Pupils share singer's reward for tiki find

Tina Cross. Photo / Supplied

Pop singer Tina Cross "can't believe the relief" at being reunited with her stolen heirloom tiki after a group of teenagers found it hanging in a tree.

"I knew I missed it, but I was just overwhelmed," she said yesterday after it was blessed and cleansed in her Milford home.

The whalebone tiki was passed down to her from her father Joseph Cross and was "close to her" for 27 years.

Yesterday the five Western Springs College students, aged 13 and 14, who stumbled upon it were given a $1000 reward by the singer.

Ms Cross is also trying to arrange VIP tickets to the upcoming Christmas in the Park concert in which she is starring.

"We get a certain number of VIP tickets for family, but if my family can't go so be it," she said, laughing.

Friends Tyrone Scalaerini, Richard Clarke, Jarrod Gribble, Katie Stewart, and Brandon Topp were walking along Moa Rd in Pt Chevalier after sitting exams on Wednesday when one of the teens threw a rock at a tree.

The group looked over and saw the tiki hanging there. But as three were Maori they did not want to touch it.

"We were going to pick it up, but thought it would be tapu so left it," said Jarrod.

A notice had been put in the school bulletin, after the decades-old carving was stolen from the singer's Lexus car at Western Springs last Tuesday.

The singer was rehearsing for the Christmas concert and had tucked her handbag under a seat. When the bulletin was read yesterday morning two of the students went straight to the school office.

Associate principal Ivan Davis was pleased with their honesty.

"They came to me and said 'Mister we think we've seen it'," he said. "I said 'Look guys you've done a good thing and there's a $1000 reward, and they said there was five of them'."

Ms Cross praised their willingness to share the prize.

She had spoken to a psychic yesterday who assured her the tiki would come back to her.

"I had this feeling it had been turfed out as being too hard and too hot to handle," she said.

"It's somebody's taonga, and if you're Maori you know you don't do anything with it."

And what will the students spend the money on?

"I'll probably get some new shoes, some Puma ones," said Jarrod.