NGĀ WHAKAWHITINGA

Being unable to talk did not make everybody else better at listening.

That was the first thing I learned.

Adults spoke louder at me.

Teachers asked Mum questions about me while I was standing right there.

Ahi tried to answer for me.

Wai just yelled my name until I looked at him.

I hated all of it.

Then a speech-language therapist showed me some New Zealand Sign Language.

The first sign I learned properly was THANK YOU.

The second was STOP.

The third was NOT THAT.

Ahi learned STOP immediately.

He ignored it immediately too.

Mum learned fastest.

Dad practised every night and got his fingers mixed up.

Nan pretended she was too old, then surprised me by remembering whole conversations.

“Hui!” Mum said.

Nan shrugged.

“I know people.”

School was harder.

My teacher put a little whiteboard on my desk.

At first I hated it.

Then I realised I could write things without asking permission to speak.

That was useful.

When Mr Harris asked, “Does anyone know eight times four?” I held up THIRTY-TWO.

When Caleb whispered that my answer was probably wrong, I rubbed it out and wrote YOU'RE PROBABLY WRONG.

Mr Harris tried not to laugh.

Maia sat beside me at lunch.

She had been in my class since Year Two and had never once understood the idea of personal space.

“Teach me something,” she said.

I showed her HELLO.

Then FRIEND.

Then BISCUIT.

“Important vocabulary,” she said.

I nodded.

By the end of the week Maia could sign WANT BISCUIT? from across the playground.

It was not perfect NZSL.

It was perfect friendship.

I still missed my voice.

I missed laughing loudly.

I missed calling Mum from another room.

I missed singing most of all.

But every time somebody understood my hands, my notebook or my face, the silence got a little smaller.

At home I wrote a new sentence in the red notebook.

DAVE TOOK ONE WAY I TALK.

Then I added:

HE DIDN'T TAKE ALL OF THEM.

People at school started calling me the quiet girl.

Not to my face.

Mostly.

I hated it.

I had never been quiet before.

I was the girl who sang in the backyard.

The girl who argued with Ahi about everything.

The girl Mum once banned from asking “why” for ten whole minutes.

My voice was quiet.

I was not.

One Monday our class had to give short talks about family.

Mr Harris told me I could skip mine.

I stared at him.

Then I wrote NO.

He looked embarrassed.

“Of course. Sorry.”

I made cardboard cards.

One had a photo of Mum, Ahi and Wai.

One had Dad standing beside a giant elephant statue in India from before I was born.

One had Nan and Koro at the beach.

I nearly left that one at home.

Instead I put it first.

Maia stood beside me and read my written sentences while I signed the parts I knew.

I told the class Mum's name was Rose.

I told them Dad's name was Krish and he came from India.

I told them my grandparents were Ru and Huiterangiora.

I told them Koro had died after my birthday.

Nobody whispered.

At the end, Mr Harris said, “Thank you, Aroha.”

Not thank you, Maia.

Not thank you, Mum.

Me.

That mattered.

After school, Maia asked about the hei tiki.

“You always touch it when you're nervous.”

I wrote, KORO GAVE IT TO ME.

“Before he died?”

I nodded.

She reached toward it, then stopped.

“Can I?”

I liked that she asked.

I let her touch the stone.

Nothing happened.

No warmth.

No glow.

Kiki sat inside my jacket pocket and stayed completely still.

Maia shrugged.

“Cool.”

Then she ran off to catch her bus.

I watched her go.

For one second, I wished the hei tiki had glowed.

I wanted somebody else to see it.

I wanted proof.

Then I remembered Dave.

Maybe proof was dangerous.

Dad kept coming back.

Not all at once.

Not like the year away had never happened.

He came on Tuesdays to make dinner.

Then Saturdays to take us to the park.

Then he started showing up for school things.

Mum did not make it easy for him.

I was glad.

“You don't get to disappear and then become Super Dad because you bought samosas,” she told him once.

Dad nodded.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I'm learning.”

I was in the hallway again.

Apparently hallways were where I heard every serious conversation in our family.

Dad moved into a small rental across town.

Ahi liked that he had a television in his bedroom.

Mum did not.

Wai liked that Dad's neighbour had a dog.

I liked that Dad always had paper on the kitchen table for me to write on.

One evening he handed me a little notebook.

The cover had elephants on it.

Inside the first page he had written:

FOR THINGS YOU WANT TO SAY WHEN PAPER IS TOO FAR AWAY.

I laughed without sound.

Dad smiled.

“I miss that.”

My smile disappeared.

He looked sorry.

“I mean your laugh. Not because you need to make it for me. I just miss it.”

I wrote, ME TOO.

Dad sat beside me.

For a while we said nothing.

Then I wrote DAVE.

Dad's face changed.

I wrote, DO YOU BELIEVE ME?

He read it twice.

“I believe something happened to you.”

I shook my head hard.

That was not enough.

Dad rubbed his forehead.

“I don't know how Dave could do what you described. But I believe you saw him. I believe you were scared. And I believe we should not ignore that.”

Better.

I wrote, HE HATES MAGIC.

Dad looked at me.

“Magic?”

I showed him Kiki.

She crawled onto my hand.

Dad stared.

Kiki's wings gave the tiniest green pulse.

Dad went very still.

“Rose needs to see that.”

I grabbed his wrist.

NO DAVE.

Dad nodded immediately.

“No Dave.”

That was the first grown-up promise about Mīharo I believed.

Nan did not want anyone touching Koro's shed.

For three months it stayed exactly as he had left it.

Tools on hooks.

Wood shavings on the bench.

A mug with cold tea dried inside it.

Then one Saturday she opened the door.

“We can't leave it frozen forever,” she said.

Mum, Dad and Nan sorted boxes.

Ahi found three broken radios and asked if he could keep all of them.

The answer was no.

I found Koro's carving tools wrapped in an old towel.

Underneath them was a flat wooden box.

The lid had a whale carved into it.

Not a normal whale.

Its back was covered in tiny shapes.

Trees.

Houses.

Mountains.

I stopped breathing.

I had never seen Te Waka Tōhorā.

I did not even know the name yet.

But I knew the carving mattered.

I showed Nan.

Her face lost colour.

“Where was that?”

I pointed.

She took the box gently.

Inside were scraps of paper, an old photograph and a piece of woven fibre.

The photograph showed Koro as a young man.

Beside him stood two people I did not know.

Behind them was a tree so enormous the photograph looked fake.

On the back, Koro had written three words.

TE RĀKAU KURA.

I tapped the words.

Nan sat down.

“He kept this.”

I wrote, WHAT IS IT?

Nan shook her head.

“I don't know enough.”

I stared at her.

She sighed.

“That is the truth. Your koro's parents knew things. Ru knew some of them when he was young. Then life happened. People stopped talking. People moved. People were told old knowledge was nonsense.”

She held up the woven fibre.

“His mother used to say our people helped make a place that could not be taken from them.”

I wrote, WHERE?

“I don't know.”

Kiki landed on the whale carved into the box.

Her wings lit bright green.

The hei tiki warmed.

For the first time since Dave came into my room, a thin gold line appeared across the stone.

Nan gasped.

I touched it.

The world tilted.

For half a second I saw blue water in the sky.

A huge dark shape moving beneath stars.

Then it was gone.

I nearly fell over.

Nan caught me.

“What did you see?”

I opened my red notebook.

My hand shook as I wrote one word.

WHALE.

Kiki decided the next clue belonged on my bedroom wall.

I did not agree.

She did not care.

At first I thought she was just flying around because cicadas are not famous for following instructions.

Then I noticed she landed in the same places every night.

Window.

Desk.

Wardrobe.

Hei tiki.

Window.

Desk.

Wardrobe.

Hei tiki.

I drew the pattern in my notebook.

It looked like nothing.

Ahi came in without knocking.

He studied the page upside down.

“It's a fish.”

I shook my head.

“A dinosaur?”

I shook my head.

“New Zealand?”

I turned the notebook.

He was almost right.

The dots looked like part of a coastline.

I grabbed Koro's wooden box and placed the old photograph beside it.

On the edge of the photo was a mark scratched into the frame.

Same shape.

Kiki clicked proudly.

Ahi pointed at her.

“Did the bug do that?”

I nodded.

Ahi's eyes became huge.

“Can I have a magic bug?”

I wrote NO.

“Why?”

BECAUSE YOU'D LOSE IT.

“Would not.”

I pointed at his missing shoe.

He left.

I followed Kiki's pattern again.

The line ended at the hei tiki.

When I pressed the stone against the scratched mark in the photo, it warmed.

A sound appeared inside my head.

Not a voice.

A low call.

Long and deep.

Like a whale underwater.

I dropped the photo.

The sound stopped.

I pressed the hei tiki back against it.

The call returned.

Kiki's wings glowed.

I ran to get Nan.

She listened to my explanation.

Or watched it.

My hands moved so fast she made me start again.

When she understood, she looked frightened and relieved at the same time.

“Your koro used to talk about a call,” she said.

I wrote, FROM WHERE?

Nan looked toward the old photograph.

“Somewhere he thought he would never hear again.”

I touched the hei tiki.

The whale call moved through my head.

Far away.

Waiting.

Dave got famous.

Not movie-star famous.

Business-page famous.

His company, Rangi Energy, announced a new research project about capturing wasted energy.

Mum read the newspaper article at breakfast.

“That's fast,” Dad said.

“Too fast,” Nan replied.

I grabbed the paper.

There was a photo of Dave standing beside a silver machine.

It had a mesh pattern on the front.

My stomach dropped.

I pointed at it.

Mum frowned.

“Aroha?”

I ran to my room and brought back the red notebook.

SAME.

Mum looked at the photograph again.

“Same as what?”

I wrote DAVE'S NET.

Dad leaned closer.

Nan went very still.

Mum folded the paper.

“We are not accusing anyone based on a photograph.”

I slapped my palm on the table.

I hated that sentence.

Mum looked at me.

Then at the notebook.

Her face softened.

“But we are not ignoring you either.”

That was better.

Dave came over that afternoon.

Mum had called him.

He acted annoyed, not nervous.

“It's conductive mesh. Thousands of devices use it.”

Dad asked, “Were you in Aroha's room that night?”

“No.”

“Did you ever test anything on her?”

Dave's eyes flashed.

“What kind of question is that?”

I held up my notebook.

YOU DID.

He looked at me.

For a second I saw anger.

Then something colder.

“You had a nightmare.”

Kiki flew from behind the curtain.

Her wings blazed green.

The lamp flickered.

The radio switched itself on.

Dave stepped back.

Mum stared at Kiki.

This time there was no pretending.

Dad whispered, “There.”

Dave recovered first.

“That is exactly the problem.”

Nan stood.

“Get out.”

“You think this is harmless?” Dave said. “You think what happened to Pania was harmless?”

Mum's face went white.

“Leave.”

Dave looked at me one last time.

“One day you'll understand I'm trying to stop this hurting anyone else.”

He walked out.

Kiki's light faded.

Nobody spoke for a long time.

Then Mum sat beside me.

“I believe you,” she said.

Three words.

I had waited months for them.

After Mum believed me, I expected everything to get easier.

It did not.

Believing Dave had hurt me did not tell us how to fix it.

The doctors still saw nothing.

Nan still did not know enough.

Koro was still gone.

My voice was still missing.

But now we had rules.

Dave was not allowed inside the house.

I was never left alone with him.

Dad changed the window locks.

Mum kept copies of every medical report.

Nan kept Koro's wooden box hidden.

And I kept practising.

Not speech.

The song.

Every night I stood in front of the mirror and mouthed the words Koro taught me.

No sound.

I signed what I could.

I wrote the rest.

Kiki sat on the mirror frame.

The hei tiki stayed warm.

One night something strange happened.

I reached the part of the waiata that always made Koro close his eyes.

My throat tightened.

The hidden place where my voice should have been felt like a locked door.

I pushed.

No sound came out.

But the lamp glowed green.

Kiki's wings opened.

The curtains lifted even though the window was closed.

A tiny gold line ran across the hei tiki.

I stopped.

Everything went normal.

I tried again.

Same thing.

My voice was not gone.

Not completely.

Something was catching it.

Turning it into something else.

Energy.

I remembered Dave's newspaper article.

Capturing wasted energy.

My hands went cold.

I wrote in the red notebook:

HE DIDN'T DESTROY IT.

Then:

HE'S TAKING IT.

Kiki clicked.

I stared at myself in the mirror.

Eight years old.

No voice.

Very angry.

I wrote one final sentence.

THEN I CAN TAKE IT BACK.