Aunt Effie and Mrs Grizzle (11 page)

“A Tattooed School Inspector!” cried the little ones.

“He must have been your old husband,” said Jared.

“Chief Rangi!” Jessie nodded.

“Did he call you The Name We Dare Not Say?” asked Casey.

“Did he say he loved you?” asked Lizzie, who was interested in romance and was teaching herself the alphabet so that she could read all the Mills and Boon books.

Aunt Effie silenced them with a glare and went on with the story of Mrs Grizzle.

“‘P
AY ATTENTION EVERYBODY
!
’
shouted the Tattooed School Inspector. ‘Thanks to me, the monster pooks will never attack Hopuruahine again! Never before in the history of the Southern Hemisphere has there been such a hero!’ He cracked his whip, blew his own trumpet, and I heard a tiny forlorn cry, ‘Save me, Brunnhilde!’”

“One monster pook
had escaped and hidden in the ditch in front of Sammy Searle’s fruit shop. It hopped out and galloped through the crowd squawking, ‘Kraw-poocka-kacko!’ Only one person didn’t hear it. A golden-ringleted little girl busy admiring herself in Mrs Doleman’s shop window.

“She gazed deep into her own big, blue eyes. She turned on one heel, looked over her shoulder at her new gym frock, and hitched it up above her knees. She stood on tiptoe to see the reflection of her new button shoes in the bottom of the window, smiled, sucked in her cheeks to show her dimples, and blew a kiss to herself.

“‘Kraw-poocka-kacko!’ Steel talons seized her golden ringlets; metal wings clanged, and the monster pukeko swung her into the sky. Her Panama blew off, but was held by the elastic under her chin. I heard her tiny forlorn cry, but she was already too high for me to read ‘
Who Does His Best Does Well!
’ around the hat band.

“Everyone wept – except the Tattooed School Inspector who stuck his head under one arm, pulled up one leg, and went to sleep.

“A second tiny forlorn cry from the clouds: ‘Brunnhilde, save me!’ A pair of little feet in button shoes ran and kicked on the air.

“‘Poppy show! Poppy show!’ Some lewd boys laughed and pointed at Euphemia’s bloomers which Mrs Grizzle had sewn the night before.

“‘Kraw-poocka-kacko!’ the monster pook cackled and flew away with my little mother.”

Aunt Effie fell back exhausted. Peter handed her a bottle of Old Puckeroo. She pulled out the cork with her teeth, spat it on the floor, and drained the bottle.

“Whew!” Her breath smoked, caught fire, and streaked up the chimney.

“What happened to dear little Euphemia?” cried Daisy. “You can’t just leave her in the clutches of the wicked monster pukeko!”

The little ones stared at the tears running down Daisy’s cheeks. Lizzie turned back to Aunt Effie and asked, “Did the monster pukeko eat your mummy?”

But Aunt Effie had gone to sleep. Her hand opened, and the Old Puckeroo bottle fell to the floor. We lined up along the edge of her enormous bed. Trustingly, the little ones stood in front. Bryce and Jazz went to push them, but slipped and fell shrieking over the edge themselves. The little ones jumped and ran downstairs. We were left listening to their heartless laughter.

“Jump!” shouted Peter, and a big gruff voice said, “Watch out for the Bugaboo!”

Still crying for dear little Euphemia, Daisy shrieked and jumped. Like sheep going through a gate, we leapt after her, baaing, laughing, jostling down the stairs and into the kitchen. Bryce and Jazz came tumbling after us, crying and saying the Bugaboo’s fingernails had scratched the backs of their heels.

“Ana to mokomoko – it serves you right!” said Casey, and the other little ones nodded and repeated, “Ana to mokomoko!” and “So there!”

Aunt Effie slept for several days that time, and we caught up with our chores. “We must please Aunt Effie and keep her telling the story of Mrs Grizzle when she wakes up,” Marie told us.

“Isn’t that a bit like telling a lie?” asked Jazz.

“You have a devious mind,” Marie told him. “Would you rather go back to school?”

We put a new gate on the bull paddock, where they’d charged through the old one when Alwyn teased them. We put in new strainers where they’d knocked down their fence chasing him. And we got Caligula, Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris to hold the bulls up the top end of their paddock while we put in a new goal post.

Aunt Effie’s cannon-ball had knocked over the row of bluegums before it stopped. We sawed them into lengths, blew them apart with the splitting gun, stood the flitches on end, and sniffed the eucalyptus from the crushed leaves.

“Too green to burn this winter,” said Peter. He and Marie were up ladders, thatching roofs of reeds over the firewood stacks. “But it should dry out in time for next year.”

Aunt Effie still slept as snow sprinkled the tops of the Kaimais. We started feeding out each morning, dried off the cows and turned them in on the swedes, and shifted the bales of wool in the barn to get at the rats’ nests. Aunt Effie hadn’t sold our wool at the autumn sales because the prices weren’t good enough. “We’ll hold on to it,” she’d said, “and make a killing at the spring sales.”

We took the heavy wagon down to the creek and shovelled it full of shingle. “Fill in the holes around the gates first,” said Peter, “then we’ll metal the race right up to the back of the farm.”

And still Aunt Effie slept on and on.

Peter was putting a new rail in the cattle-stop one day, and Marie was holding its other end. “Run!” they yelled at the rest of us, and ducked out of sight under the cattle-stop.

We heard the drubbing of hoofs, grabbed the little ones and went for our lives. Three horses reared, front hoofs pawing the air over the cattle-stop. The riders were masked and dressed as school inspectors.

“That one on the left’s tattooed,” said Bryce.

Alwyn poked out his tongue at him.

“The middle one’s got a pointed head,” said Colleen.

“Silly old Pointy-Head!” Alwyn jeered.

“Look!” said Daisy, “the one on the right’s wearing his collar backwards!”

“Get dressed properly,” Alwyn shouted.

“It’s Aunt Effie’s three old husbands disguised as school inspectors,” Ann told the little ones.

Daisy ran towards the cattle stop. “Take me to school, Reverend Samuel!” she cried. “I know my times tables. I know my spelling. I want to learn spherical geometry!”

The three masked school inspectors produced lassos, twirled and dropped them over Daisy’s head, and backed so she was dragged over the cattle stop.

“Do something!” Daisy screamed.

“Something do!” Alwyn shouted back.

“Save me!”

“Me save!”

Peter and Marie jumped out from under the cattle stop and slashed the lassos with their pocket knives. But the three masked school inspectors pulled butterfly nets from their saddle-bags and whopped them down over Peter, Marie, and Daisy. And just then, “Boo-boom!” A cannon-ball cracked the sound barrier over our heads.

The masked school inspectors shrieked, dropped their butterfly nets, and galloped off. They twisted and turned, but the smoking black cannon-ball followed whichever way their horses galloped. We pointed and laughed.

“It’s Aunt Effie’s newest weapon of mass destruction – a heat-seeking cannon-ball,” said Peter.

“Serves you right!” Jazz yelled after the galloping school inspectors.

“Right you serves!” shouted Alwyn.

“Why did you have to rescue me?” Daisy burst into tears. “I wanted to be dragged off to school.”

“They could have been three horse cannibals,” Marie told her. “You could have got yourself eaten, and there’d be nothing we could do to help you.”

But before Daisy could reply, we heard a call. “Daisy-Mabel-Johnny-Flossie-Lynda-Stan-Howard-Marge-Stuart-Peter-Marie-Colleen-Alwyn-Bryce-Jack-Ann-Jazz-Beck-Jane-Isaac-David-Victor-Casey-Lizzie-Jared-Jessie!”

“Coming!” we shouted. “Coming!” We tore across the paddock, up the path, through the kitchen, and upstairs. The barrel of Aunt Effie’s cannon was still hot, and we sniffed. “Mmmm – gunpowder!”

“Do you want to hear the rest of this story or not? I hope you weren’t talking to those school inspectors?”

“Alwyn gave them a bit of lip. They lassoed Daisy, but Marie and Peter slashed their ropes.”

Aunt Effie nodded. “Remember, we got up to where the monster pukeko was flying towards the Great Waharoa Swamp with my little mother dangling from its talons.” We leaned against the dogs, stuck our thumbs in our mouths, and listened.

“M
RS
G
RIZZLE HELD UP
Bonny while I hammered new shoes on her feet. We jumped on her back and galloped to the scow.

“‘You bring back my mummy!’ I cried, but the monster jeered, ‘Kraw-poocka-cacko!’ and flew on.”

“The heartless brute!” Daisy said. Aunt Effie nodded and continued.

“T
HE INTELLIGENT HORSE
leapt on to the deck, seized the halyards in her teeth, and pulled up the sails. Water roaring from our bows, we sailed across the swamp, Euphemia, my little mother, a distant dot.

“After we’d sailed several days, Mrs Grizzle said, ‘I don’t know if we’re still in the swamp or on the Hauraki Gulf. Since the water covered so much of the old land of Waharoa, it’s hard to tell.’

“Bonny set the topsails, so the
Betty Boop
gained on the monster pook. Mrs Grizzle aimed the cannon.

“‘Don’t hit my mother!’

“‘Boom!’ The cannon-ball knocked a cloud of metal feathers out of the monster pukeko’s tail. ‘Put her down at once!’ Mrs Grizzle bellowed. ‘Or I’ll blow you to smithereens!’

“Just then the wind dropped, our sails drooped, and the scow lay still. The monster pukeko crowed, ‘Kraw-poocka-cacko!’ and flapped away. With most of its tail missing, it was having trouble steering, but Mrs Grizzle didn’t dare fire another shot.”