Proud to be Ngapuhi
Applause and wolf whistles marked the end of Helen Granger's delivery. Hemi Heteraka, knowing it was his turn next, shot glance at the powerfully built Zach Zubrizky.
Miss,” Hemi replied and braced himself for the full of the axe.
“Your assignment.”
Zack's fingers formed into an, ‘I see you,’ warning of things to come should rat.
The butt of many a cruel act since coming from the city to live with his eighty-two -year old great grandmother, Hemi he said, “Ruined Miss.”
His form teacher’s eyebrows rose quizzically.
Hemi’s face hardened at the seemingly satisfied smirk plastered on Zack's face. Eyes locked to him a tremor of a smile rippled across his lips as he responded to his teacher’s silent query. “A dog ruined it Miss.”
Laughter erupted. The in the know boy guffawed; the girls stifled laughter behind mouth shielding hands. Mrs. Meikleljohn’s eyes ranged over the class before returning to Hemi. The silence in the classroom deafening, breaths held, every head turned to Zach, back to him and then to Mrs. Meiklejohn.
“Thought a city boy would be more inventive. That old hat excuse cuts no slack with me young man. Library at 3.30. Be there.”
Spent air sighed from 32 students lungs.
Zack, Zach, going to pay you back, Hemi chanted in time to the rhythm of his sneakers pounding on North's Roads asphalt. Up and down the fourl switchbacks, along the strait he careered, turned right sped down the track to Aurere beach then along the nine kilometers of the sands of Tokerau.
Skin me alive she will, he thought knowing Nana Heteraka expected him home by four o'clock .
Lungs near bursting he strained up the rise to the homestead and scuttled around to the always open back door. One foot on the bottom step, he bent double, gulped in air, and flicked his eyes to the kitchen clock. His stomach lurched.
Late, very late an inner voice cautioned.
Head cocked, he listened, caught the rattle of his grandmother’s smokers wheeze, and carefully opened the fly screen. The grind of metal against rusted metal magnified fourfold grated on every nerve. Heart in his mouth he paused, heard his grandmothers snort, snort snoring and exhaled through his nose. Reassured, he eased his body through the door, avoided the creaky boards and tiptoed towards his room.
“That you Hemi?”
He froze. His pulse booming in his ears, him he waited.
Rangi’s fluted voice punctuated with a hacking cough, again called, “That you Hemi?
Butterflies chasing around in the pit of his stomach, he poked his head round the lounge door and grinned sheepishly. Rangi’s eyes blinked back, closed, opens and slowly closed.
“Yes Nana,” he said, in barely a whisper.
Her eyes fluttered open. Her body leaned forward and, squinting against the glare in the sun-soaked room, her eyes in her nut brown moko adorned face focused.
“Late”, she said, “where’s you been?”
Weight shifting from one foot to the other and head bowed Hemi finally muttered, “Had to walk.”
Rangi sat bolt upright. right. “Eh? what you say? Speak up lad.”
“Walked home, Nana.”
“Why you walk, boy?”
The tick, tick, tick of the mantel Clock marked off each moment of Hemi’s silent contemplation. Shall I tell about the school bully. “Kept, Nana . “
Rangi’s chin jutted. Her moko quivered and her gaze hardened. “You been fooling around in class, boy?”
That accusation stung.
“No, Nana, Never.”
“So, why’s you being kept behind then, eh?”
“Didn't have my assignments ready.”
“Why’s not? You does your homework each night, right there's at that kitchen table while you is here.”
“Didn't have a famous person study,” Hemi confessed. “Teacher kiept me back to help choose a famous person.”
“And?”
“She decided Captain Cook.”
“CooK,” Rangi blustered. “Why him?”
“Cause I'm living here at Whatuwhiwhi and the books say he found Doubtless Bay.”
The wrinkles on Rangi's face became valleys. Her brow furrowed. Her eyebrows shot up into her silver hair line, and both hands flew to press against her cheeks.
“He is a famous person, Nana.”
“He be Pakeha,” she bulleted “Ngapuhi was he long before Cook.”
“Books don't say that.”
Rangi’s frown morphed into a scowl. So, you Mokopuna learn nothing at school about the coming of our people from Hawaiki.
Hemi’s jaw clamped shut. Head bowed a distant memory stirred- a fleeting memory come and gone in a nanosecond.
“Umph,” Rangi spat. “I see from the looks on your face they’s teach you just Pakeha stuff, eh?”.
Hemi’s head jerked up and fixed on his grandmother's face, saw the hurt and wondered why.
Her voice trembling, she continued. “And did them books of yours tell how the white menstreated our peoples? Did they tells you the French man common discernible killed our peoples and even after that our peoples gave food to Cook?”
Under her barrage Hemi’s eyes widened. His head turned from side to side communicating, no. po
“Why did you not choose a hero from our own people for study? “
At a loss for an answer Hemi’s shoulders slumped. Silence reigned taught
“Hmph can't think of one. Hone Heke, Mokopuna, write about Hone Heke not some white fella. Hone Heke, he be a real hero.”
Disbelief and confusion racing through his mind Hemi stared at his grandmother and blurted, Hero Nana?” here and then.
“Aye, boy, aye.”
“But he cut down the flagpole and… and made war on the Pakeha.”
Rangi snorted, snorted, “That be the Pakeha story. Two sides to stories Mokopuna, always two sides to stories.”
Forefinger tapping against her right nostril, she added, “Time you learned about your people, boy; learn to be proud to be Ngapuhi.”
Her gnarled arthritic fingers stroked over her moko. “The stories most told about Hone Heke be Pakeha. “The true story, boy comma the true story, be remembered only by our people.”
A strange stirring under his skin and a leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach, Hemi processed that information.
“The old ones, there knows the truth, boy, time you know too.”
Suddenly the room stilled quieter than quiet as the sun playing out its daily ritual drifted down to the sea. Windows lengthened. Grotesque w-o’ the wisp shapes bounced from wall to wall like pinballs off their cushions. The room darkened and a sound- a human like cacophonous jumble barely audible invaded the room.
Hemi’s skin crawled. Goose pimple slumping on his skin, he turned startled eyes to his grandmother. A catch from his voice, he said, “Nana”.
“Awweeee,” she cried as she eased her bulk back into the folds of her favorite chai, “the old ones be with us, boy. “Head tilted skywards, eyes closed and arms spread wide, her lips moved as if she were offering a prayer.
Time crawled. Finally, as if surfacing from a trance, Rangi shook her head. Kawhiti’s blood runs strong in you, boy. “From the folds of her skirt she pulled a clay pipe gray with age. Kawhiti your great, great grandfather, Mokopuna, your great grandfather he be with Hone Heke at Kororareka to right a wrong.”
A sudden adrenaline rush through his veins startled Hemi.
Rangi filled her pipe bowl with baccy, tamped it down and struck a match.” You’ve seen the old wharf piles on the point of Tokerau.”
Faint voices, so soft they seemed but a memory ghosted in Hemei’s ears as he watched his grandmother touch the match to the tobacco. Her breathing rattling, she drew in deep, exhaled, sucked in drew until the baccy glowed. When the smoke spiraled skyward, she sighed and leaned back her chair. “You've seen the old wharf piles on the point of Tokerau”, she repeated
In Hemi’s mind's eye a video clip played of canoes coming and going.
“Trading ships were regular visitors Tokerau in the days of your great grandfather.” Rangi paused, seated her pipe in the corner of her mouth, puffed, puffed and continued her account. Ngapuhi traded flax, linen, and timber. Times were good.” The smile on her face disappeared. Smoke rings rose in close succession as she puffed furiously on her pipe. “That be until the new governor, Governor Gray, put a flagpole on the Hill above Kororareka. It was then things turned bad.”
Because of a flagpole?”
“Aye Mokopuna,”
For a moment Rangi gazed off into space.
Hemi’s mind whirled as a mishmash of horrifying images paraded through his mind.
“Things was bad,” Rangi repeated.
Murmurings and mutterings of angry crowds accompanying his grandfather’s account Hemi held his head between open palm's hoping to dull out the sounds.
“Pakeha,” Rangi making the words sound like something to be feared, intoned, “he all went to Auckland and Ngapuhi had no one to buy goods pulley had no one to buy goods. Tobacco became dear because the Governor would not let it be unloaded from ships until he was paid for it.”
Mutterings cescendoed and the thwack of metal biting into woods sounded in Hemi’s mind.
“When the baccy dried up and the things we've got used to were no more, the hearts of Maori was sad. Thought turned to the flagpole.”
“Why the flagpole?”
Ngapuhi thinked it made bad times, so, Hone Heke the bravest of all the hapu chieftains, cut it down.”
“That helped?
“It did, it did. The Governor stopped taking money from people. Baccy became cheap, ships came back to the North and Pakeha returned. Ngapuhi had plenty of goods to sell so everyone thought he was a great man.”
“But Nana, that's not how his remembered.”
“Maybe not among Pakeha, Mokopuna, but Maori remember.”