Old Drumble Read Free Page A

on pretty free-draining soil, you know. And there’s the big drains all round Waharoa for the water to soak into. This district was all swamp in the old days, so they dug the drains and dried it out to turn it into farms, but the water still runs in the drains okay, because they were dug with a fall in them.” His father leaned his bike against the shed.
    “What’s a fall?”
    “They dug the drains deeper at one end than the other,with a fall, a slope, so the water runs along them. They all run into the creek that comes down through the Domain and winds through Mr Weeks’s bush and Mr Hawe’s, then out through Wardville and into the Waihou River downstream of the Gordon bridge.”
    “Has the Waihou got a fall in it?”
    “That’s why it runs downstream. And up near Okoroire, it’s got waterfalls in it as well!”
    Jack tried to follow the drains and creeks in his mind. It was like making a map inside his head, he thought. At the same time, he tried to think about falling all the way from Ward Street into the Waihou River, until he felt dizzy.
    “Has that boy been playing in the puddles again? Just look at the state of him! He’s had one change already this afternoon. Oh, what’s the use of trying to keep him presentable when he goes straight out and gets covered in mud again?”
    “It’s my fault, dear,” said Mr Jackman. “I rode through a puddle, and the mud and water shot up all over him. Still he saved me getting it all over my trousers.” He nodded at Jack, that peculiar shake of his head. The top of his head went one way, his chin went the other, one eye winked, his mouth screwed up and the corner of his mouth went “Click!”
    Jack tried to do it back, but his wink went wrong, both eyes closed, and he didn’t get a click.
    His father looked solemn. “People see things differently,” he told Jack. “From Harry’s place, we look down the bottom end, and from our place, he looks down the bottom end. It depends where you’re looking from.”
    “I thought I made it perfectly clear,” Jack’s mum told them both. “Ours is the top end of Ward Street. Now wash your hands and get yourselves ready for your tea, the pair of you.”
    “People see things differently,” Jack said to himself as he washed the mud off his legs and feet under the outside tap. He was nodding to himself and winking one eye when his mother called, “Will you stop wasting that water? The rain just filled the tanks, but they’ll be half empty by the time you’ve finished. Your tea’s on the table, and your father’s waiting to start his. Now come inside at once, or everything’ll be cold. I don’t know, what’s the point of going to all that trouble, heating the plates, when nobody can be bothered getting to the table on time?”
    “Dad?” said Jack, feeling the backs of his legs wet against the chair. “You know when you nod, how the top of your head sort of goes this way, and your chin goes that way, and you wink, and you screw up that corner of your mouth, and you make a click?”
    His father took a forkful of mashed potato, looked at Jack, and nodded straight up and down.
    “Well, do you make the click with the corner of your mouth, or do you make it with your tongue?”
    Jack’s dad nodded so the left top of his head went one way, his chin went the other, his left eye winked, and the right side of his mouth screwed up and went “Click!”
    “I think I clicked with the corner of my mouth,” he said. “Hold on, I’ll just swallow this mouthful of mashed potato and try it again.” He tried, but no click came this time. “It’s not the sort of thing you want to think about doing.”
    Jack stared.
    “Think about it and it doesn’t work.”
    “I had trouble, too!” Jack said. “I can’t get my eye to wink, and the click won’t come. I tried it with my tongue and with the corner of my mouth, but it didn’t work either way.”
    “I’ll try nodding it to the other side,” said his father. He laid