Crown Park (3 page)

There would be a pause while
Chainsaw hoped his mother would give in, but she wouldn’t. Not yet.
“And there’ll be other costs,” she’d go on. “He’ll have to be
desexed, and that costs a fortune.”

“I don’t think he’s old enough
to breed yet, Mum.”

“Humph!”

Again Chainsaw would keep quiet,
sensing he had almost won. Then he’d ask in a pleading voice. “Can
I keep him, Mum?”

His mother would look at the
human and then back at Chainsaw. “All right. You can keep him, as
long as you clean up after him. Humans don’t bury their poos, you
know. And some of them make really big poos.”

Chainsaw’s path took him out of the
bushes and into the geothermal area where steam was drifting across
the track. He continued until they reached a place where the steam
was so thick that it blocked the way. He turned to check that Jack
was still with him, before disappearing into the steam.

Jack stopped. This could be
dangerous. The steam looked different to the rest. It seemed to
glow from within, as if there was a fire, or worse still, molten
lava.

He waited a couple of minutes,
debating whether to follow or not. In that time Chainsaw did not
reappear, but nor were there any noises suggesting he’d got into
trouble. Jack took the first step.

Immediately, everything was
hidden by the warm vapour. He stretched his arms out and crept
forward. The glow was getting brighter.

When the steam thinned, Jack saw
that the glow was not molten lava. Nor was it a fire. Dug into the
wall of the crater was a room. The bank had been extended with a
lean-to of corrugated iron. Storage holes had been scooped out of
the soft pumice. The floor had been smoothed by sweeping.

On one side there was a mattress
and a sleeping bag. In the middle of the space was an old La-Z-Boy.
And on it, in a patch of afternoon sunshine, was the source of the
orange glow: Fluoro Fred, mumbling to himself. At his feet was
Chainsaw.

Jack stopped and eased back into
the steam, hoping that he’d not been seen. He felt betrayed.
Chainsaw had led him to the crazy man. But worse still was the way
that Chainsaw was rubbing against the man’s legs. There was no
doubting that they were friends. Then Jack spotted the food and
water containers beside the armchair and realized that the two were
more than friends. Chainsaw was the madman’s pet.

Jack hid in the steam listening to the
mumbling. It seemed like some sort of chant. On and on it went,
repeating over and over.

Then it stopped and another
voice sounded. “Well, are you coming in, or are you going to stand
there all day?”

Jack’s body stiffened. This was
not the voice of a crazy man. The words were clear and spoken with
authority.

Jack moved forward a bit, but
not so much that he could be seen.

“Well, Buddha,” said Fluoro,
stretching down and stroking the cat, “it looks like your friend
doesn’t want to be with us. Just as well. I’ve told you before not
to bring humans home. You never know where they’ve been.”

Jack gave a little giggle. He
took another step forward.

“Ah,” said Fluoro. “Maybe he
will stay with us for a while.” He beckoned with his hand. “Come on
in. I’m neither insane, diseased, nor an addict.”

Jack moved out of the steam. “Do
you call the cat Buddha?” he asked.

“Yes, it is the greatest
compliment I can give to my friend. What do you call him?”

“Chainsaw.”

Fluoro chuckled. “Yes, very
good,” he said. “Then from now on I too will call him Chainsaw. And
your name is?”

“Jack.”

“Hello, Jack,” said Fluoro. “So,
what do you call me? I’m sure the locals have some sort of
name.”

“The kids at school call you
Fluoro Fred.”

Fluoro put his head back and
laughed. “I like it.”

“What’s your real name?”

He stopped laughing. “Fluoro
Fred will do for now. My name from a previous life is not
important.”

“Are you a fragrant?”

Fluoro was puzzled for a moment.
Then he laughed again.

“A fragrant, eh? I think the
word you’re after is vagrant. Fragrant means sweet smelling, and
not too many vagrants are that.”

“What about you?” asked
Jack.

“I smell no different to any
other human, I hope. But there’s only one way you’ll know for sure.
You could join me and Buddha Chainsaw for a meal.”

Jack stood for a while as if
making up his mind. But really he’d already decided. The thought of
going home was much less attractive than being with Chainsaw.

“OK,” he said.

Now it was the man who had
second thoughts. “What about your parents? When are they expecting
you home?”

“They’re both working. Mum won’t
be home until late and Dad’s hauling logs to Napier.”

Fluoro leant over and stroked
the cat. “What do you think, Buddha Chainsaw?”

In reply the cat left the man to
rub against Jack’s legs.

“OK,” said Fluoro as he got to
his feet. “Then let’s have some lunch. Do you eat sausages?”

Jack nodded.

“Excellent!” said Fluoro,
rubbing his hands together. He took a couple of steps towards his
storage area, before turning back and glaring at Jack. “I was
planning to have steak,” he said. “But I ended up twenty dollars
short yesterday. Sometimes money just seems to fly away. Have you
ever noticed that, Jack?” Then he grinned. “But maybe it’s for the
best. I’ve heard that too much steak causes gout.”

It was a good meal. Jack couldn’t
believe how tasty the sausages were after being cooked on a sheet
of rusty iron. In fact he couldn’t believe any of what was
happening. He shook his head in wonder. Here he was sitting in the
middle of a geothermal area having lunch with a crazy man as if it
were perfectly normal.

Except Jack was no longer sure
that Fluoro was crazy. He might talk strangely, but what he said
made sense.

Jack turned to him. “Why do you
live like this?”

Fluoro chuckled. “A good
question. A simple one to ask, but a hard one to answer.” He
paused. “Do you ever get fed up with your everyday life, Jack?
School? Home? Feel that you you’ve had enough of it?”

Jack rolled his eyes and nodded.
Did he ever. That’s why he was here.

“Then you’ll understand that’s
what happened to me. So I decided to do something entirely
different.” He opened his hands to indicate the surroundings. “And
this is it.”

“Why here?”

“Ah! That’s easier to answer.
All my life I’ve been fascinated by geothermal areas. Now I can
live in the middle of one. It makes me feel closer to the earth
than I have ever been before.”

Jack nodded. He could understand
that. “Is the mumbling part of it as well?” he asked.

In answer Fluoro closed his eyes
and began mumbling. Except this time Jack could make out more of
the sounds.

“Om mani padme hum. Om mani
padme hum. Om mani padme …” He went on so long that Jack was
thinking “crazy man” again.

Then suddenly, Fluoro stopped
and looked up at him. “That’s the one I use most often,” he said in
a perfectly normal voice. “It’s a Buddhist mantra that helps people
come to peace with their world.”

“Oh mummy pat me bum?” said
Jack. “What does that mean?”

Fluoro frowned. “Don’t ridicule
other people’s religion.”

“I’m not!” replied Jack. “That’s
what I heard.”

“Well,” Fluoro said slowly,
“it’s ‘Om, mani, padme, hum,’ and it’s not what it means that is
important. It’s what it does. It makes me feel good and gives me
peaceful thoughts.”

“I’ve got a book like that,”
said Jack. “It’s called
Magic Thinks Big.
”

“And why does it make you feel
peaceful?”

“I don’t know really,” said
Jack. “There’s a cat in the story called Magic, and he can go
places in his mind.” He shrugged. “There’s just something about it
that makes me feel good.”

Fluoro nodded. “Can
you
go places in your mind?”

“Sometimes. But I’m not very
good at it. When Mum or Dad used to read to me, I could do it
better. But they don’t do that anymore.”

“That’s a pity,” said Fluoro.
“Because it’s good to go off to places. I do it all the time.”

“Where do you go?”

“Oh, I stay right here,” replied
Fluoro with a grin. “But I travel back in time. I try to go back to
before the last big eruption.”

“What’s it like?”

Fluoro looked at the boy for a
long time before answering. “Maybe I can take you there. If we get
comfortable, and I tell you what’s happening in my mind, we might
be able to share the journey.” A pause. “Do you trust me enough to
do that?”

Jack looked away. He didn’t know
if he did or not. What he did know was he was feeling his most
relaxed since moving to Taupo. If just talking to Fluoro worked,
then taking a mind journey might be even better. Anyway, what was
there to lose? His life was already rubbish. How could it get any
worse?

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s do
it.”

Fluoro’s idea of getting comfortable
was to drag a beach lounger from the back of his home and unfold it
for Jack. The canvas was ripped in a couple of places, but was
still strong enough to hold Jack’s weight.

The man then sat in the La-Z-Boy
and leant back until he too was lying down. He began talking.

“The time we’re going back to is
about two hundred years after the birth of Jesus Christ. Almost all
the world is populated with people except for here. It will be
still another few hundred years before the first Polynesians make
it to this land.

“Imagine we’re on a rise,
looking down at the land that will become Crown Park. Behind us we
can see Tauhara. It is covered with bush, like most of the land we
can see, except for dots of bare patches where steam rises into the
air.”

Jack was finding it difficult to
see any of this. To him it was only boring description.
I want
things to happen,
he thought.
I want action!

At that moment a heavy weight
landed on his lap. Jack flinched, thinking that somehow it had
resulted from his wish for action. Then the kneading started and he
knew it was Chainsaw. His hand automatically moved to the cat’s
head and began stroking back and forth. Instantly, the sound of an
idling chainsaw filled the makeshift home.

Fluoro was still talking. “…
trees so big their crowns are filled with other plants, forming
gardens in the air. And in these gardens are birds feeding on
fruits and insects. Every now and then a metallic note rings
through the forest, to be answered soon after by an echo of similar
sounds.”

Slowly, Jack began to see this
land in the past. He stopped hearing the words and began seeing
images. And what images they were. It was like standing in the
middle of a 3D fantasy movie. Something like Imax3D, except here,
when he looked around, he saw things everywhere — above, below,
behind. It was the ultimate movie experience.

Standing next to him was Fluoro,
still dressed in his orange outfit. On the ground was Chainsaw
showing an unhealthy interest in a nearby bird. There were birds
everywhere, and so tame. Their songs filled the air with music.

As he listened, Jack began to
hear a different sound. A deep background noise that gradually got
louder as the source moved closer. It took a while for him to work
out what it was, but when he did, he couldn’t believe what he was
hearing. Without doubt it was the doof-doof-doof of bass notes
coming from a car stereo system.

A car stereo? Here in the
distant past? It can’t be!

Maybe he was getting crossover
signals from real time. But Chainsaw was getting something as well,
for his head was up sniffing the air.

Then Fluoro spoke. “I think we’d
better check this out. Could be interesting.”

Without waiting for a reply he
moved into the thick surrounding bush.

Chainsaw looked up at Jack
asking if they should follow. Jack didn’t like the look of the
tangle of undergrowth in the bush, but nor did he like the thought
of being in this land on his own.

He bent over and gave Chainsaw a
reassuring pat, before following Fluoro into the darkness.

Fluoro, Chainsaw and Jack made their
way through the forest heading for the strange sound. All the time
the doof-doof beat was getting louder. Soon they could make out
another noise like the honk of a cheap car horn. Doof honk, doof
honk, doof honk…

They arrived at a clearing in
the forest. Now, more notes could be heard. Someone was whistling a
tune in time with the doof-honk rhythm.

Fluoro stopped at the edge of
the clearing. “I think we’d better hide,” he said.

The humans edged back into the
forest, but Chainsaw stayed in the clearing staring in the
direction of the sounds.

“Get in here, Chainsaw!” hissed
Jack.

The cat turned to him and
flicked his tail slowly a couple of times. He turned back to the
sounds.

Across the other side of the
clearing, bushes began moving as some animal pushed through. The
booming bass beat was now causing Jack’s ears to throb.

Then the source was marching
towards them.

It was a moa!

A very big moa. Probably taller
than Fluoro and Jack stacked on top of each other. That’s if it
ever stretched to its full height. Even crouched over in the
walking position it was as tall as any human.

Jack shook his head in wonder at
the sight of the giant bird. It was much more impressive than any
models he’d seen in a museum. The feathers were well groomed and
more like hair than feathers. Its thick scaly legs could have been
those of a dinosaur.

The most striking feature
however, was the S-shaped neck. The throat was a royal blue, so
deep a colour that it could’ve been face paint. The blue skin
bulged with each doof beat.