Missing Signs

 

Missing Signs

 

 

A beautiful mountain came into view, with almost no fields or picket fences; already they could hear the songs of birds and the wind between the trees. Everybody had a last minute check, well excepting for Jack, who had nothing to check upon.

 

The bus came to a halt as the students pushed and shoved. They got in a line and had a head count. With everyone accounted for they began up the track.

 

“Did you see how there were no signs?” a boy whispered.

The girls were gossiping and most boys were pushing to be at the front of the line, but some stayed in line quietly talking and adding sketches and notes to their books.

 

As the group spread out Jack walked alone for some time till he met up with two boys.

“Good day to you sir,” said one. “You are the new boy I presume?” said the other.

“For I have not seen you before,” he continued.

“Yes indeed, neither have I,” said the first.

“I am James and this is my brother Matthew.”

“We are twins!” said Matthew.

“I can see that!” Jack looked at them.

 

Jack could see how these two worked so well together; James would describe the plant while, as Matthew was an amazing artist, he would draw them.

But Jack was really getting sick of these guys’ English - it was so pompous.

 

Time passed and soon they had caught up with the full party who were eating all sorts of sandwiches and cans of tuna, ignoring their teacher who was quite mad.      He was jumping up and down shouting out names of trees and birds such as Rohutu, Kaka, Mamaku, Ruru, Wheki, and Warbler. 

 

Jack sat with Matthew and watched him eat – he had no pack, no lunch. James went to talk to a boy on the other side of the clearing. Mathew was munching on a honey sandwich and asked if he could borrow Mr Woody’s bird book for, as he had always been interested in birds, but not as much as his crazy teacher who did not respond.

 

Jack and Matthew looked up at where the teacher once had been doing leaf sketches, but he was gone. The others soon realized this terrible fate, and began to argue: “He would have gone down the central track!” said one pouring over a map. “Don’t be silly,” said another. “He would have gone back down the track!”

 

Jack walked over to Matthew who was speaking with somebody else whose name he had recently learnt to be Joel. He was a short Taiwanese boy and like Matthew, he was very interested in nature and the bush.

 

The three of them all had the same idea – to leave. Two were eager to explore more of the wonderful bush ahead and Jack, well he didn’t really care.

 

And so they left the party and travelled down the eastern-most track that was straight and flat. But time seemed to take its journey speedily and so shortly after the second bend, did the track become steep and windy.

 

The sun sunk below the horizon and their food and water was almost gone; so they searched for a suitable campground.

 

“We shall make camp,” said Joel. “Under the roots of that Kauri tree.”

“Does anyone have some rope?” Jack asked. 

“I do!” Matthew passed a bundle of rope. 

“And a knife?” “I do!” Joel took it out.

“Good! Thank you for offering!”

“What for?” Joel looked up. 

“I would think that you are to climb up that tree and cut down a branch to be used as the main pole in a traditional style tent,” explained Matthew. 

“But that will take all night!” Joel looked worried. 

”Better get started,” said Jack as he examined the rope. 

“No, no, no!” Joel certainly wasn’t picturing this activity well. 

“We’ll use a simple slip knot,” said Jack. 

He had used it much when he jacked the Amerigo Vespucci, a great Italian 300 feet long sailing ship that docked in Portsmouth after a storm in the Channel. “What’s a slip knot, may I ask?” said Joel. 

“It’s a basic noose,” responded Jack.

“What?!” Joel was now horrified. 

“Arms up,” Jack sighed tying the rope around his waist. And so they hauled him up.

“I’m scared of heights!” he screamed as he clung on to the branch for dear life. “Better hurry up then,” said Jack as Joel grumbled. 

 

Joel was nearly done as Matthew hoisted the last tuna sandwich to him. 

“Watch out below!” he shouted as the branch groaned. 

It began to snap and gave way, falling to their left as Joel scampered down the tree.

 

“Joel, get some…” Jack paused, trying to think of a plant with … “Big leaves.” “Harakeke?” Joel asked.

“Ahh… yep!” Jack said, pretending to know what Joel was talking about. 

“Flax,” Matthew said simply. He seemed to always know what Jack was thinking.

 

Joel left, grumbling again as he examined his Swiss Army Knife. He was looking for a swamp, which he had seen on the map the day before they had left on the trip. He had been researching intensively, and the only word that would describe him was ‘workaholic’.

 

Back at ‘Base 91’, as Matthew had lately named it for no particular reason, production was progressing, as the branch that Joel had cut was being held up partly by his rope and partly by a nearby vine that was strangling a young kowhai tree.

 

All was going to plan as the last touches to ‘Base 91’ were being made. The three boys were beginning to settle in and of course adding their own personal effects: Nature’s Encyclopaedia for Joel, a Maori language translator for Matthew, and a Blackpool card deck for Jack.

 

Joel and Matthew brought out their sleeping bags, one brown, the other blue, while Jack just wrapped himself up in his jacket. Joel and Matthew fell asleep almost instantly, one snoring, the other drooling, but Jack couldn’t find sleep. It was at first the mixture of snoring and drooling that was slowly streaming down the pillow and moving closer and closer to him. 

 

But something else was bothering him as he lay there on his back. He was hearing a strange language that he had never heard before. There were lights and shadows that were troubling him a lot. As he pushed himself up, the noise stopped, the lights disappeared, and the shadows vanished. And so he lay back down and fell asleep.

 

He awoke to the song of the Tui and the call of the Kingfisher. Joel was still adding to his puddle of drool and Matthew must have gone for a walk between

the young Kauri trees, adding information about the grasses and shrubberies to the last empty pages of his notebook. Jack was right. Matthew had been on his usual morning stroll but this time he was walking through the wilderness instead of walking along the great Waikato River. As he passed an old Totara tree, he heard rustling through the grasses and so he followed the noise, staying close to the ground in hope of finding a Kiwi or at least a Tuatara. As he followed whatever it was, a noise that at first was just a little squeak was now loud and clear. There was drumming and beating, a high-pitched singing which Jack would have probably called screaming! 

 

As Matthew pushed through a bushel of flax, he saw people chewing on tree gum, others carving green stone weapons such as the patu, yet others making wooden spears. He was about to go fetch the others when he felt something on his back. He slowly got up. 

“Kape!” a man said and so Matthew began to move, knowing from his language classes that “Kape!” meant, “Move!”

 

They tied him to an old bloodstained wooden pole with flax rope.

He hung there as they carried him tied to the pole just as if he were a wild boar that they had just hunted. As they came upon a hill, he began to smell smoke. Something told him he wasn’t going to be having a feast with them.

 

It had been an hour since Jack had woken up and during that time Joel had also woken up and together they had packed away their belongings, totally forgetting about Matthew.

 

“What about Matthew’s stuff?” Joel looked at him curiously.

“Matthew! He can’t have been gone this long,” Jack said

“What?!” Joel looked at him. “Come on!” yelled Jack.

“What about his stuff?” 

“It’ll just weigh us down,” Jack looked at it. “Leave it!”

 

Faint drums grew louder as the men carried Matthew into the village. His hair was caked with mud, his glasses broken and he himself almost unconscious. An old man came into view.   He was wearing a Kauri mask with boar horns, with three Moa feathers between the horns, and about three dozen Kiwi feathers on either side of them, and two bat wings behind them.

 

He had always wanted to research Maori history, but this was totally absurd! Being cooked alive by them. “This must be a dream!” he thought like anyone else would, but then he contradicted himself: “How could my so uncreative mind think of such an amazing dream? It has to be real.” “Anyway, I only believe in what I read in non-fiction books”, explained one him to the other him, as if in a dream. Obviously, the heat was getting to him.

 

Joel and Jack had come to a beautiful waterfall. It was a magnificent sight, rushing water upon the rocks, falling down amidst steam and foam into a shallow pool of water, warm to the touch, clear and light blue with little eels and fresh-water crayfish.

 

As they sat on the rocks beside the waterfall they heard the beating of drums and so listened to them. They decided to follow the sound. If you heard these drums and the drums Matthew heard, you would think them very different.

 

The heat was really getting to Matthew as the masked man danced around him singing loud chants and curses which the old men and women round them repeated. The chanting got faster and faster, and the drums got faster and faster. Then it all stopped suddenly. The masked man threw something into the fire.

 

Jack and Joel came upon a clearing and a small hill where young children danced, and old men ate while women did both. It was obviously a feast, and obviously not where Matthew would be. “Let’s go”, Jack said in a rush. But Joel had already turned around, and was facing two spears, one pointed towards his head, the other towards Jack. For the second time in this little tale, the command “Kape!” was issued.

 

Their hands were bound with flax rope and they were brought to a man who seemed to be the chief, with a great feathered crown. He addressed the two boys in a dialect that Jack couldn’t understand. Then Joel spoke back.

 “You speak their language?” Jack looked curiously. 

“Yes I speak maori.” 

“Fluently?” Jack looked at him. 

“You could say that.” Joel replied humbly.

 

A small conversation took place, which Joel translated in English for Jack.

 

“What?” Jack asked. 

“They are celebrating the defeat of the great ‘Patupairere.” 

The chief said something else with a smile. 

“Would we like to join them?” Joel translated. 

“No, we can’t,” Jack sighed as Joel translated again for the chief. The chief spoke again,

“There will be food.” 

“Food! Yes! Yes! Thank you very much!” said the Jack.

 

 

Reviews

[me, myself and brenton]

i still like it tho at the start i thought it was in britan then i realised it was in new zealand