It had been raining for a week. Sheets and curtains of rain pouring down on our valley. Ridges had slipped onto side roads, and farms up in the hills were cut off. Creeks flowing into the Waimoana had burst their banks, or were dammed up by slips. In some places, only trucks and tractors could get through.

That wasn’t a problem for Mum, since she can drive a truck or a tractor. ‘I’m a woman, remember, Matiu?’ I heard her saying to my dad this morning. ‘We can do anything.’

I knew Dad was grinning as he replied. ‘Florence, I’ll never forget you’re a woman. You go out there and show this weather who’s boss.’ So she’s heading off today sometime to check on old Mrs Ross up the valley.

The rain was incredible. Mum booted my cousin Tipene and me out of the house for an hour on Monday afternoon, when it was just streaming down and not crashing down. The Waimoana charged along, all brown and powerful. Branches whirled on its surface, crashing into the rocks just upstream from the swing-bridge, then hurtling on again. We could hear the booming water from fifty yards away. As we stepped onto the deck and peered over the side, there were other noises, too: a grinding and rumbling, deep down in the river.

‘Boulders,’ Tipene went. ‘The river’s shoving them along.’

I nodded. ‘Imagine Grandad Duncan trying to get across there today.’

My grandfather almost cut his leg off about 40 years ago, when he was chopping down bush to start our orchard. He says Grandma Lily and Great-aunt Jess saved his life. He’s still got the axe, by the way. Well, sort of. I’ll tell you more about it later.

Mum told Tipene and me the story a couple of days ago, as the rain thrashed down. I’d heard it before, but I was so bored after being stuck inside (during the holidays, too!) that I’d listen to anything. And she’s a good story-teller.

Tipene and I are second cousins, six times removed, says Mum. We’re related way back. We’re best mates, too, just like our mothers. Our birthdays are in the same month; we both turn thirteen at the end of this year. My mum and Auntie Whina have known each other since they started school. For a while, they even liked the same boy — our teacher, Mr McDougall Junior. Hard to imagine a teacher being a boy. Even harder to imagine girls liking him. But Mum says he was really good-looking and thoughtful, and she started thinking Whina and she might end up fighting to see who got him. I’d like to have seen that!