Harry Wakatipu Comes the Mong: Part 6

By JACK LASENBY

Water was so scare on the Kaingaroa, I'd camp each night by a puddle, fill my mouth in the morning, not dare spit or swallow till I found another puddle. Sometimes that took several days. Here and there beside the track lay the skeleton of a traveller who'd swallowed his mouthful of water too soon. After some weeks I thought I'd change my socks, looked into my school bag, and saw the billy. I didn't have to carry water in my mouth after that.

At last, the bridle-track dropped down to a building on the bank of a river. A notice said, 'Murupara Post Office.' I went in, and they gave me a letter from my mother.

'You come home at once!' she wrote. 'The hedge needs clipping, the grass needs cutting, and poor Gladys Tremble is broken-hearted.' I stuck the letter in my school bag and went down to the river for a drink.

Like all New Zealanders, I'm a great notice reader. Just about everything in New Zealand has a sign or a notice telling you what it is. A notice beside the river said it was the Rangitaiki. There was another notice on the far side. I swam across.

Publisher: Puffin

Price: $15.95

Age group: 10-13 years


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