Whale Pot Bay Read Free Page A

There was nothing wrong with her face, which I thought was quite attractive, although her blonde hair was longer than Hauruanui girls would wear; and her body was OK, even though it was less developed than the two eleven-year-old girls we had at our school. No, the strangeness was in the way she moved. It was as if the bits of her skeleton weren’t connected properly; the same way as a car goes all funny when the steering knuckles are stuffed. I wondered whether she’d been born that way or if there was some other cause. No doubt I’d find out if my fears came true and she ended up living with us.
    As I watched, she reached the chorus of the songshe was singing, and instantly I recognized it as one of Milton Summer’s songs. It’s called ‘Laughter in the air’ and was his first solo hit. Some say the song was written in remembrance of his father, who died when Milton was seventeen.
I hear the laughter in the air,
And when I feel it everywhere
It makes me think that you’re still near
And stops me feeling blue.
I hope that in its special way,
The laughter’s always going to stay,
For it will tell me every day
That you still hear it, too.
    It was certainly a vastly different song to the hard rock he’d been doing with Total Abstinence. He’d left them when most of the group got busted for drugs, and it was the best decision he’d ever made, because his career really took off. ‘Laughter in the air’ was a huge hit and led to his first role in Hollywood, where he was now one of the most sought-after young stars.
    The idea of Stephanie Frew being a Milton Summer fan annoyed me. We didn’t have much to brag about in Hauruanui, but we did have Milton Summer. He was our megastar. He had enough money to buy half the North Island, yet he chose our place. The government and lots of other city people had tried to stop him, claiming we’d already sold too much of our land to foreigners. However, nobody around here complained. Instead, we welcomed him, mainly because the changes he’d made at the stationprovided employment at a time when wool prices weren’t too good. Dad says that Hauruanui owes its continued existence to the money that Milton Summer has brought. Without doubt we need him a whole lot more than he needs us.
    I stayed staring out the window until long after the group outside had moved away, trying to make some sense of what was happening. My mind was filled with ugly thoughts towards Stephanie Frew, and that worried me, because mostly I’m a fairly relaxed person. I knew that something had to happen: either I had to change or they had to go. But which of those it would be was not at all clear.
    For the first time in my life we had lunch gathered around the dining-room table. Dad and I never ate at the table: we would have breakfast and lunch in the kitchen, and dinner in front of television. The only guest we ever had was Grandad, and he ate the same way we did, just as he had when he owned the house. The dining-room table only got used when I was doing my homework, and that wasn’t very often.
    Vicky had bought the food somewhere along the way. It was all fancy bread rolls filled with paper-thin slices of meat and a whole lot of weeds. I went to great lengths to make sure I removed every piece of greenery before I took a bite. I knew Dad was frowning at me, but I had a point to make—Hauruanui boys do not eat weeds.
    For a while we ate in silence, and I was happy with that. Anyway, I had nothing pleasant to say. Then, whenStephanie had finished her roll, she tapped the table with her hand until we were all looking at her.
    ‘OK!’ she said excitedly. ‘Where does he live?’
    ‘Who?’ asked Dad.
    ‘Milt, of course. Where does he live?’
    ‘Milton,’ I corrected. ‘His name is Milton.’
    ‘Not to me, he isn’t. Everyone at school calls him Milt.’
    I suddenly had an image of her going back to school on Monday skiting about seeing ‘Milt’: Milt did this; Milt said that; me and