Marama put her arms around Mum, went ‘I know, Tessa. I know. But it’s not decided yet, is it?’ Mum sniffed, and shook her head, and tried to smile, while Melody and I sneaked another look at each other.

I first heard them talking about leaving just before the time capsule was buried.

Yeah, we’ve got a time capsule. It’s a metal box, actually, inside another metal box, buried beside the main entrance to Waimoana School, with a sign to show where it is. It’s to mark 100 years since the end of World War One. The idea is that people in another 100 years will dig it up, and look at it, and probably go ‘Man, they were so old-fashioned!’

They were going to bury the capsule at one end of the bridge, since that had a Historic Places plaque put on it a few years back. Then they talked about putting it beside the War Memorial Hall, though that’s hardly used these days. But Great-grandad Alan and Great-nana Beth, and their friends Tipene and Pania from the marae reckoned the capsule is about the past and the future, and so is the school, so that was the best place.

Plus Waimoana School is really buzzing again. People from town send their kids out to it, and it’s pretty famous because of the way it teaches Maori language and history and stuff. We’ve got our own Kohanga Reo for little kids. Nana and Grandad say Maori people in the valley have always helped with the school, right back to when it started.

And here’s something else amazing. One of my teachers when I went there was Ms Graham. She’s the principal now. But the thing is, she’s the great-great-niece of Mr McDougall (I’ll tell you more about him later, too), and he was the grand-nephew of another Mr McDougall, who was the school’s very first teacher. Is that cool, or is that weird and cool?

Back to the time capsule. Yeah, back to the future! What’s in it? Heaps of stuff; they just about needed another box. There’s a copy of the book that Mr McDougall (who’s Ms Graham’s great-and-so-on uncle) wrote about our valley. There’s what Aunt Maggie wrote before she died. There’s some newspapers from this year. There’s photos and DVDs showing the bridge when a huge earthquake almost wrecked it; the river in flood; old farms and roads; hundreds of people going right back to when cameras were invented, just about. There’s a carving from the swamp. Not the famous one that Great-grandad Alan and Tipene found; that’s still kept on the marae.