NGĀ WHAKAWHITINGA

I woke up eight years old and immediately checked whether I felt different.

I did not.

My feet were still sticking out from under the blanket. My hair was still a mess. Wai was still yelling from the room down the hall even though it was barely seven in the morning.

So far, being eight was disappointing.

Then Ahi burst into my room wearing one sock and carrying a cereal bowl.

“Happy birthday!” he shouted.

Milk sloshed over the edge.

“Mum says you're not allowed to get up yet.”

I sat up anyway.

Ahi was five and believed rules were most useful when they belonged to someone else.

“Why?” I asked.

“Surprise.”

He grinned so hard I knew the surprise was probably not very secret.

From the kitchen I could hear Mum moving chairs, opening cupboards and telling somebody on the phone that, yes, she had remembered the candles.

Our house had felt different since Dad left.

Quieter in some ways. Louder in others.

Mum, Ahi, Wai and I had been living together without Dad for almost a year. Mum said grown-up things were complicated. I had decided complicated was a word adults used when they did not want to explain something.

Dad had gone away to sort himself out.

That was another grown-up sentence.

For almost a year we had hardly heard from him.

I missed him in strange places.

When I saw hot jalebi at the market.

When Mum made curry and said it was not as good as his.

When somebody on television spoke with an Indian accent and Wai pointed at the screen and yelled, “Dad!” even though it was definitely not Dad.

Today I tried not to think about that.

Today was my birthday.

Eight.

Year Four.

Old enough, according to me, to make my own toast.

Not old enough, according to Mum, to use the big knife.

I got dressed in my favourite shorts and the green T-shirt Nan had given me last Christmas.

When Mum finally called me out, the lounge was covered in paper streamers.

Most of them were crooked.

“Ahi helped,” Mum said.

That explained everything.

Wai sat in his high chair banging a spoon like a drum.

He was nearly two and had three favourite words: Mum, no and mine.

Today he added a fourth.

“Cake!”

Mum laughed.

“Not yet.”

She hugged me and kissed the top of my head.

“Hari huritau, my girl.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

Her name was Rose, but nobody in our house called her Rose unless they were annoyed with her or answering the phone.

I wrapped my arms around her.

For one second she held on extra tight.

Then the front gate clicked.

Mum froze.

Ahi ran to the window.

“Someone's here!”

It was too early for the party.

Mum wiped her hands on a tea towel and went to the door.

I followed.

A man stood on the path holding a wrapped present and looking like he had forgotten how to breathe.

I knew him before he smiled.

“Happy birthday, beta,” Dad said.

For a moment nobody moved.

Then Wai yelled, “Dad!” so loudly that the neighbour's dog started barking.

Dad laughed and crouched just in time for Ahi to crash into him.

I stayed beside Mum.

I wanted to run to him.

I also wanted to ask where he had been.

Both feelings sat inside me at the same time.

Dad looked older than I remembered. His hair was shorter. He had a new jacket and tired eyes.

“Aroha,” he said.

I walked over slowly.

Then he opened his arms and I forgot to be careful.

I hugged him.

He smelled like soap, cold air and something spicy from the paper bag he had brought.

“I missed you,” I said into his jacket.

“I missed you too.”

Mum stood in the doorway.

She did not look angry.

She did not look happy either.

She looked like someone carrying a glass bowl very carefully.

Dad stood up.

“Hi, Rose.”

“Hi, Krish.”

That was how I knew the morning had become serious.

Adults only used each other's names when things were serious.

Dad held up the paper bag.

“I brought breakfast.”

Mum looked inside.

Her mouth twitched.

“You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered.”

Inside were samosas, sweet jalebi and the coconut sweets Dad used to bring home on special days.

Ahi cheered.

Wai said, “Mine,” which was not surprising.

By nine o'clock, Dad was helping Mum put up the last decorations.

It was weird how quickly he fitted back into the room.

Not the same as before.

But not like a stranger either.

Mum let him stay.

That mattered.

Soon cars began pulling up outside.

Nan arrived first, carrying enough food to feed an entire rugby team.

Her full name was Huiterangiora, but everyone called her Hui or Nan.

Koro came behind her with a chilly bin and a smile.

Koro's real name was Ru.

Nobody called him Ru except Nan when she wanted him to stop doing something.

“Ru, leave that alone.”

“Ru, don't climb up there.”

“Ru, you are not fixing the barbecue during the party.”

Koro ignored all three instructions.

Then Uncle Dave and Pania arrived.

Pania hugged me straight away.

She had warm hands and a laugh that made other people laugh too.

Dave gave me an envelope with money in it.

“Eight already,” he said.

“Yep.”

He nodded like I had confirmed a business meeting.

Dave was Mum's brother.

He was not mean to me.

He was just hard to know.

He talked a lot about work, power companies and projects that adults seemed to understand.

Pania made him seem softer.

She bumped her shoulder into his.

“You could say happy birthday.”

Dave looked at me again.

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

Pania rolled her eyes.

I liked her even more.

The backyard filled with cousins, aunties, uncles, neighbours and kids from school.

Someone put music on.

Ahi stole icing before the cake was cut.

Wai fell asleep under the table with a cracker in his hand.

Dad and Mum spoke quietly near the kitchen door.

They were not fighting.

That felt like a birthday present too.

Just before we lit the candles, Koro tapped my shoulder.

“I've got something for you,” he said.

His voice sounded different.

Not birthday-present different.

Important different.

Koro took me into the spare room where it was quieter.

He closed the door but left it open a crack.

That was another Koro thing.

He believed doors should never be completely shut when children were around.

“Sit,” he said.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

Koro reached inside his shirt and pulled out a black cord.

Something dark green hung from it.

I had seen it before.

Not often.

Usually it was hidden beneath his clothes.

The hei tiki was smooth and deep green, with a rounded head and carved curves that caught the light.

I stared at it.

“That's yours.”

“Was.”

He lifted the cord over his head.

“Now it's yours.”

I looked at him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

I reached out but stopped before touching it.

Koro smiled.

“Go on.”

The stone was cool at first.

Then warm.

I pulled my fingers back.

“Did you feel that?”

Koro watched my face.

“What did you feel?”

“Warm.”

“Mm.”

That was not an answer.

“Koro.”

He laughed quietly.

“It has been in our whānau a long time.”

“How long?”

“Long enough that I don't know the first person who wore it.”

“Did your dad wear it?”

“For a time.”

“And his dad?”

“Maybe.”

I frowned.

“That's not very helpful.”

“History isn't always tidy.”

He put the cord over my head.

The hei tiki settled against my chest.

It felt heavier than it looked.

Not bad-heavy.

Important-heavy.

“Look after it,” Koro said.

“I will.”

“And listen.”

“To what?”

Koro glanced toward the door.

For the first time, his smile disappeared.

“You'll know.”

I waited.

He did not explain.

Adults.

Complicated.

I tucked the hei tiki under my shirt and followed him outside.

Nan spotted the cord immediately.

She stopped walking.

“Ru.”

Koro pretended not to hear.

Nan came closer.

Her eyes moved from him to me.

“You gave it to her?”

“She's eight.”

“I can count.”

Pania appeared behind Nan carrying a bowl of salad.

She saw the hei tiki too.

The bowl nearly slipped from her hands.

Dave caught it.

“Careful.”

Pania ignored him.

She looked at Koro.

“Are you sure?”

Koro nodded.

“It chose long before I did.”

That sentence made no sense.

Dave's face changed.

Only a little.

His eyes sharpened.

“Chose?” he said.

Koro waved a hand.

“Old people talk rubbish. You know that.”

Dave did not laugh.

Pania did.

Too quickly.

Then Mum called us for cake.

Everyone moved away.

But Dave stayed where he was.

He looked at the hei tiki around my neck.

Then at me.

I remember that look.

At the time I thought he was curious.

Later, I would understand it was the first moment he became afraid.

For the next few hours, nothing strange happened.

That is important.

Because when I think back to my eighth birthday, I do not want to remember only the bad parts.

I want to remember the cake.

Mum had made a huge chocolate one with green icing and too many lollies.

Ahi blew out two of my candles before I could.

I made him relight them.

Dad sang the loudest.

His version of Happy Birthday was half English, half Hindi and completely out of tune.

Nan laughed so much she had to sit down.

Koro told everyone he could sing better.

He could not.

Pania knew all the words to every song on the radio.

Dave stood near the barbecue pretending he did not know any.

When Mum put on an old waiata tape, Koro sang softly under his breath.

I knew that one.

Nan and Koro had taught me bits of te reo for as long as I could remember.

Not lessons exactly.

Words while cooking.

Names of things in the garden.

Little sayings.

Songs.

But they were careful.

“At home is fine,” Nan always said.

“Don't show off at school.”

I never understood why knowing words could be showing off.

Once I asked Koro.

He stared at his hands for a long time.

“Because when I was a boy, people made us feel ashamed of them.”

“Of Māori words?”

“Of a lot of things.”

That sounded stupid to me.

Koro agreed.

But he still told me to be careful.

At the party, Dad gave me a small wooden jewellery box from India.

It had tiny flowers carved into the lid.

“For your important things,” he said.

I touched the hei tiki.

“This won't fit.”

Dad smiled.

“Then wear that one.”

Mum gave me books.

Ahi gave me a picture of what he said was a dragon but looked like a potato with wings.

Wai gave me a sticky biscuit he had already bitten.

By late afternoon, the adults were tired and the kids were still running.

The sky had turned strange.

Not dark.

Greenish-grey.

Pania noticed it too.

She stood beside me near the clothesline.

“Storm coming,” she said.

“Mum said it wasn't meant to rain.”

“Weather doesn't always listen to Mum.”

“Nothing listens to Mum.”

Pania laughed.

“Don't tell her I agreed.”

A warm gust moved through the backyard.

The hei tiki pressed against my chest.

Warm again.

I looked down.

“Do you know anything about this?” I asked.

Pania's smile faded.

“About what?”

I showed her the stone.

She touched it with one finger.

Her eyes widened.

Then Dave called her name from the deck.

Pania pulled her hand back.

“Ask Koro,” she whispered.

“Why?”

Another gust pushed through the harakeke.

Pania looked toward the plants.

“Because I think it's waking up.”

By evening most people had gone home.

The backyard looked like a party had exploded.

Paper plates.

Cups.

A balloon stuck in the lemon tree.

Ahi had fallen asleep on the couch.

Wai was asleep in Mum's room.

Dad had gone to help Nan take food containers to her car.

Koro was packing up the barbecue.

Pania stayed to help Mum clean the kitchen.

Dave was somewhere around the side of the house on his phone.

I carried my presents inside one at a time.

The air felt heavy.

The storm had not arrived yet.

It was waiting.

I picked up wrapping paper near the harakeke and started singing to myself.

It was one of Koro's songs.

One of the ones he told me not to sing loudly at school.

“Tōku reo, tōku ohoho, māpihi maurea, whakakai marihi, nei rā te kaupapa...”

I did not sing perfectly.

I was eight.

I sang because I liked how the words felt.

Because Koro smiled when I knew them.

Because Nan always joined in on the second line.

The hei tiki grew hot.

I stopped singing.

The heat disappeared.

I frowned.

Then I sang the line again.

Warm.

Hotter.

A faint green light shone through my T-shirt.

I pulled the hei tiki out.

It was glowing.

Not bright like a torch.

Soft.

Alive.

“Koro?” I called.

No answer.

Something clicked beside me.

I turned.

A cicada sat on one of the harakeke leaves.

Its wings should have been brown and clear.

Instead they shimmered green-gold.

The light from my hei tiki stretched toward it like a thin thread.

I forgot how to breathe.

The cicada moved.

Not like an insect.

Like it had just woken from a very long sleep.

It crawled to the edge of the leaf.

Its wings opened.

Green light ran through them.

“Whoa.”

The cicada flew straight at me.

I squealed and ducked.

It landed on my shoulder.

“Get off!”

It clicked at me.

I stared at it.

It clicked again.

“Are you talking to me?”

The cicada tilted its head.

That was impossible.

I knew it was impossible.

It did it anyway.

Behind me, something moved near the side fence.

I looked up.

Nobody was there.

At least, I thought nobody was there.

Later I learned Dave had been standing in the shadow beside the garage.

He had seen the glow.

He had seen the cicada wake.

He had seen me make Mīharo.

At the time, all I knew was that my new insect friend had climbed into my hair.

“You need a name,” I whispered.

The cicada clicked.

“Kiki?”

Click-click.

“Kiki it is.”

The first drop of rain hit my nose.

Then another.

Then lightning split the sky.

The rain came all at once.

Mum shouted from the kitchen.

“Aroha! Inside!”

I grabbed the last present and ran.

Kiki disappeared into my hair.

“There's a bug on you,” Mum said when I reached the door.

“It's Kiki.”

“Of course it is.”

She was too busy shutting windows to ask why I had named a cicada.

Thunder shook the house.

The power flickered.

Pania stood at the kitchen window staring into the rain.

She looked worried.

Dave came in through the back door.

His jacket was wet even though he had only been outside for a minute.

“We should go,” he said.

Pania did not move.

“Not yet.”

“Pania.”

She touched the window glass.

A flash of lightning lit her face.

“Something's wrong.”

Koro came into the kitchen.

He and Pania looked at each other.

No one spoke.

I hated when adults did that.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

Koro smiled at me.

“Just a storm.”

He was lying.

I knew because Nan had once told me Koro's left eyebrow moved when he lied.

It was moving now.

The hei tiki cooled against my chest.

Kiki crawled onto my shoulder.

Pania saw her.

Her eyes widened.

“Is that—”

Dave took her arm.

“We're leaving.”

Pania looked at me one last time.

Not at my face.

At Kiki.

Then at the hei tiki.

“Keep them close,” she said.

“Both of them.”

“Why?”

But Dave had already opened the door.

They ran through the rain to their car.

Koro watched them leave.

“Ru,” Nan said quietly.

He turned.

Nan shook her head.

Another grown-up conversation without words.

Dad came back inside carrying the last food box.

“Road's getting bad,” he said.

Nan decided she and Koro would leave before it flooded.

Mum tried to make them stay.

Koro kissed my forehead.

“Look after that taonga.”

“I will.”

He touched the hei tiki.

For a second the stone warmed again.

Then he left.

I stood at the window and watched Nan and Koro's car disappear.

The storm swallowed their tail lights.

That was the last time I saw Koro alive.

I did not know that then.

If I had, I would have run after him.

I would have made him stay.

I would have asked every question I had.

Instead I went to bed annoyed because the power went out before I could use my new CD player.

Mum tucked me in by torchlight.

Dad had gone to sleep on the couch.

“Best birthday?” Mum asked.

“Mostly.”

Kiki sat on the windowsill.

“Can she stay?”

Mum looked at the cicada.

“As long as she doesn't land on my face.”

I laughed.

Mum kissed my cheek.

“Goodnight, eight-year-old.”

“Goodnight.”

Outside, lightning flashed again.

Far away, something terrible was happening.

I slept through all of it.

The phone woke me.

Not my bedroom phone.

We did not have one.

The landline in the hallway.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

I pulled the blanket over my head.

The storm had gone.

Morning light came through the curtains.

The phone stopped.

A few seconds later, I heard Mum make a sound I had never heard before.

Not a word.

A broken kind of cry.

I was out of bed before I knew I was moving.

Kiki flew after me.

Mum stood beside the telephone with one hand still on the receiver.

Dad was holding her shoulders.

Her face was wet.

“Mama?”

She looked at me.

Then she looked away.

That scared me more.

“What happened?”

Ahi appeared behind me rubbing his eyes.

Wai started crying from Mum's room.

Dad went to get him.

I stepped closer.

“Mama, what happened?”

Mum grabbed me.

She pulled me into her chest so hard the hei tiki pressed between us.

“Koro and Pania died last night.”

The sentence did not fit inside my head.

I pulled back.

“What?”

“There was an accident.”

“No.”

“Aroha—”

“No.”

Koro had been here yesterday.

Pania had eaten cake.

People who ate cake did not die.

People who told you to keep your cicada close did not die.

“What happened?”

Mum closed her eyes.

“They think a calf got caught near an electric fence in the storm. Koro and Pania tried to free it.”

“Together?”

“That's what we've been told.”

“Where was Nan?”

“Home. She's safe.”

“Where's Dave?”

Mum looked at Dad.

“He's at the hospital.”

I touched the hei tiki.

Cold.

Completely cold.

Kiki landed on the telephone cord.

Her wings were no longer glowing.

I stared at her.

Yesterday the world had been full of impossible things.

Today it felt like someone had switched all the colour off.

I did not understand the story about the calf.

I did not understand why Pania had been with Koro.

I did not understand why Dave had survived.

Mostly, I did not understand how Koro could be gone.

Mum held me again.

I cried into her shirt.

Outside, water dripped from the roof.

The whole world smelled washed clean.

It did not feel clean.

It felt wrong.

And somewhere inside that wrongness, Kiki gave one tiny click.