In my room, Tipene and I played Snap a few more times. The sky outside was getting lighter; there’d only been a couple of showers after that last heavy fall. Maybe we could go and have a really good look at the river. Nearly a week stuck inside, and, like I said, it was the holidays.

Just after lunch, Mum called out: ‘I’m off to see old Mrs Ross. You boys OK?’

It was Tipene who replied. ‘I’d better be getting home, Auntie Florence. Thanks for letting me stay.’ Straightaway I went: ‘Can I go with Tipene?’

‘All right,’ Mum replied. ‘But stay away from the river. It’ll be really dangerous for a few days.’ When we said nothing, she called ‘You hear me?’

‘Uh-huh,’ we both went. We didn’t look at each other.

Mum left a few minutes later. Our truck bounced off down the drive, a couple of haybales still in its tray. Tipene and I put on our gumboots and oilskins once more, and headed off towards the bridge. We didn’t lock the door; nobody in our valley worries about stuff like that.

Drizzle still drifted down, but a lot of the sky was just light grey now. We reached the bridge, and stood looking at the Waimoana bulldozing along, filling its whole bed, more branches spinning in the water as it tore by. A thin sunlight touched the swamp upstream. Reeds, flax, the water among them gleamed silver. A hawk hung above, the way it always does, like a sentry guarding something.

‘Great, eh?’ Tipene murmured.

It was. The swamp always looks magic. Dad reckons the hair on his neck stood on end the first time he went there, and he soon gave up any idea of digging for anything. It just didn’t feel right, he said.

We gazed up and down the valley. The orchard trees glittered with raindrops. The paddocks lay silent, pools of water dotted across them. The hawk wheeled. I’m going to stay here forever, I decided. I’m going to be a farmer and live here, and keep all my Pakeha and Maori friends, and it’ll be absolutely amazing. I blinked. Where did all that come from so suddenly?

Like I said before, I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to be. I knew we’d learn about jobs when we started high school — just a few weeks away! But the main thing Tipene and I were interested in was the high-school army cadets. You get a proper army uniform, and do marching and training for a week. You even get to shoot (only at targets) with proper .303 rifles.