Work! The axe thudded home. The kahikatea’s trunk began to tremble. I lifted and struck; lifted and struck again. A creaking, groaning noise grew. I stepped back quickly as the tree leaned, paused, then fell with a tearing crash, branches thrashing at other trees as it toppled. The trunk bounced, then lay still. Dust rose; magpies swore at me. There would be a month’s firewood in that trunk. I felt pleased at what I’d done, yet sad at the sight of the tall shape, lifeless on the ground.

I sat and drank from the bottle of now lukewarm tea Mother had made for me. The land our orchard will grow on once belonged to the Maori people. Father bought it from them. He and Uncle Niall and their friend Haare — who was well then — cut down the first tree from the bush together, and sawed it into planks that made a new bedroom for our farmhouse. Mother and Uncle Niall and Aunt Janet spent their first years in New Zealand living in a one-roomed hut where our house now stands. And now the house has changed so much, Mother says Grandma and Grandfather would never recognise it.

Grandfather Angus died when I was about ten, and Grandma Helen three years later. They’re buried in the cemetery above the river. I remember the Maori women sitting beside their coffins and wailing. Mother says we’d never have survived in this land if it hadn’t been for the kindness of her friend Hahona’s tribe during the first winters. When the old lady Areta died, Mother wept at her graveside.

Jess says we should all learn the Maori language, because it’s starting to fade away. We expect Maori people to learn English, yet we can’t be bothered knowing their words. Uncle Niall agrees. It’s another thing I can’t make up my mind about.

I picked up my axe, ran the sharpening stone back and forth over its edge. Father says you must keep your axe so sharp you can shave with it. I haven’t tried that!

The next tree was a totara, tough and knotty. There’d be a few hours’ work in this one. I spat on my hands again, scraped a mark on the trunk, and swung. The blade bit and stuck. I wrenched at it, and it came away with a squealing sound.

Suddenly I had another memory of Grandfather Angus’s funeral. One of Grandmother’s cousins, called Hamish, rode for two days from his home, in order to play the bagpipes at the burial. As the first notes wailed across the crowd of mourners, children pressed their hands over their ears or cried. Maori people stared, except for Hahona and Haare and my Aunt Ngaio, who began smiling and whispering to one another for some reason.