The Battle of Pook Island: Part 2

By JACK LASENBY, Illustrator JENNY COOPER

As they ran after the others along the track, Denny looked back. The hut crouched between bush and lagoon. No smoke lifted. The door was tied shut.

"Hooray, Hut!" he called. And Polly yelled with him, "Hooray, Lagoon!"

That night, down at Uncle Ted's, Denny tipped out his pack and found his mother's letter. It had been sitting unread all that time.

"It's taking longer than I expected," Mrs Price had written. "Your father doesn't seem much better. The doctors at Waikato Hospital don't say anything. I can tell they're worried." Denny remembered reading that far before chucking the letter in the bottom of his pack.

The wind changed and the air filled with a boom. "The waterfall!" Pete shouted outside.

"Wash your filthy faces," Uncle Ted called. "And scrub your horrible hands. Tucker's almost ready." The carving knife whined on the steel. "Last ones to the table do the dishes!"

Denny dropped the letter and rushed for the tap.

"What's for tea, Uncle Ted?"

"Dead sheep."

"Is it really dead?"

"Stick your head any closer, I'll take off your ear. This dead sheep," said Uncle Ted, "is so fresh you can still hear it baa!"

Publisher: Longacre Press, $14.95
Age group: 8+ years