J.B. In Charge Chapter 7

The great eel hunt

The next school morning, we children were gobbling like turkeys and running and jumping like hares. It was the paper chase day.

At morning play, the biggest boys took out their sugar bag hidden under the oak tree. With a whoop they were off. We hounds went off in pursuit of those hares a few minutes later. We must have had a lesson before the paper chase in morning class. While I scratch my head, I can not remember anything about it. It must have been so unimportant compared with what followed.

Before morning assembly, I had whispered to Plurple and Matiu our plans for the day. They followed close behind me. We trailed the other boys. Suddenly we crouched down and were hiding in the cave. We stayed for several minutes, timing it with Plurple's watch. I glanced out of the cave and there walking up to us was Mr Macgregor. We crouched back in the cave. Mr Macgregor walked up so close to us I could have touched his leg with my hand. He looked all around him but not below, at us.
I later insisted to my school chums – but no one believed me – ‘Mr Macgregor LAUGHED!’

Then he said – it must only have been to himself:

It's a cruel world when children can't be hares and hounds for one day of the year.

He turned around and walked slowly back to the school.

As soon as he had disappeared, I signaled to my friends and we were off faster than any hare. We were breathlessly approaching the fern covered bull hole. We had passed by a track but we scrambled through the fern. Tracks were not meant for great adventures. We jumped from the bank on to the shingled river side. The river was gurgling and the lazy eel did not condescend to notice us intruders.

Across the river there lay the big dairy farm of Old Bootles. A whiff of smoke drifted from his cow shed. Dad had, one picnic day at the bull hole, told us how he had helped Old Bootles dress our pig Goebbels. Dad had been very impressed with Old Bootles' cleverness. He told us everything about the job while we chewed through our ham sandwiches.

Old Bootles, said Dad, had filled a large container with water, and put it on top of a drum in his cowshed. The drum had a square opening with a fire burning inside it. They fed the fire with manuka wood. When the water was boiling, they killed the pig and carried it into the cowshed. With buckets they tipped the boiling water over the carcass to scald it. The carcass was then scraped with a sharp knife to remove the bristles. Goebbels, clean smelling, and with soft smoothed skin, was ready for curing into ham and bacon.

Dad now began to tell us in awe about Old Bootles' cowshed.

No more muck to your eyebrows, no more chafed and frost‑bitten hands, said Dad. It is all done by electricity and pipes. Science is the future in farming.

I wasn't paying any attention as my thoughts were about Goebbels. Brian and I had carried Goebbels in a sack over the handle bars of Brian's bike to Old Bootles' farm. Goebbels had bitten a hole in the sack and escaped into the ferns. We had all exhausted ourselves in the chase through the bush. When we at last caught him, Brian had put the scratched, squealing Goebbels back into the sack and under his right arm. He had wheeled the bike the remainder of the distance and cursed Goebbels, the baking sun, and his skinned shins. Old Bootles' visiting nieces, all young ladies, had with many a giggle and toss of the head, greeted us at the gate.

You're the boy called Mouse aren't you? the smallest one, Beverly, had said to Brian with another giggle.

Brian had blushed through his dust grimed face and glanced at me. I pretended I had not heard. I had always looked up to my brother for his learning. I was astonished now to find other high school pupils in town did not share my admiration. When I looked at him again, I thought he did appear to be a giant mouse with his high pitched voice, his frizzed hair, his nosy pointed face, and deep bright brown eyes.

Old Bootles and his farm hand Bert had then arrived. Bert who was from England had taken Goebbels, and Old Bootles had grumbled about receiving damaged goods. They had all left us, the nieces with their noses still in the air, and Brian had cycled me back on the bar of his bike.

After Dad had finished his praise of Old Bootles, I had shed a tear for Goebbels. I had known him since he was a piglet. I had fed him and his family, the farm's slops. I was smaller then. Now with Plurple and Matiu, I thought without any sadness that Old Bootles and Bert were boiling the water to scald Goebbels' sister Gretel.

Plurple and I skipped like March hares in the water and sun. We looked for Matiu and were startled. Frozen still and silent he was standing in the water.

Matiu, you look like a trout waiting for a worm, joked Plurple.

Plurple was famous for his dopey remarks, I should have told you Plurple was not his real name. But no kid could imagine him with any other name.

He had arrived last year with his mum and dad, to live with Mr and Mrs Dick. His parents had been missionaries in China. Poor Plurple had come to school on the first day with shoes, socks and a bow tie! Shoes and socks and a boy tie were all right at Sunday school, but at school had made us boys nearly die with embarrassment. Mr Macgregor at the school assembly had lowered his voice and beamed as when the school doctor inspected our tonsils. The girls had all tittered.

At morning play, Winnie Wong and her girl friends had bailed up Plurple.

What is the color of your bow tie, Michael? they asked in chorus.

I have told you his real name now. Plurple flashed a toothy smile and turned red. He inspected it as if he had never looked at it before.

Blue, he said in his funny voice.

It isn't, tittered the girls.

Plurple considered again. It's plurple, he said confidently.

Plurple! Plurple! shrieked the girls.

They grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground as he waved helplessly his thin fists. They picked the seed heads from thistles and rubbed them down his back.

We called it itchy powder. It is perfectly made to make a school day a misery.

Plurple broke free and fled to the boys dunny. Winnie Wong filled up a bucket of water and threw it into the dunny. The girls tired of cowardly custard Plurple, and soon joined the big girls rope skipping. One girl was expertly skipping through a giant rope swung by two others to the ditty chorus:

I am a Girl Guide dressed in blue
These are the things that I must do
Salute to the King
Bow to the Queen
Turn my back on the Sergeant Jack

Ring Ring Ring, rang the school bell. The little boys left behind their Rrhim Rrhim trucks and bulldozers digging a road under the oak tree, and hurried to class.

The big boys played rugby. We called it footy then. No girl or little boy dared to invade the game. Plurple was supposed to be a big boy as he was in Mr Macgregor's class. We could never call him a big boy. While the big boys played footy, Plurple every day at play time just stood at the school yard shrubbery and watched the monarch caterpillars in the swan plant. The little boys used to make faces behind him while he stared at the little critters crawling and chewing in their pajamas. When they turned into chrysalides then flew away as butterflies, his face glowed like an angel all day.

Matiu rolled his eyes at Plurple. He motioned to us to return to the river bank. I was a little bit angry with Maitu. I was used to being leader with Maitu and Plurple. Now Matiu had suddenly make himself our leader.

You fullas dig up worms, he said.

Plurple took out of his pocket a mouldy meat sandwich.

Give this to the eel, he said to Matiu.

Matiu shoved it away with deep contempt.

I moved the complaining Plurple away from Matiu. Together we were soon joyously dragging up unlucky worms from their warm beds. When we came back with four or five worms, Matiu had ready a large hook tied with string to a stick. Matiu took the wiggling worms. While we stood open mouthed, he tied the worms together with a piece of thread from his pocket.

Soon he held in his hand a neat wiggling ball. He carefully stuck this into the hook. Then he moved as stealthily as a fish to the eel rock. Plurple and I glanced at each other with superior grins. Maiu bobbed the hook in the water. The eel pretended to be sleeping.

Suddenly with a terrifying snap of his jaws, he reared his head and grabbed the hook. Before you could say snap, Matiu had him threshing wildly on the stick above the rock. Plurple and I screamed as Maitu with a jerk of his hand slammed the eel's head repeatedly on the rock. Blood stained the rock, and soon his threshing weakened until he lay limp on the stick.

Plurple and I danced in glee while Matiu released his sharp jaws from the hook. Now that we were safe, we went up to inspect him.

We found he was as long and fat as our fathers' bare legs. We knelt down and stroked his skin. We felt his clammy touch and opened his jaws and tapped his razor teeth. He seemed to me to be still sharing in our game.

Then I thought of Dad still lying in bed, his left leg as dead as our eel and that weight of fear and sadness plumbed down on me again.

Matiu took out a knife from his flax kit and cut the eel. We each took a piece and put it into our shirts for tea that night.

I looked down into the river's depths and thought about his old watery home.

He must have been so big and fat because he lived off that drowned bull like he was on a govern't salary, I said.

That was always a joke of Dad's about fat animals living like townies off the Government. Whenever our family visited the bull hole, we talked about the wild bull that leapt over the forty foot cliff into the river and gave that place its name.

We boys, now dog tired, settled down in the grass and ate our lunches.

My brother Brian was late for school yesterday, I said.
He had stopped to talk to Beverly.

When his teacher asked him why he was late, he said he had met a head wind. The teacher looked out the window and said,

I think your head wind is really a tale wind, Brown.

I wanted them to laugh and remember I had a big brother who was so clever he went to high school in town. My friends didn't understand it, and I felt too tired and happy to explain.

When we go back to school, we are going to get the cuts, said Plurple.

I had forgotten about that.

What's wrong with a little bit of pain?

I repeated Mum's words when she would agonizingly squeeze a prickle out of my sore toe.

Pain hurts, said Plurple.

Matiu rolled his eyes.

You fullas are porangi, he said.

Matiu's face was as contented as a calf in the skim‑milk bucket.

Let's have our swim, I said.

I was suddenly sad. No one had thought about bringing swimming togs.

Matiu shrugged his shoulders.

We Maori kids just take our clothes off for a swim.

Plurple and I were astonished. Matiu took off all his clothes and dived into the bull hole. We watched him bob in and out of the water. The water looked so cool and inviting.

We could just swim in our pants, said Plurple.

I shook my head.

We could catch a chill and die, I said. I'm going in.

I took off all my clothes feeling queasy and nervous. I jumped into the river and kept at the deep end under the water.

Plurple at our calls very shyly took off his clothes and got into the river. We splashed and ducked each other and were deliciously happy. Suddenly we heard female voices! We dived down and crouched under the little bridge. Beverly and her sisters were having a stroll. They walked on to the little bridge then stopped and pointed at us.

Look at them, aren't they cute, said Beverly's big sister.

We remained crouching under the bridge with only our heads above for air.

Let's have a look at you!, said Beverly.

She got down on her hands and knees and peered her smiling face, not at our bobbing heads but into the water.

Her face smelt of chooks' feathers and hay and I sneezed suddenly. Then all Old Bootles' nieces got down on their hands and knees and peered under the bridge. It seemed we were going to be in this position for ever. Suddenly Matiu swam to the bank and got out with his hand covering over his sensitive place. He picked up his clothes and hid inside the bush. The young ladies then began to act as if they had never seen us. Talking about young ladies' things, they soon disappeared. Plurple and I hurried out of the river and put on our clothes.

The shadows were now lengthening over the bull hole. With our hearts pumping hard against our clammy cold eel, we hurried through the fern back to school.

As we entered the school yard, the swishing crack of Mr Macgregor's strap made our eyes smart and our legs turn to jelly. With myself at the front and Plurple lagging behind, we ran to the classroom door. We opened the door. Mr Macgregor was putting away his strap. The hares and hounds, nursing their hands, were returning to their desks. The class tittered at us. Mr Macgregor's eyes boggled and his face went crimson. Then the classroom became the worst sort of nightmare.

Mr Macgregor hurtled from his desk, strap in hand and ran down the aisle to us. This all seemed to happen at once as if Mr Macgregor had become a wild bull himself. I held out my hand and the blow flooded all of me with the burning, cracking hurt. I had thought Mr Macgregor would be exhausted by the time he got to us. But he had only just warmed up. Six of the best were the order for us. When the strap had retired to its lair in the big desk, Matiu and I crept back to our desks. I put my head down at my desk and whimpered.

My feelings were made worse when the ring leader of the paper chase whispered to me.

We are going to get you three, J.B., after school.

To everyone's amazement, Plurple strolled to his desk and was soon showing off to the girls his swollen hands. He looked even happier than when Matiu caught the eel.

Mr Macgregor came up to me, sniffed and said,

J.B., Michael, and Matiu, open your shirts.

Nothing that happened could be too terrible now, and we pulled out our pieces of eel. There was another class titter.

Throw them away outside, said Mr Macgregor with surprising calm.

We did so. When we came back, Mr Macgregor was sitting at his big desk.

You three come to the front and tell us how you caught that eel, said Mr Macgregor.

We nervously went to the front. Matiu was tongue tied. Plurple and I were soon holding the class in excitement with our story. We told them everything except about our swim and Old Bootles' nieces,

Mr Macgregor stroked his moustache. We could see he enjoyed the story too.

Matiu seems to have been the hero today, he said. Matiu, tell the class, where did you lean how to bob an eel?

Matiu ducked his head but Mr Macgregor's surprising encouragement suddenly make him talkative.

His dad had taught him at the river. When it was dark, his dad lit torches made of old rubber tied to sticks and they waded together into the river. They held a torch in one hand and the hunting hooked stick in the other. Sometimes they covered the river bank with their hooked eels. When it was light, they skinned their eels with a knife and hung them on a fence to dry. They returned, the eels hanging from their horse saddles, to the pa. Then the women and girls boiled them in great pots with puha. Some children said they had seen Matiu's family gathering puha from their dad's farms.

When is the best time to hunt eels? a class mate asked.

On the nights before the new moon, we go eeling. Dad always finds out from the Maori calendar before we go.

Mr Macgregor smiled.

Matiu means his father looks up at the sky. We only have one calendar made by Julius Caesar.

The nights for eeling are witten in Dad's calendar. The nights are Otane, Orongonui, Mauri, Omutu, Mutuwhenua.

Mr Macgregor looked displeased.

You know, Matiu, you are not allowed to speak Maori at school. Go back to your desk. Rebels in this great Empire of ours, always finally come to a bad end. Some of you have been hares and hounds and Matiu, Michael, and J.B. have been Maori hunters today.
You have all paid for your brief hour of defying the Empire. There will be no paper chase next year. Now is the time for art class. Everyone quietly get your pain tin, paint bush and water bottle. You will all paint a botanic specimen, a gladiolus.

As we got our painting materials, Mr Macgregor began to draw with chalk a gladiolus on the blackboard. Soon there was a hum of happy voices, and mouths and eyes held intent on moving paint brushes.

Agnes was not bright but always kind and caring, When Mr Macgregor was strapping us, she had held her hands to her eyes. Our cost for defying the Empire had been altogether too much. She now lay her head down on her desk and cried, Soon a yellow puddle formed beneath her chair. Our classroom had a sloping floor.

We watched with fascinated glee as a yellow trickle ran down from Agnes to the feet of Mr Macgregor. It formed a little pool as Mr Macgregor muttered under his breath and struggled with his shaking hand with the gladiolus. There were titters and Mr Macgegor turned around and glared at us. We had never laughed at his scratchy monsters on the blackboard before. He glanced down at the pool that was wetting his shoes.

Some careless person has spilt his water bottle, said our school master.

He wiped it up with his rag duster and then wiped it over the blackboard.

I think now we should take leave of Mr Macgregor and his little empire.