Billy and Old Smoko Read online

  “It looks a long way down from up here,” said Billy.

  “Never fear! I shall always be here to catch you.”

  Billy nodded. He was getting used to the old-fashioned way Old Smoko spoke. Besides, he’d had nobody much to talk to since his real mother disappeared and his father went even more lackadaisical. It felt good having a mate, and he could always pull Old Smoko’s leg if he got too pompous.

  “My real mum disappeared,” he found himself saying. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “It will gratify me to assist you in your search,” said Old Smoko. “That is the very sort of thing that comrades are for.”

  “I would be eternally grateful if you were to do so,” said Billy and thought he must be careful not to sound like Old Smoko. “I don’t know where to start,” he said in simpler words. Already he felt much better.

  “A problem shared is a problem solved,” Old Smoko said a little sententiously. “Even if it takes a while.”

  The wind blew off the Kaimais as they started for school, but Old Smoko ignored it. Rain fell, and the river flooded as he swam breaststroke with his front feet and kicked his back feet like a big frog. “I find this exhilarating!” he exclaimed.

  Halfway across, a cannibal eel stuck its head out of the water, said something that Billy didn’t hear, and had a go at biting his foot. Old Smoko wrung the eel’s neck, bit its head off, and chewed it the rest of the way into Waharoa.

  When Billy took off the hackamore and let him go in the school horse paddock, Old Smoko put down the eel’s head and said, “That is yet another advantage of a hackamore. Chewing is easier when you do not have an iron bit in your mouth.”

  In the classroom, Mr Strap wiggled his eyebrows, blew down his nostrils till his moustache shook, and taught the kids how to sit up straight, how to put their hands on top of their heads, and how to stand up when he entered. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you’re going to learn how to pay attention, how to concentrate, and how to behave when the School Inspector comes to examine your work. And we might look at how to read.”

  At three o’clock, Billy climbed up the fence, and got on Old Smoko’s back. He could still smell oil of wintergreen.

  “Your horse’s chewing that eel’s head!” the other kids yelled.

  “It was a pretty big one,” Billy told them. “What did the eel say to you this morning?” he asked Old Smoko on the way home.

  Old Smoko cleared his throat. “It had the impertinence to say to me, ‘You look like a hairy frog swimming breaststroke.’ So I wrung its neck and bit its head off. I invariably do that to people who are impertinent, what you call giving cheek.”

  “I thought you did it to save my life,” said Billy.

  “That, too,” Old Smoko told him. “But mainly for impertinence.”

  At the river, Billy scrubbed his hands with sand, then crushed wild mint leaves between them, scrubbed them with more sand, and rubbed lemony tarata leaves on them to make sure there was no smell of oil of wintergreen left from the morning.

  “What did they learn you at school today?” his stepmother demanded when he got in.

  “Mr Strap taught us how to sit up straight, how to put our hands on top of our heads, and how to stand up politely when he comes into the room.”

  “Good useful stuff can I smell oil of wintergreen?”

  “Not on me. Tomorrow, we’re going to learn how to pay attention, how to concentrate, and how to behave when the School Inspector comes to examine our work.”

  “More useful stuff!”

  “And we might look at how to read.”

  “Wasting time on frills me’n your father can’t read and look at us it never done us no harm.”

  Billy sat up straight, put his hands on the top of his head, and stood up. “Mum,” he said, “may I have something to eat before I go down to the shed, please?”

  “I don’t know where you put the food look at the breakfast you ate the whole beak of a chook all to yourself a meal fit for a king didn’t you eat the cabbage stalk I gave you for your lunch?”

  “That was hours ago. And I gave half to Old Smoko.”

  “Wasting good food on that four-legged malingerer it’s bad enough that you keep demanding more to eat all the time useless old nag.

  “There’s no need to cry you can have a drink of water out of the hose down in the shed but don’t tell your father I said so or he’ll tell me off for bringing you up a sissy.”

  Down at the cowshed, Billy looked at the hose, but the end was lying in a heap of cow poop. While his father leg-roped a cow, Billy stuck his head in a can and had a good swig of warm milk.

  After milking, they carried the cans down to the river for the milk launch to collect. “This can’s a bit on the light side,” said Billy’s dad.

  Billy nodded. “Maybe the cows are going dry.”

  “It’s supposed to be the flush.” His dad pulled off the lid. “My giddy aunt,” he said, “it’s half empty!”

  Billy looked at his feet. “I cannot tell a lie, Dad,” he said. “I snuck a drink out of that can.”

  “Were you hungry?” Billy nodded. His father whistled “Home On the Range”, leaned against a strainer post, and looked up at the Kaimais. Billy took the half-empty can and gave the full one to his father.

  “That’s better,” his dad grunted, as they picked them up and carried them down to the jetty. “This can’s real heavy, full to the top. Them cows must be milking real well!”

  Chapter Eight

  The Sort of Thing Billy’s Father Liked to Hear, How Bo-Bo Invented Roast Pork and Old Smoko Learned to Read, and Last Night’s Cold Mashed Turnip for Tea.

  They dumped the cans on the jetty for the milk launch. “How’d it go today, Billy – riding Old Smoko to school?”

  “Beaut, thanks, Dad. I wonder what Mum’s cooking for tea?”

  Dad looked up at the Kaimais and whistled the first line of “Home On the Range” out of the corner of his mouth.

  Billy skipped as they walked up to the house. “I hope it’s something good.”

  His father’s mouth dried up so it wouldn’t whistle. He licked his lips and said, “We had dinner midday – roast leg of mutton. Matter of fact, Billy, me and your stepmother, we were so hungry, we didn’t leave much for you.”

  “That’s a shame,” said Billy. “I was looking forward to tea. I need my tucker, because I’m a growing boy.”

  “We’ll see what your stepmother’s got in the safe. There might be something left on the bone.”

  Billy’s stepmother grumbled, but she brought out the bone. “Some good pickings there,” she said, “lots of lovely gristle!”

  Billy chewed away at the gristle and pretended he was Old Smoko, chewing the eel’s head. “Why are you neighing?” Dad asked.

  “I got my nose squashed against the bone,” Billy gasped.

  “You’ve polished that bone clean I meant it to do for your tea tomorrow as well you needn’t think you’re going to come home and gormandise like a king every night,” said his stepmother. “And why you have to come to the table reeking of liniment I’ll never understand for the life of me you know very well if there’s one smell I can’t stand it’s oil of wintergreen.”

  Billy looked at his father, but he glanced away, licked his lips, and tried to whistle.

  “That school the boy’s going to,” his stepmother told Billy’s dad, “they reckon they’re going to waste time on learning him frills.”

  “Frills?”

  “Reading and rubbish like that writing and spelling all frills and fal-de-rals I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

  Dad put on a pinny, leaned against the sink, started washing the dishes, and whistled “Home on the Range” while Billy dried.

  “Well?” said Billy’s stepmother. “Say something to the boy!”

  “I don’t know,” said Billy’s father, looking down at the soap shaker, a tin he’d punched full of nail holes and with a lump of yellow soap inside. He shook it by
the number eight wire handle till the sink was full of bubbles. “Here I spend the best years of my life in the cowshed, working my fingers to the bone to pay for your education, and they fritter it away on frills and fal-de-rals.”

  “They did teach me to sit up straight, put my hands on the top of my head, and pay attention,” said Billy.

  “Capital!” said his Dad. “That’s the sort of thing I like to hear.”

  “And tomorrow,” Billy told him, “we’re going to learn how to pay attention, how to concentrate, and how to behave when the School Inspector comes to examine our work.”

  “First-rate stuff!” His father took off his pinny, leaned against the wall, and whistled as Billy washed the cow muck off his feet, said goodnight, and went to bed.

  “Tomorrow night you can do the dishes on your own,” his stepmother called after him, “and you can tell Mr Strap none of them frills and fal-de-rals or your father will come in there and straighten him out isn’t that so go on tell the boy!”

  Billy’s father came to the door of his room and mumbled, “That’s right. No frills. And no fal-de-rals.” And he leaned against the door frame and whistled till Billy pretended to go to sleep.

  When his father tiptoed away, Billy lit the candle and wrote in his real mother’s book, “I had a good guzzle of milk, and I like the smell of oil of wintergreen, so there!” and he went to sleep – properly this time.

  The following afternoon, just before home-time, Mr Strap said, “Here’s a new School Journal,” and he gave everyone their own copy. “For homework, I want you to have a look at the story about how the Chinese boy, Bo-Bo, invented roast pork. By the time you come to the end, you should know how to read.”

  “Gosh!” said Billy. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to read.” Mr Strap blew down his nostrils so his moustache shook, and looked at Billy who was sometimes just a bit too clever for his own good.

  Past the turnoff to Te Aroha, Old Smoko sat down on the side of the road, and Billy took a stick, wrote his name in the dust, and taught him how to read.

  Old Smoko looked at the letters written in the dust and spelled them aloud, one by one. “O–L–D says Old,” he said. “S–M–O–K–O says Smoko. Old Smoko! Hooray! I can read! Write us something else? Quick!”

  Billy wrote his own name in the dust. “It says B–I–L–L–Y,” said Old Smoko. “Billy!”

  “You are an exceptionally fast learner!” Billy told him.

  “How I wish you had something else for me to read!” said Old Smoko.

  “I’ve got the new School Journal. For homework, we have to read the story about how a Chinese boy invented roast pork.”

  “I was once a great eater of roast pork,” said Old Smoko, “but that was in my youth. Read the story to me as I bear you homewards.”

  “‘A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig’ by Charles Lamb,” Billy read aloud.

  “What, pray, is a ‘dissertation’?”

  “I think it means a sort of talk. Isn’t it funny: the writer’s name is Lamb, and he’s talking about pork!”

  “Do not squander time talking about it. Read it to me,” said Old Smoko, and licked his lips. “Roast pig!” he murmured.

  Billy read aloud how Bo-Bo, a Chinese boy, set fire to his father’s house and burned to death nine piglets.

  “That boy has a splendid name!” said Old Smoko, and he swallowed.

  “‘Bo-Bo burnt his fingers on the burnt piglets, stuck them into his mouth, and sucked them,’” read Billy. “‘He was the first person ever to taste roast pork. A piece of crackling had stuck to his fingers, so he bit it, and Bo-Bo became the first person ever to hear pork crackling crunching between his teeth.’”

  “I am deeply moved by the thought of roast pork,” said Old Smoko and smacked his lips. “Even more so by the thought of crackling crunching between my teeth!”

  “‘After that,’” read Billy, “‘Bo-Bo’s father’s house burned down every time his sow had piglets.’ Would you like a turn at reading?”

  “I wouldn’t mind giving it a go!” Billy could tell by the casual way he spoke that Old Smoko was excited. He took the hackamore and put it on himself. “I’m glad I don’t have to put an iron bit, all wet with Old Smoko’s dribble, into my mouth,” he thought. Old Smoko sat on his shoulders, and they trotted towards home. Old Smoko read the next page, then it was his turn to put on the hackamore and carry Billy while he read the next page.

  By the time they climbed up to the farm under the Kaimais, Old Smoko could read nearly as well as Billy.

  “I enjoyed that story greatly,” he said. “But it has left me tormented by hunger pangs. I do wish we had a roast pig…”

  “Mmmm!”

  “And crackling…”

  “Mmmm!”

  “What is your stepmother cooking for your evening repast?”

  “She said I’ve got to eat the rest of the mashed boiled turnip I didn’t eat last night,” said Billy. “Cold!”

  “Mashed boiled turnip – cold!” Old Smoko shivered in sympathy. Billy took off the hackamore, and let him go in the paddock where he rolled and had a good feed of grass. Billy tried rolling, too, but he got dirt down his neck, and he didn’t like the taste of grass. He went inside and said, “Mum, I’m home.”

  “What did they learn you at school today?”

  “Paying attention, keeping quiet, and listening when you’re spoken to.”

  “I thought you said they were going to learn you to read?”

  “We had to do some for homework.”

  “Not too much of that nonsense I hope?”

  “Just a bit. I did it on the way home. Can I have something to eat, please, Mum?”

  “Here’s a rotten apple I was going to give to the pigs your father and I don’t like them.” His beautiful stepmother walked across to the mirror.

  “Thanks, Mum.” Billy shot out the door.

  The apple was full of wriggling worms and caterpillars, so he gave it to the pigs and watched them fight over it. “You know what I’d really like?” he said to Old Smoko. “I’d like to burn my fingers on a roast pig, stick them into my mouth, and crunch the crackling between my teeth!”

  “Some day you shall!” said Old Smoko fiercely. “I shall see to it, Billy, I promise you!” and he swished his tail and stamped his front off hoof. “I shall help you find your mother, and you shall taste roast pork and crackling – with lashings of apple sauce!”

  Chapter Nine

  That There Reading and a Pea Under the Mattress, Why Billy Had Feathers Round His Mouth, That There High-Falutin La-Di-Da, and Appropriate Language.

  That 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,” Bi
lly 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.