan.

‘Don’t know. We reburied it because it’s not due to be opened until the school’s seventy-fifth jubilee.’

Hone studied Matt for a while, before saying, ‘I don’t think the people at the Buried Village will want you searching around in there. But there must be lots of other places you can try.’ He stood and carried his dishes to the sink. ‘I should be back by two at the latest. We’ll leave soon after that.’

Nan saw him to the door, while Matt got stuck into his breakfast, pleased with how the discussion had gone. Things were working out better than he’d thought.

The first part of the morning was spent assembling and testing the metal detector. It worked fine. Matt started with a scan near the old pipes at the back of the yard. As he got closer to the well, the sound in his headphones increased
in intensity until it was squealing like the feedback you get in a loudspeaker system. From the well, he was able to trace a pipe across the veggie garden and lawn to where it disappeared under the house.

After that he walked around the lawn, skimming the sensing disc through the tops of the grass. He got a few squeals, but nothing that sounded like it was worth digging up the lawn for. If it were anything like the lawn back home in Dunedin, the only metal would be nails and stuff like that. He had yet to find a backyard full of buried treasure.

Nan insisted he try her freshly baked banana-and-chocolate muffins before he went off to explore the local area. Matt didn’t disappoint her, eating one immediately and pocketing another before heading in the direction of the hotels surrounding Whakarewarewa.

There were buses everywhere: monstrous things with tinted windows and buzzing air-conditioning units. The drivers clustered in groups in the shade of trees, reading newspapers and sharing the events of the day.

Matt could see some of the tourists on open ground beyond a bridge. Every so often some of them would be lost in a cloud of steam when a nearby vent belched boiling water. He thought of walking over the bridge and joining them, until he noticed the ticket office and a sign saying it would cost twenty-five dollars.

However, there was nothing to stop him taking some steps down to a grassed area beside the steaming stream. A track of sorts led through some bushes, and Matt found himself in a secluded place below one of the hotels. Judging by the empty bottles and cigarette butts, it was a hideaway for either the hotel workers or local kids. The tagging on
the wall indicated that it might be the latter. Matt looked for Juzza’s tag, but couldn’t see anything that might’ve started with J. Most of the tags looked fairly old, except a big one that covered most of the wall: WXK had been there recently. Matt smiled to himself. Perhaps it was Wilberforce Xavier Kristofferson, or maybe Wilhelmina Xenobia Krupt, although he suspected it would be something much more basic than that.

A sign that said
DANGER—KEEP OUT
blocked a path leading down to the stream. People had walked around it so much that a new path had been formed. Matt took that path and was soon standing on a white rock surrounded by steaming water. Directly in front was a boiling, emerald-green pool with insulated pipes leading off in the direction of the hotel. The path beyond it was lost in the steam. After a bit of thought Matt took the plunge and followed it, hoping that it didn’t lead straight into something hot.

It didn’t. Instead it led down into a quiet, bushy place beside the stream. For a moment, Matt imagined that this could have been what the world was like when it was young: steam issuing from sulphur-encrusted vents, surrounded by primitive-looking plants. He could have been back in time millions of years and been the only person alive. This image was shattered a few steps further on, however. In front of him was a sloping wall of white rock covered in graffiti.

This time he did find Juzza’s tag. It was not one of the fancy ones. The only special feature was that the first Z was back to front so that the two of them faced each other.

From there, Matt followed a path over a bridge and down into a flat area pockmarked with explosion craters. These were obviously dangerous, for they were fenced off. Several
had boiling pools in the bottom, and others were venting steam.

A group of four people was standing on the other side of the craters where the path led back into the scrub. Matt was about to move forward when he sensed something wrong with the group. He quickly backed away until he was hidden by bushes.

It soon became plain that three big guys were picking on a boy. The boy was talking quickly in a high-pitched, frightened voice; so quickly that Matt couldn’t make out what was being said, yet it was obvious he was pleading with them. Then an extra-big bloke picked up the little guy and lifted him over the fence until he was dangling above a steaming crater. The boy screamed ‘No! No! No!’

Another of the big guys said something, and this time the boy yelled ‘Yes! Yes!’

Clearly that wasn’t enough, for he was lowered further into the hole. ‘Yes!’ he screamed. ‘Yes! I’ll do it.’ Only then was he lifted back onto the path, where he was dumped on the ground. They fired some more words at him, before turning around and swaggering back across the crater flat.

Matt squeezed further into the bushes, aware all the time that the ground could collapse beneath him or a steam vent might sizzle up his legs. He considered that a better risk, though, than meeting up with the three thugs coming towards him.

They were walking just like the gang members at school did: arms hardly swinging and held out from their bodies which they swayed from side to side as if to indicate great strength. As they got closer, Matt saw that they were older than school age, and a lot meaner than any gang members
he’d met before. The one in front had a skull tattooed on his forehead. The other two were bigger men, and yet it was clear from the space that they gave the front one that he was the boss. All three were Maori. Fortunately, they were so intent on looking tough that none of them glanced sideways, and they were soon out of sight, allowing Matt to start breathing again.

When he heard them stomping over the bridge he reckoned it was safe to come out of hiding. But then he saw that the boy was almost in front of him. He pulled back, not wanting to get involved in other people’s trouble. As the boy went past, Matt recognized him as Jackson Peters. This was no longer the person who had acted tough over the fence. There was no sign of the tilted head and thrusting jaw that Matt had seen earlier. This was a kid who was crying his eyes out, terrified by the thugs who had just left.

Matt’s heart felt for the boy, and he almost called out. But in the end he didn’t. It was Jackson’s problem, not his, so he stayed hidden in the bushes.