The Tooth Read Free

it.’
    This satisfied him. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad we cleared that up.’ He waved his hand. ‘Keep going.’
    I searched my memories, but nothing more came to the surface. ‘There’s nothing more. That’s the last thing I remember.’
    ‘That’s it?’ he shouted. ‘That’s it?! What did The Tooth look like? What colour was it? How long? How wide? How sharp? How—You know, what was it like?’
    ‘I don’t know. All I remember is a white thing sitting in a rock. I can’t say how big it is or how sharp. It might not even be a tooth. It could be a fossil shell or something totally different. Remember, I was only four years old. What did I know then?’
    Mits swung his legs off the bed and sat on the edge. Heleaned forward looking at me. After a while he said, ‘Oh, it was a tooth all right. I know it was a tooth.’ He looked at me for a while longer. Then he smiled. ‘And you know what, Tiny? We’re going to find it. You and I are going to find The Tooth. And then we’ll be famous. Just you wait and see.’
    I said nothing. What could I say? All I could do was hope that by morning he’d have forgotten all about it.

Chapter 3
    Mits and I are opposites in so many ways that it’s surprising we’re such close friends. I like history, art and music, whereas he likes science and technology. I read historical novels and he reads fantasy. I do outdoor things, such as playing soccer and horse-riding, and he only plays computer games. I get up early in the morning and he sleeps in, which means we often end up doing different things when we are together. Perhaps that’s the secret of our friendship—we can be ourselves while still enjoying the other’s company.
    On that Saturday morning I left the house while it was still mostly dark. I went through the back of the Smithsons’ section into Bluff Hill Domain. From there you can see forever. That morning I was in time to see the sun rise out of the Pacific Ocean. There’s something truly awesome about seeing the sun rise out of the sea—you really do get the feeling that it is the birth of a new day, and that better things might come from it.
    I watched the sun until it was clear of the water, before turning to see what was happening down at the port. That’s where Dad works. He drives a container forklift. This is a huge machine that can stack twenty-tonne, twelve-metre-wide containers up to five high. I could see and hear the machines working. If you watch them for a while, you begin to think that they’re shifting the containers around just forsomething to do. I can never see any pattern to it. But Dad says there is and that it takes a lot of planning to make sure everything gets to the right place.
    By the time I’d finished watching the forklifts, the sun was lighting the scene with its orange light. As usual my eyes were drawn to the brown hills that are the backdrop to Hawke Bay. Up there is a sheep station called Pounamu. That’s where Nanna and Grandad live—Mum’s mother and father—along with my other best friend—Phoebe, the horse I inherited from Mum. I have been riding Phoebe since I was five. She is something really special to me.
    Also in those hills, not far from Pounamu, is the river where Mum died, along with the place that Mits wanted to find. I stood staring in the direction of the hills, yet not really seeing them. I knew that Mits would not have forgotten the whole thing over night. He would still want to find The Tooth. The question was: did I want to go back to that place? Did I really want to find out what had happened?
    Surprisingly, I found that the answer was yes. I did want to find out about that part of my life. I needed to fill in the gaps, or they would haunt me forever. It was time to go back to that river and see what we could find.
    Yet I didn’t want it to be part of some fantasy quest, looking for dragons or whatever. It had to be a no-nonsense search for the truth, and that would mean that Mits and I would