We were all having breakfast when Uncle John knocked on the door. ‘Can I borrow the boys for a while, Ailsa? There’s a bit of a mess down on the riverbed.’

We stared. My uncle shook his head. ‘Some stupid sod’s been chucking dynamite in the water. Too bloody lazy to go fishing properly. There’s dead whitebait and eels all over the place.’

He was right. We trooped across the paddock and over the stile to the bridge. Auntie Kate was there. Marama and pretty, spoilt Sheree arrived. My mother’s friend sounded angry. ‘That’s so disgusting! Wish I could catch the idiots who did it!’

The shallow water at the river’s edge was dotted with the bodies of fish, killed by the dynamite. Now I knew what those WHOOMPFF! sounds had been in the night. I wished I could catch the morons who’d done it, too. I’d … I’d like to try some of their own dynamite out on them.

Uncle John, Cam and Sholto spent an hour down at the riverbed, gathering up the dead eels and whitebait. Sheree stood on the bridge and watched the boys. Mum wouldn’t let me help. If anything dead gets into my skin, it could start an infection.

‘Some of them had their guts blown out,’ Cam told Mum and me later. ‘But most of them — you’d never know they were dead at first look.’ His face was tight, and for the first time I could see that my silly big brother just might grow up into a strong, tough man.

‘Nothing like this has ever happened before,’ sighed Grandad Alan, when I went over to his and Nana Beth’s cottage to tell them. He shook his head, just like my uncle had done. ‘There’s people around now who don’t care about anyone or anything. We can’t let them spoil this place; it’s too precious.’

Uncle John dug most of the dead fish into his vegetable garden; got Sholto and Cam to dig the rest into ours. ‘At least it’ll make good fertiliser.’ I watched as the bodies were tipped into trenches in the soil. The eels still glistened black and green in the morning sun. The whitebait’s eyes stared; their mouths were open. They looked so tiny, and so perfect. I tried to imagine someone doing a thing like that, just because they couldn’t be bothered using a fishing line or a net. Whoever had done this deserved — Uncle John expression coming — a boot up the backside.