Ronald Hugh Morrieson 2014

Table of Contents Foreword - Mayor Ross Dunlop Judge’s General Comment - David Hill Judge’s General Comment - Glenn Colquhoun

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Secondary School Short Story Division 1st Place – Ellen Hodder, Grandad 2nd Place – Heather Symonds, I trusted Jess Always 3rd Place – Wairingiringi Hemara-Wahanui, The Gracia

Page 8 Page 12 Page 14

Highly Commended William Andersen-Gardiner, Guards Dawn Mills, Plastic Dresses from Paris Ellen Hodder, The Back Roads

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Secondary School Poetry Division 1st Place – Dawn Mills, Brunch 2nd Place – Megan Jackson, Winter Beach 3rd Place – Alyxandra Devlin, Conflictions

Page 28 Page 30 Page 31

Best use of Personification Rebecca Pratt, Musical Matrimony Page 32

Best local poem/Best title/Best phrase Germana Lewis, Hahweerah Page 34

Best Rhyming Poem Jamie Phillips, WOMAD

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Open Short Story/Drama Script Division 1st Place – Emma Collins, Fantails, Paua and the last time Gran had sex nd 2 Place – Emma Collins, Bad hare Day 3rd Place – John Sargeant, Hemi and Hine

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Page 36 Page 41 Page 45

Highly Commended John Sargeant, Full Time Marama Salsano, Mercy

Page 51 Page 59

Open Poetry Division 1st Place – Maria Taylor, West Coast Orange Eaters 2nd Place – Jason Wright, Gladstone Road 3rd Place – Maria Taylor, Whakapapa

Page 62 Page 63 Page 64

Highly Commended Ingrid Frengley-Vaipuna, ‘Ofa anga

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Poem with Best Line Jenny Bennett, Wahine Toa

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Poem with Best Lines Marama Salsano, Awakefulness

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Poem with Best Image Jason Wright, Fishing Boats

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Poem with Best Title Rachael Kellogg, Ninjas Prefer the Afternoon: A Cautionary Tale for Those Inclined to Accept Adulthood as a Passage Toward Enlightenment

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Foreword Ross Dunlop South Taranaki Mayor The Ronald Hugh Morrieson Literary Awards are well and truly part of the cultural calendar of South Taranaki. They have been going for 27 years and have given many aspiring writers a first step into publicly revealing their literary talent. This year we welcome Patea Area School entries, so that means all South Taranaki schools are represented.

The Awards continue to grow with increased entries in all categories and the quality is high. David Hill, a judge from this year, sums it up with “swept me along with their plots, convinced me of their people, removed me from my world and surrounded me with theirs for a while”.

Ronald Hugh Morrieson was a true product of South Taranaki and his writings were fiction but quite clearly were fashioned by his experiences of living in this place of many characters.

It is good that we are still celebrating Ronnie’s writing achievements in this way. It is also pleasing to know that four movies, a restaurant and a display at Tawhiti Museum are all giving Ronald Hugh Morrieson the immortality he deserved.

All the very best to all who have entered the Awards and congratulations to all of you.

Ross Dunlop

Mayor, South Taranaki District

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Judge’s General Comments David Hill Secondary School Short Story There were nearly 80 entries in this category, which is great. A lot of young writers made something that never existed in the world before – their stories.

Whether you won or not, you all made something entirely new, and entirely unique. You should all feel proud of that.

There was a fascinating range of topics: an old trampoline; the big game; kidnappings; A LOT of car crashes; grandparents, friendship, love and loss.

Writers were ready to tackle big and difficult topics, and I admire this. I also admire the way so many of you wrote straight from your own experience, about your lives and your dreams / fears / hopes / joys. Good short stories can make you feel you've been invited to share a secret, and a lot of this year's stories did that.

I liked the way so many entrants tried to make their work LOOK interesting on the page, paying attention to dialogue, paragraph size, white space, etc. This always attracts the reader. A lot of writers varied the pace of their story nicely, moving quickly over the less important parts, and then focusing in detail on significant moments or events. This gave the narratives real texture and variety. I also liked the affection and concern that authors displayed towards their characters. This always affects the reader, too.

A few suggestions. Remember this is a short STORY contest, not a short description contest. I was looking for plots that moved and developed, plus characters who developed with them. Descriptions don't move, and this makes it harder for them to engage the reader. I'll also say that very short stories are going to find it hard to beat longer ones, which simply have more depth and events. And your spelling, punctuation and grammar do matter. When I came across a lazily edited story, it went onto the 'Not Gonna Win' pile.

But many did deserve to win or be praised.

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Open Short Story/Drama Script Division There were over 40 entries in this section – once again, congratulations to Taranaki writers for the quantity and quality of so many of your stories.

All three winning poems were hard to separate. Each showed an ability to see the power in a moment and in the end also demonstrated a conciseness of expression to capture that moment accurately. Much of what I've said about the Secondary

School section applies to the stories submitted here. Essentially, I was looking for a narrative that moved boldly in place and time, which knew how to focus on crucial episodes, and which included credible characters who changed or developed during the story. I also hoped to hear a “voice” that elusive yet essential quality of good writing where you feel an authentic narrator is speaking directly to you. The most successful stories all had most of these elements, in varying degrees.

I'd like to suggest that in a competition like this, the writing itself should remain a medium through which the story is told and the characters evoked. It shouldn't be a self-conscious display which dominates the piece. I did feel that some entries rather suffered from being “fine writing” in the sense of being overt displays of language skills.

I'd also suggest that a short story needs to be more than a single episode, unless that episode is set within a wider context. And it should avoid TELLING us too much about the people and plot. Let the characters' words and actions SHOW us instead.

Once again, the most successful entries were aware of this. They also swept me along with their plots, convinced me of their people, removed me from my world and surrounded me with theirs for a while.

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Judge’s General Comments Glenn Colquhoun Secondary School and Open Poetry One of the pleasures of judging a poetry competition is that I get to sit back and read through a large pile of poems that speak in a number of voices and with a great variety of concerns. Some of those who enter such competitions rightly think of themselves as poets but for others writing poetry is something they may have only come to only a few times before. There is a sense that in their entirety the poems somehow show the number of secret lives and voices living side by side in a community. They tell us what those lives think about and what happens to them and most importantly perhaps how they make sense of those experiences. Having just finished reading 132 poems written by the people of Taranaki for the Ronald Hugh Morrieson literary awards I can say I've had a great introduction to the public and private voices of the region and it has been a great privilege to read about the things that touch them.

There have been poems about the mountain of course, and about local roads, and about memories and water-towers and a number of towns in the region. There have been love poems and poems about heart-ache. There have been poems about what happens inside homes; what is eaten, what is played, what is said and what is unsaid. I thank everyone who entered for taking the time to make sense and to communicate. My congratulations to those who have won an award. Well done and keep writing. And always keep looking and listening. Poems can happen in a second sometimes.

Another of the pleasures of judging such a competition is that I get to ask myself again what makes a poem lift off the page and strike me. The winners I have chosen are good examples of this. Without being a huge pain in the neck I would also like to say there are some simple things everyone can do to make their writing more effective. Almost all the poems that struck me were simply right justified and not centered. It may seem a simple thing but a centered poem immediately says 'Look at me, I'm special. I'm trying to tell you something,' and in that split second you have lost some power. Be careful about explaining big emotions directly.

Sometime choosing a simple aspect of the experience to reflect a larger feeling gets a reader to do more work understanding it. Most of all it would be worth noting that all the winning poems are deceptively simple.

Many of the other poems tried too many tricks. Poetry is much more about what is not said rather than what is said. Hiding in many of the poems was a better poem surrounded by a bush of words. I say this not to upset anyone but to point people in the right direction.

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Secondary School Division Short Story First Place Grandad

By Ellen Hodder St Mary’s Diocesan School When I was little, only about two or three, Grandad would sing to me. Though I have little memory of the preschool playground where he would wait, arms stretched out for my return – I still have vivid dreams of his dark chocolate voice filtering though my pillow, filling my young mind with “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey…” But he has always been brimming with song. Always a tune whistling through the gap in his teeth. I remember this time when Grandma brought a new type of yoghurt, she came home saying “George! I brought you some ‘Yoplait.’” And of course, Grandad burst through the door in a serenade of “YOUU PLLAAYY, WEE PLAAYY!” (Vaguely to the tune of ‘Oh Danny Boy’) See, we could never tell whether it was an actual song or a threaded tune from his tenor Adam’s apple. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. The truth is, you knew full well what you had. You just didn’t know you were going to lose it.

Grandma is very particular about her house - dressing it with flowered tapestry and pristine curtains that caressed the wind. From the front door to the corridor mats, the promise of childhood memories lingered under the wallpaper. Whereas Granddad is less, well, careful. He always fancied himself as a handyman. So that time when the bathroom sink was clogged and Grandma wanted to call a plumber, Grandad’s ego was there to save the day.

“No, no, I’ve got it under control!”

I can still feel Grandma’s dread pinching at the mothballed air.

“Remember to empty the cupboard beforehand George!”

“Agnes, that’s a waste of time…”

He was much too stubborn for that.

His fingers snaked through the cupboard, past potions and lotions and pink guesttowels clogging the dank space. Slowly and gently he unscrewed the duck-neck piping holding it steady with arthritis-ridden hands; balancing it on a limb as not to 8

spill a drop. Triumphantly he extracted it from the darkness, brought it to the bench and tipped the entire contents down the sink.

“You DOPEY bastard!”

He was a dopey bastard.

He was always up to tricks. Lucky for him, his super-annuation was his get-out-ofjail-free card. Like that time in the Hawera Warehouse, this poor employee had to follow him around putting ‘Wet Floor’ signs back on the lino and stopping him from re-locating lingerie to the toys section. So we didn’t think twice about him buying me a “YOU’RE ELEVEN!” card for my sixteenth birthday. Sometimes when I’m alone in my mind, I think that maybe we should’ve. So full of silly moments like this, we were blinded.

Being sixteen I was able to get my licence and the old coot was adamant he would be taking me for my first lesson; but the deepening creases on Mum’s forehead indicated otherwise. We drove from 135 Great South Road into the centre of town and by the first round about, Granddad looked like a sloppy dog, lolling out the window.

“Grandad? GRANDAD?! What. Do. I. Do!?” a shattered pitch rose in my mouth and sunk to my gut.

“Oh you know… just,” he waved casually, “Panic.”

This one time, Mum asked me to bike down the road to check up on Grandad. “He’s been doing funny things lately” whirred through my thoughts with every pedal revolution. He was fine though. I found him out front mowing the lawns, the sweet perfume of a summer’s day dancing around the cicadas. I always enjoyed rolling up to their yellowing 1920’s homestead. Kicking the rust from my bike stand, I watched it slump lazily against the corrugated fence; listening to the Masport chewing its cud. When I rounded the corner, I found Grandad on his knees about to reach under the thrashing chop-slice-dicing blades.

“GRANDAD!” Legs fumbling forward.

“There’s something stuck in the mower…” A shaky head.

“NO!” Tears now.

Reality smacked us with a cold fist and I woke up with a black eye.

A few months ago I was turfed into a backyard tent, bunking with a possum while Grandad lived in my room. I didn’t mind. As a tradition, he would make a roast on Sunday before I headed back to school. We all loved this; Grandma’s tried and true table cloth spread its hands with the crisped roasties, greenery still screaming in the pot. As he served the peas he would tap the selection of dishes, crockery and glass bowls, humming his unknown but timeless classics. Our taste buds panted with 9

anticipation as he went to take the lamb out of the oven. This time with his bare hands.

“Grandad!”

He has been doing funny things lately.

We couldn’t see it. But Grandma knew. She must’ve. The blank faced expressions we missed. Seeing him dressed in Sunday-best, going out to town. Asking where the bathroom was. Spending hours wondering how the mower started. For too long, she was too kind. And we were too late.

I can still smell the harsh, whitened bleach that thumped our chests, lifted the smoke from our eyes and shook the dead skin from our bones. Near the end Mum didn’t even have to ask for his room number. Grandma did well to clothe the naked space – changing the feathery curtains for ten pound drapes and dad had to fix the curtain rail. Twice. She kept them drawn, closing our eyes to the bustling concrete five stories below. “So he’s not frightened by the height.” A few months ago he would’ve been, but fear was no longer part of his memory.

Most afternoons, I would buy him smoker lollies from the corner dairy and smuggle them through the fire-doors under my school jersey. “Kipper!” he would yell, beaming, “How’s my little girl?” I was once again a ‘kipper’ and a ‘little girl’. In some ways it was good; at least one person thought I was innocent. Sometimes school was the topic of the day, “Are you excited for your third form year?”

“Grandad, I’m seventh form now.”

He would carry on talking about the farm he visited in 1965. Oblivious to the year, date, day, time. “I was there only last week...” The same story of what he did yesterday.

“Are you excited for your third form year?”

“Yes Grandad.”

Last week the clouds laughed with a tight-lipped smile. Rumbling and groaning like the inner-city traffic that it sheltered. He was fading into those naked white walls. He didn’t know who brought him his smokers. And he forgot to smile.

Mum told me that Granddad waited for me, sitting up in bed arms outstretched for my return. He wasn’t leaving till I came back. But school finishes at 3.15.

I looked down at the paper in my shredded fingernails. In my mind, I stood distracting the congregation with these few snippets of my eighteen years with Granddad. But the tight fist choking my words bound me in grief. Grandad was never one for words anyway. I watched my toes squeeze as I stepped down from the podium. ‘Tears won’t help what’s happened’ I heard him say. So I let his song that burst in my heart weep through my lips.

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“You are my sunshine, My only sunshine, You make me happy when skies are grey.

You’ll never know dear, How much I love you, Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Judge’s Comment A moving and powerful story of someone who played a huge part in the writer's life. Clever mood shifts, a plot that strode along, excellent use of dialogue, selected details and imagery. This story took something that almost every reader can relate to, and turned it into a memorable work of fiction.

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Second Place I trusted Jess, Always

By Heather Symonds Hawera High School ‘It was all my fault!’ I cried. We shouldn’t have left the house. Jess said everything was going to be okay, I trusted jess always.

I was only seven when jess moved to town. We were both year two’s, she was taller than me and had long brown hair. As we got older we both started changing. Jess got boyfriends and I got pimples. I got good grades and jess got detentions. But we stayed best friends, forever we would say.

It was my 16th birthday and I didn’t want to have a party, so I invited jess over for the weekend. Which wasn’t an unusual event, but jess had a different idea. She arrived at my house as planned and we watched movies until everyone else was asleep.

‘Let’s do something fun.’ Jess whispered as she paused the movie.

‘Like what?’ I said slowly.

‘Let’s go to the beach, have a bonfire and a few drinks. It’s your sweet 16th after all.’

‘How are we going to get there?’ I said wishing I hadn’t.

‘I’ll drive.’ A smile spreading across her face.

Jess was a couple of months older than me and was on her learners. She had driven me to and from school a couple of times, but her mum was always in the car with us. Now she wanted to drive unaccompanied in the middle of the night.

‘Isn’t that illegal?’ I asked.

‘I’m a good driver, and there won’t be any cars on the road at this time of night.’ She answered, reassuringly. ‘Everything is going to be okay, I promise.’

I trusted Jess, always.

We got ready to leave, grabbing a few beers and stuff to light the bonfire with. I grabbed my mum’s keys and handed them to Jess. Mum always parked her car out on the road ready for work.

We carefully walked out of the front door and closed it slowly behind us as we didn’t want to wake anyone up. Then laughed our heads off as we ran down the driveway.

We sank into the seats of the car, and after throwing our bag in the back I looked at Jess and said ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Absolutely!’ She replied excitedly turning the key in the ignition, the car bursting into life.

Jess was right there weren’t any cars on the road. I saw the Ohawe Beach sign coming up, and I stated to get excited, this was actually going to happen, I thought.

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I looked out over the water and saw the sun rising, had we been here this long? It only felt like a couple of hours. I glanced over at Jess. She was lying on her back studying the sky. The fire only had a few embers left lingering among charred wood.

The empty beer bottles lay at our feet.

I started grabbing our rubbish and shoving it into the bag.

‘That was fun.’ Jess said sitting up. ‘What are you doing?!’

‘We have to go.’ I said, more worried than I was meant to sound. ‘Mum has work soon.’

‘Oh, do you have the keys?’

‘Yea, here they are.’ I said chucking them at her.

She stood up, grabbed my arm, and we started walking up the ramp, our arms linked. I couldn’t walk in a straight line – neither could Jess.

‘You alright to drive?’ I asked.

‘Course’ she replied in a fit of laughter.

We jumped in the car, and as we drove away from the beach, I realised how much fun I had, had last night. I turned to Jess to thank her, when I saw the tanker coming towards us, no we were heading straight for it. We had drifted across into the other lane. Jess was fiddling with the radio, unaware of the scene going on outside.

‘JESS!’ ‘What?’ She said confused.

She looked up and tried to swerve, but it was too late. …

The funeral was held the following Saturday, a week after my birthday, a week after the accident.

Jess was dead. They say died on impact. So why wasn’t I dead? I lost my best friend, I lost my whole world, so why wasn’t I dead?!

I didn’t want to live any more, but Jess told me everything would be alright.

I trusted Jess, always.

Judge’s Comment Fast-moving, relentless, dramatic. A story which focused on a single lifechanging moment and effectively built towards it. Good technical skill with dialogue and clever scene breaks.

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Third Place The Gracia

By Wairingiringi Hemara-Wahanui Hawera High School Kathy Gracia scares the shit out of me. I bet you're wondering why. Maybe it’s the way she can shut anyone up with one look, student or adult. Maybe it’s the way she can change her voice in a matter of milliseconds, and every person in the room soils their undergarments. Or maybe it’s the way she cackles, and boy oh boy does she cackle good. However, that cackle is always followed by a face of pure poison, and if you get that look, you know she will skin you and make you innards, outtards.

While you're still alive.

Ever since year 9 I had heard horrific stories of 'The Gracia.' Stories that made me utterly terrified of her. One kid spread a rumour that she was pregnant to another teacher, she found out, we never saw the kid again.

You see, I was coming to the glorious reality that The Gracia was never going to be my teacher. Until the dreaded day of subject confirmations. The day my soul became Kathy Gracia's. I walked into the classroom, found out that none of my subjects clashed. Great. All of my friends were in Cressy's class, so I just assumed I was in there because I was last year.

"What line is your english period in?" I ask my friend.

"Line two." She replies.

I fumble around in my pocket for my timetable and look at what I have in that line.

Line one, study. Line two, calculus... CALCULUS? What happened to English with Cressy? My heart skips a beat. After calculus I have biology, after biology... English.

Teacher code GRA. Gracia, the head of department of English. Uuuugh. What will happen in there? Is she a witch that will ground up my bones for potions? I don't know, but I have well and truly soiled my undergarments.

First day of school, last period. My class stands outside the door, I can see that every single person is trying to hold their lunch down. All of a sudden a deathly silence falls over the class. There she is, walking down the hallway like she owns the bloody place. It all feels like a horror movie, when your worst fears emerge from the fog in slow motion, ready to kill you. It truly was a horrific sight.

"Sit down." I run to my seat to avoid being ground up into potion ingredients.

I feel like all of my innards are going to be outtards. But not in a Gracia kind of way, but in a vomit all over the desk kind of way. We all do our work in complete silence, 14

too scared to utter a word. Then, I see something I thought I would never see. The Gracia is smiling. Smiling!? It isn't even an evil smirk, it is a genuine smile. She stops the class and tell us that we are going to go outside and do a whole class activity. Although I saw that small glimpse of happiness, I still thought that this 'whole class activity' was going to be some kind of Nazi gas chamber thing. I started to think about my family, and the fact that I am just too pretty to die.

"Thou artless, fool-born giglet!"

The whole class is laughing, a few people were even in tears. She's done it. The Gracia has brainwashed the entire class. I am given the sheet that everybody is working off. Shakespearean insults. I hate Shakespeare, never really understood the guy. But I give it a go.

"Thou saucy, rump-fed coxcomb!"

Hey, this Shakespeare guy was onto something with these insults. I had no idea what they meant, but boy oh boy were they fun to say.

"Thou puny, onion-eyed minnow!"

I was now like the rest of the class, laughing my socks off. I don't think I had had that much fun in any English class. The Gracia then did something that surprised the entire class. She praised us. We all looked at each other in disbelief. Hell has frozen over. Completely frozen over. The person that all of my peers called 'witch', 'she-devil' and even 'satan herself' turns out to be pretty cool.

Don't get me wrong, on a bad day The Gracia still scares the shit out of me, but she is nowhere near the witch I believed she was. She has one of the greatest sense of humours ever. My favourite is when she gets angry and tells students 'to go and fornicate with themselves.' Also turns out that the kid that told everyone The Gracia was pregnant left school because he moved. I look forward to English every day I have it.

In the eyes of those that went before me, I am a survivor. But to me, I've been put in one of the best teachers classes! And to think, I only soiled my undergarments twice!

Judge’s Comment “The Gracia”. A witty character sketch which made sure it kept momentum going – it was always a story as well as an account of a character. I liked the way the central character developed and changed.

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Highly Commended Guards

By William Andersen-Gardiner Opunake High School The two guards stand, dwarfed by the trees that tower over the small dirt clearing.

No one is sure what they’re guarding. Maybe they’re knights defending a castle from an angry dragon, or perhaps they’re bees guarding their hive from roaming bears. Or maybe they’re exactly what they appeared to be to everyone else; two eleven year olds standing under some trees on the edge of the school playground, playing their game of ‘Guards’ that no one else understands.

The first boy standing in the clearing is short, much shorter than most of the other kids in his class, even though he was put down a year, which no one really notices or questions, mainly because his height and naive demeanour give him the air of a much younger child. He notices it though, and questions it. Constantly. He knows what his Mum will say; “Because it’s the right year for you, Shaun. Because you think just a little bit differently to everyone else,” but he still asks. He just likes asking questions. Sometimes he’ll ask why he asks so many questions. Again, he knows the answer, but he asks all the same.

Shaun looks up at the second boy.

“James?” He asks.

James looks up. James is tall for his age, with hints of early acne outbreaks on his pale face, a sign of oncoming puberty, making him visually a polar opposite to Shaun.

“What?” he replies.

“Well, Jake says that since, y’know, we’re together and play guards and stuff, that means we’re gay.”

James’ eyebrows raise in surprise, but he shakes his head confidently. “Nah, he’s wrong.”

“But he said…” Shaun trails off. James is smart. Shaun knows that. He’s read books with more pages than he can count. But this doesn’t make sense.

“But why did he say it then?” questions Shaun, brow furrowed in confusion.

James snorts. “Yeah, because everything Jake says is true.”

Shaun’s brow furrows deeper into his forehead. “But you said that he-” “No, I was being sarcastic.”

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Shaun tilts his head. “Sar…cas...what?”

“Sarcastic. It means, like, you say something but it’s not true.”

“Like lying?”

“Nah, more like…joking.”

“Oh,” nods Shaun, then looks back down and continues staring at the ground.

James does the same, biting his lip and twisting his foot thoughtfully into the dirt.

“Shaun?” he asks reluctantly.

“Y-yeah?” replies Shaun, unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of a question.

“What… what does gay mean?”

“I dunno,” Shaun shrugged. “I just hear people say it. Don’t you?”

“Nah. I don’t really…listen to much of what people are saying. I mostly just… ” James trailed off.

“What?”

“I mostly just…read.”

“Oh.” “Yeah,” James continued to look at the ground, still engaged in a staring competition with a collection of pebbles at his feet. “I don’t really like talking to people.”

“Is it because of your Mum?” James’ jaw clenched “You can’t just… it’s not….” He fell silent for a moment. “Yeah.

I guess so.”

“Is she still sad about your Dad being dead?”

“Shaun, you can’t just ask people that.”

“Why not?”

Tears well up in James’ eyes as he looks up at Shaun. “Coz it’s none of your business.”

Shaun’s face screws up as he attempts to understand. He can’t understand why anyone would be so affected by something he said. “Are you crying?”

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James hides his face. “No.” “But... your… yes you are!”

“No. I’m not.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

A silence falls, which is broken a few seconds later by James, filling the air with laughter, while choking on tears that are quickly disappearing from his eyes.

“That’s not what… that doesn’t mean…” James gives up explaining and collapses to the ground, completely giving in to a fit of laughter. Eventually Shaun joins in, although he had no idea why James is laughing in the first place.

Soon after, they’re interrupted by the loud metallic ringing of the old red school bell.

Both boys stand up, dusting dirt from their uniforms, wearing their first real smiles in a long time. James straightens himself up and looks at Shaun.

“Thanks.” he says.

“What for?” Shaun looks puzzled again.

James grins. “For asking too many questions.”

Shaun finds himself in the common situation of having no idea what James means, but he grins back and nods.

“No problem.”

“Guards again next lunchtime?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. See ya.”

“Bye.” And the guards leave their posts.

Judge’s Comment A simple, affectionate, lucidly-told account of a friendship. Very pleasing character sketches.

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Highly Commended Plastic Dresses from Paris

By Dawn Mills Opunake High School Stupid.

So utterly and ridiculously stupid, I should be kicked out of Opunake High School and be sent packing to the kindy down the road just for considering it. But technically, this isn’t all my fault. Technically.

It was to be the school ball, in like, a month, and my piggy bank was choking on dust. Girls in my class were talking about ordering in handmade silk gowns from Paris, whereas I was seriously considering buying a dress from the budget section at The Warehouse (if you were wondering, the whole store is the budget section.) It got to the point where I was asking my friends how much I would get for my spleen, I don’t even know what a spleen is, so I probably don’t need it?

But then my Uncle Phil came to stay, and it all snowballed from there.

“What are you doing, ya weirdo!” Phil’s tar-filled lungs worked overtime putting a laugh into his voice.

“I have no idea what you are referring to. This is my thinking position.” My voice came out muffled, because my thinking position was me curled up into a tight ball underneath the kitchen table.

“What’s wrong with you, then? Aside from the obvious, eh?” His laugh became a gross hacking cough.

I rolled out with an awkward difficulty from under the table.

“I’m sick of being poor.” I plonked into my chair to face my Uncle.

“You know I’m doing my best,” Dad said, as he stirred his homemade pigs head stew. I shit you not. It’s actually a pig’s head floating in canned tomatoes.

I sighed and looked at my toes.

“Sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean that. It’s just, Katie ordered a velvet dress from America with actual diamonds on the chest. Diamonds! I’m going to have to wear plastic bags or something.”

Phil coughed again, his face a mixture of joy and pain. Dad came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You won’t be wearing plastic bags, sweet.” He squeezed my shoulder. “They’re too expensive. I’ve got an old sack in the shed that I use to collect sheep turd for the gardening that you could borrow.”

A symphony of laugh-coughs burst from Dad and Phil, and I was the conductor.

I rolled my eyes and pushed him away.

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“Very funny. You could be in ‘7 Days’, if they didn’t already have a short hairy guy.”

Phil hacked louder and Dad shoved me back.

My phone buzzed obnoxiously, drowning out any comeback he had.

Katie had texted: We havn finga food nt buffet. Tckts 80 “What?! Eighty dollars! For finger food?’ I choked.

Dad frowned.

“Eighty?”

“Eighty! No buffet, just ‘finger food.’ They must be real bloody fingers to cost that much!” I began to whack my head slowly against the table.

“Oh my God! I am so so so very screwed.”

Dad gave me a one armed hug.

“I’ll figure something out.” he said.

My gut squeezed with guilt. I hated always putting him in this position.

“Hey, I can help you guys out, if you need it..”

I fought the tears and looked up at Phil.

“You don’t have to do that.” My voice had become as rough as his.

“Wasn’t talking ‘bout giving youse money. I was talking ‘bout helping you earn it.”

“Like a job?” I enquired. He chuckled.

“Yeah, sorta. Sit down Edwena. I’ll tell you both.”

“I can hear you fine from over here, Phillis.” Dad snapped back, throwing a chopped onion into the witch's brew.

“Alright then,” said Phil as he drew his hand across his face and wiped his nose.

“Some of my buddies recently got a security job at that bank in Hawera. They got a lot of access to a lot of stuff, yeah? Some pretty pink notes that you could wear to the ball.” He paused to see if we had understood. I felt as if I had been teleported into some dumb 90’s action movie.

“They asked me to get more people ‘cause more people means less work and less time at the scene of the crime.” He was grinning now.

“You’re as stupid as you look if you think we’re going to help you rob a bank!” Dad growled.

My brain whirled.

How much could you take without being caught? Enough for the ball, surely. But what about University next year? Dad’s project Norton in the spare room still needs so much...

How much would I be prepared to risk my future for?

“You need the money, don’t ya? And it’s Hawera, Ted-lee. Not like the cops would’ve had proper training or anything. They’d probably cry if they heard they had to catch bank robbers!” He wheezed a laugh to himself.

Dad’s face was red, and him and the soup were steaming.

20

“You’re going to stop talking about this, or you’re getting out of the house.” Dad brandished the spoon like a sword. Phil’s face fell.

And so did my hopes But that wasn’t the end of it, no. I couldn’t just leave it there, with the sweet tang of imagined money bitter in my throat. I was too hungry, and far too desperate.

That night, before I went to sleep, I texted Uncle Phil: Wen & wher?

It was freezing cold in Hawera at midnight. I was surrounded by big scary men that I didn’t know and starting to get second thoughts.

“What’s she here for, Phil? She gonna distract the guards for us?” A cartoonised thug voice said. They all laughed like little boys. I glared and crossed my arms. I might have looked menacing if it wasn’t for the cow pyjamas I was wearing.

“Any’ youse know how to loop a video?” asked Phil. They shook their peanut brains in unison.

“Well, she does, so shut ya faces.”

I gulped.

In theory, I knew how to loop the security cameras. But I seriously doubted that the bank’s computer ran like imovie. I said nothing, though. I didn’t want them to think that I was useless.

“Hey girl, come over here.” Phil gestured me over. Beside him was one of the guys hassling me earlier. He was about my age, so I could see where this was going.

“I’m Cormac, I’ll be your partner.’ He winked, looking like a guy from a high school teen flick, but with a spasm. “I’ll keep lookout. And if the cops come, no one is going to question why two kids are hanging about in the dark.”

I almost puked all over my favourite pyjamas, but the leader of this ‘operation,’ Gruff, interrupted the love fest.

“When I say go, you’re all going to run to your positions that we talked about earlier.

We only have half an hour, so when I say run, you better hit the pavement.”

That was worrying, the only exercise I did was migrating from the fridge to my laptop to my bed. But I had brought my inhaler, so at least I won’t embarrass myself too badly…

“Cute Jammies,” leered Cormac a.k.a. Ladies’ Man. I gritted my teeth in annoyance.

“They are my moo-jamas, and I didn’t have time to change.”

“Now!” yelled Gruff.

I had never run faster in my life and I rushed towards the main office where the door to the camera control room was. I probably looked like I had escaped from the looney bin, but I had more pressing matters to consider.

21

I slid into the cushy office chair, trying not to get distracted about how it felt like I was sitting on a cloud, and I typed the passwords that Phil had given me.

The welcome scene came up, and I praised all the gods with a celebratory wiggle in the chair. Cormac put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in close as if he was going to help.

“Can you back off? This is very difficult, alien technology, and if I screw up because of you, we are all going to be singing Jailhouse Rock, understand? Guard the goddamned door!”

Cormac looked terrified, He had probably never experienced ginger rage before.

I turned back to the computer. The screen was flashing with an error message. I couldn’t read the words, but the buttons said “go” or “cancel.”

I turned back to Cormac. He gave a dopey-eyed shrug. “You’re the expert. Loop them already!”

He was right, I was taking too much time. I closed my eyes and took a breath.

When I opened them, I pressed Go. STUPID “So you didn’t even realise that you were setting off the alarms? And that you put the bank into total lock down mode?” The cop laughed.

Stupid.

I put my head into my handcuffed hands.

Stupid.

“No.” I whispered.

Stupid.

The young cop, Brian, almost peed himself at the joke that was my life.

Turns out the police in Hawera know exactly what to do in a bank robbery, especially if some stupid idiot had set off the system that shuts and locks every door and blasts an alarm that could be heard in New Plymouth.

Something else for them to complain about.

At least I know what I’ll be wearing for the ball.

A stunning orange number, with silver chains to top if off.

Judge’s Comment Another situation that many can relate to. Fast-moving narrative, witty use of dialogue. Some nice mood shifts.

22

Highly Commended The Back Roads

By Ellen Hodder St Mary’s Diocesan School The evening wears her like a little black dress. She stumbles, a pot hole driving up into the flesh on her right knee. Get up.

July 26th 2012 Faintly, she heard the memory of her mother, coming home from the driveway. Maree dunked her keys into the bowl they kept for supposed fruit and left herself in the wine cabinet. “A quiet day at work today Katy! Just the usual. Cut a bald man’s hair, he wouldn’t leave without me taking the razor to the scraps of his beard…”

Katy plugged herself into the wall, the iPod attached to her headphones. Up with the beat, down with the drone of Maree’s voice.

(Screams) SILENT KILLER…“…then we had a smoko and…” …(Screams) GET BACK TO WHERE YOU BREATHE…”…you really need to do something with yourself…”…(Screams) HOW MANY TIMES DO I – “KATY!” The familiar sting spread over her face. She held her breath in her nose and kicked up from her chair.

“WHAT?” Again the pain spread from her mother’s hand to Katy’s cheekbones.

“Shut up.”

The wind yanked at her hair, laddered the criss-cross mess of her tights and snatched at her breath. “… we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it…Hoooowoooo… we’re going on a bear hunt…we’re not scared… ” Keep walking.

August 16th 2013 They stood in deafening silence.

Jackie had picked out a ‘nice’ black dress from a commercial sweat shop last week. Today she wore white - not for celebration, but for peace. (“…Let us commend Maree to the mercy of God…”) They had chosen a plot together.

One where she could sit under a well-dressed tree and talk by the engraved stone - the only physical proof of her mother’s life apart from Katy herself. (“…We therefore commit Maree to the ground…”) She promised her mother she’d be put up here when her struggle was over. Katy knew as well as anyone, that Maree’s physical bounds to the earth would weaken and falter. (“…Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”) But she wasn’t ready for the dull ache 23

that was left behind her dry eyes. ( “…and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.”)

“Aye, she was a loovlah purson ‘ol Maree, thaa she was.”

“Too bad she wasn’t Catholic!” Guy cared to lighten the mood.

“Heaven doesn’t have wine on tap anyway...”

Maybe it was warm. Her whole being was sticky and oozed mindlessness. What was the word? The one they used in biology last year? Denatured.

From 500 metres away, this wondering entity could’ve been a figment of your imagination. A play thing of the mind. An abnormally large possum, ready to meet his demise. “My name is Katy, 23 Kina road. My name is Katy, 23 kina road. My name is Katy…”

December 12th 2013 “See, the thing is, one day soon we’ll have to decide if we should you put down once you reach a certain age, in order to feed the country. Old people are a waste of resources. A tax on the community. But what’s really taxing us is the sugar in the food we eat. If we could have a sugar tax…” Guy fixed the world’s problems in the space between his face and hers.

“Are you thinking humanly? Bernie is over fifty already, do you want to erase him too?”

“Well, old Papa has been living as a crazed doddery man after Mum died, admit it.”

Realisation smudged the face of God’s Creation. “Oh, that was ‘too soon’ wasn’t it Katy.”

“Too soon, Guy?” It pained her more than she cared to admit. “There’s no humour in insensitivity. The effects of change are indiscriminate.”

There was enough silence, (“Which only ever ensues if he’s sleeping. Even then he snores – something to look forward to…” “Gross Jackie… No.”) for her to engage in the art of Dramatically Staring Out the Window.

“Oh, well, it’s been a few months for you to get over it.”

“How would you know,” her words biting behind her “You never met your mother.”

She glanced toward the source of the ticking that had gradually become louder. She’d spent almost one twenty-fourth of her day with this ignorant prick. “…My name is Katy, 23 Kina road..” She stumbled into oblivion. She had over dosed on adrenaline but panic was her anaesthetic. It rose to meet the alcohol fermenting in the back of her throat. Back arched, she heaved to release the greenery licking at her tongue. Lights flashed ahead, flashing onto a busy street, fluorescent signs, pumping “Open”, “Party”, “Neon Death”, Devon street punters, 24

wheeling crowds, batting her skirt, whoops and hollers, open doors, arms raised, feel the crush, then she fell.

January 1st 2014 “Oh go on! Please Katy… You’ll never know until you try. Annnddd I know for a fact that he likes you too, so you kinda gotta now.”

“I am not going to fold under the pressure of peers. Here’s looking at you, Jackie.”

“I know you want to.”

“You don’t know anything about what’s happening up here.”

“There’s not been much “Happening up there” for a while now and you know it. Come on, you know it’ll make you happier.”

“How will relying on another being make me happier? It’s pathetic.”

“Its part of a normal teenage life, girl.”

“I am NOT going to give myself willingly to this patriarchal paradigm. No sir.

Not today. Full stop, end of story.”

“Okay…. 1) What does that mean and b) You might actually like him.”

“Going in circles here Jackie.”

“Just wait for him to ask you out.”

“The only way I’d ever ‘go out’ with anyone is if I asked them.”

“You know Guy is too stuck up for that.”

I swear I’ve tasted this gravel before...

Her eyelids peeled back from the mascara to open into darkness. Well, mostly darkness. Fingertips grappled at the chip-seal as her body slid sideways. Off the edge into nothing, she imagined. A faint buzz filled her ears, not unlike the one that filled her chest while with Jackie and her Silver Lighter. It zigged and sagged across her thoughts. ..23 Kina road… We’re going on a bear hunt… the pot hole.

Think.

Opened mind and foggy head, the studded skirt and skyscraper shoes, dragged her to her feet. (“You look about as sexy as a fat man in heels. Why wear them if you can’t walk in ‘em?.”)

Cold.

She was cold.

Damp fear and cold sweat seeped into the blue of her veins.

Guy and Jackie would be cold too.

“Shit.”

Run. January 2nd 2014 “Hello Bernie.”

25

“Why, ‘ello Maree, ain’t sen y’ roun’ ‘ere for munths. An in the breakfist isle too... Lawdy!”

“Yes, well, you know how these things go as well as I do. I’ve been giving her space. It’s hard for all of us – the effects of change are indiscriminate.”

“So y’ noe, she’s ben stay’n wif us a couple days, all wis welcome ‘ere. It’s good to keep ‘er roun’. She’s a good kid. “ “M-m-m, she is. Just wanted to pop in on you lot…say goodbye.”

“Y’ noe wher we are. Now, if y’ll ‘scuse meh – wheat-a-bisguts are righ behin’ yah.”

She did in fact feel like a fat man in heels, as Guy so lovingly pointed out. How they half-pie fumbled though the Hawera streets she’ll never know. Or, never care to remember. Keep going.

Silhouetted storm clouds painted a grim picture before her. The mounds of splurge from Mounga Taranaki’s more youthful years surrounded the majority of fenced- in land, or, at least what she could see from how little light the moon threw her way. It would be politically correct to say that Katy felt valiant in her quest towards safety.

But as staunch as her mother had raised her, she was shaking like a Chihuahua on heat.

As she walked she wrung her hands; flipping recollections over, under, through and tumbling through her palms. The more she travelled, the harder she wrung.

August 15th 2014 Since 1pm they had gossiped and lip-sticked with the mirror in Jackie’s room. (“Preening” Guy teased through the bedroom doorframe). Synthetics, 75% lycra, 25% nylon, lay spread-eagled on her temporary bed, fighting for attention. To be the prettiest, sexiest, most revealing frock to accompany them for the night. Shaving, slipping, bleeding, picking, for a night to be spent in the booze-bus. Guy was off to see the rugby too (“A cracker between Waikato and the Naki.”) “You’d betta be leav’n noe if y’ wan’t get ther’ bah keck off!” Bernie hollered down the hallway. They planned to get there by happy hour. (“Which could be any hour as far as we’re concerned!”

Jackie bubbled through a glass of milk.)

She heaved, silently. Look up.

Under her feet, the high country highway had cracked and crumbled; the farm owner’s stake in the land held together with number eight wire. And mangled metal.

Strings of glass and electricals sat on the fence – unsure whether they were still part of the living, or the dead. She could see herself bending and folding, opening and closing, as if her mind had wandered out of its skull. Heaving again and again, over and under, until she recognised a pattern. She was screaming, too loudly for anybody to hear. Not that there were any ear drums around to receive her panic.

26

Convulsions articulated her words, “GUY! JACKIE! Guy…Guy..” She imagined them stiff and staunch, unwilling to become man or machine. Go to them.

“I’M COMING DOWN! Wait for me… Guy…” Her legs suspended over the edge into the unknown, their eyes dried in blood from the battle on the road, she shimmied her torso over with them. Stand up.

Unseeing eyes looked down again further. Find them.

She leaned over, grappling for a root, grass, anything, tying her to the living - and then, nothing.

Hello Maree.

Judge’s Comment Emotionally powerful, tightly-written story which examines people under terrible strain and builds then tension effectively. Good use of dialogue and mood switches.

27

Secondary School Poetry First Place Brunch

By Dawn Mills Opunake High School When Dad makes a roast He mashes together carrot and parsnip My favourite sunset I’d never had it fried before

We had all slept in Yesterday’s reminiscing and shopping Had stretched us to our limits Now hot fry pans and sweet bacon was our recoil

Dad fried the multicoloured mash And sliced roast potatoes to a crisp golden Reuben manned the bacon, Caleb supervised Chrystal scrambled the eggs, with a fork? And a spoon?

I, too young to have any prowess in the kitchen Made the teas and coffee And toasted and buttered the bread With a hilarious sternness, I would not fail

28

Happiness smells like hot oil And sounds like hissing pans We crowd round the table, brunch is served I’d never had brunch before

Chrystal’s eggs were soft and fluffy I preferred buttery and chunky But when she smiled as I took a bite They were the best clouds I had ever eaten

Reuben animatedly waved his fork in the air Caleb snorted into his potatoes Dad and I shared a contented glance I ate my hot fiery sunset

The best I’d ever had, my favourite brunch Chrystal burped and it too sounded like happiness “Always better the second time around.”

She grinned, we laughed

Judge’s Comment Brunch won me over because it was just so warm. I felt I was right there eating breakfast with the writer and his or her family. It was compassionate and tender with some great lines, e.g. describing mashed carrot and parsnip as 'My favourite sunset'.

29

Second Place Winter Beach

By Megan Jackson St Mary’s Diocesan School Warm winter kiss, Raging white horses, Black sparkling dust, Tattered figures,

Footprints, Dog prints, Woof, Woof, Kaw, Kaw,

Crushed, Crumbled, Cliffs, Big, Bold, Boulders, Sharp, Shaped, Shells, Fascinating, Facted, Fossils.

Judge’s Comment I loved the spareness of this poem. There were no baggy words that made it sag just as it got going. It stayed taut from start to finish. The sparseness of the words also helped to create a feeling of a beach in winter and underlined the theme of the poem. I really liked the music in the poem as well, each line crashed onto the page like a wave - making me feel as though I really was walking the beach as I read it.

30

Third Place Conflictions

By Alyxandra Devlin St Mary’s Diocesan School

I saw you today.

We didn’t speak.

Just noticed each other.

You were walking and I was

away,

trying togetcloser, to feel the brush of shoulders to see if the static was still there.

I know you saw me, because when I lifted my eyes I found yours.

We passed.

Both pretending, We hadn’t seen.

But I looked back.

I saw you today.

We didn’t speak.

But we should have.

Judge’s Comment This poem works well because of what it doesn't say. All it describes is two people passing beside each other and yet we can feel the tension between them from the opening line. The writer simply put a positive charge on one side of the page and a negative charge on the other side and the reader felt the electricity flow. So many love poems try to describe the electricity or explain how it feels. This poem just puts your hand on the electric fence.

31

Best Use of Personification Musical Matrimony

By Rebecca Pratt Hawera High School The first time we met, It was not love at first sight, You didn’t talk to me, Nor were you nice to me, A giant waste of space, In my household, In my life.

T’was only after time, Coupled with persistent determination, That you finally spoke to me, Slowly at first, now without hesitation.

With you I’ve grown stronger, In skill, And in spirit, If I catch you, With others, I never find myself jealous, For they hardly compare, To us, What we have.

Part us and I’m trapped, It’s a world without passion, Bowing down to insanity, Drowning in silence, You’ve turned my simple life, Into a melody, With lyrics.

32

We’re a public love affair, Yet no one even knows, All the others see, Is a girl playing piano.

Judge’s Comment I felt that the best use of personification was this poem, Musical Matrimony which compares a piano to a lover.

33

Best Local Poem/Best Title/Best Phrase Hah-wee-rah

By Germana Lewis Hawera High School Hah-wee-rah.

This is how they say it.

A small town unknown scorned.

What pride he wrought crumbled like the tower.

Hawera, he insisted.

Where the milk is made.

Where that shop is at.

A harsh ‘H’ gently caressing the ‘a’, A sighed ‘we’, A melodic ‘ra’.

Hawera.

It was there but the pride faded as people wrote curses on its walls.

The burnt place like his pride.

Judge’s Comment I really liked this poem - it was original and utterly addressed the theme of the competition. It also contained a lovely piece of vernacular.

Hawera, he insisted.

Where the milk is made.

Where that shop is at.

A harsh 'H' gently caressing the 'a', A sighed 'we', A melodic 'ra' Hawera.

34

Best Rhyming Poem WOMAD

By Jamie Phillips Opunake High School Bare feet, dreadlocks swinging African, Indian, American singing colourful bags, hung on racks unusual food, piled in stacks Thudding bass, ringing ears child’s dropped candy, bringing tears worlds, planets in styles of songs everything weird here somehow belongs.

Green eyes and blue hair beats translating hope and fear roiling violins and swaying trees donuts, children weak at the knees A world of dance, of music people unafraid to just lose it here in New Plymouth, feet are bare every march, every year.

Judge’s Comment This poem showed great control of rhyme, which can easily get out of hand. My feet were tapping.

35

Open Division Short Story/Drama Script First Place Fantails, Paua and the last time Gran had sex

By Emma Collins “There’s a fantail in my kitchen, Maisy” It was Gran on the phone. She was the only one who still called me by my childhood nickname. I’m almost 40 but to Gran I’ll always be a kid.

“You know what that means” she said. I wasn’t that surprised, it was autumn and Gran was dying of cancer. The medication was making her anxious.

“I’ll be over shortly “I said “Is there anything you need at the shops?”

“Some lamingtons for morning tea would be lovely dear, pink ones please” Gran had lived through the depression, world war, polio and being struck by lightning. She had borne 6 children and raised 4 to adulthood, my dad was her youngest. Pop died back in the early 80s and that’s when she shifted into her little cottage in town, and now her next move was going to be to the hospice. Gran was right, old age sucked.

When I got there half an hour later, Gran had all the windows open and was trying to chase the frightened little bird out the back door with a broom.

“Here Gran, I’ll do it” I took the mop from her shaking hands.

“Whoa” she said “I’m quite dizzy” and sat down hard on the kitchen chair.

Gran didn’t look good at all, her face was pale with dark shadows around her eyes and beneath her ears. The skin was just hanging on her like a little old tent.

“I knocked down the shell house” Gran said waving at the shelf where the beloved ornament had sat for decades “With the broom” she said about the same time as I stood on the damn thing. Crunch.

“Bugger” I thought “I can fix it “I said to Gran. She was half blind, she wouldn’t notice the mends. Anyway, she wouldn’t be taking it to the hospice with her, I’m sure.

36

“Where did you get it from?” I asked her as I knelt down to pick up the pieces.

“I made it myself” she said proudly” and helped herself to a pink lamington.

The fantail flitted around the room squeaking one more time and ducked down and disappeared out the back door.

“I’m going to die, you know Maisy” and coconut fell from her lips as she talked “Once they get me up at that hospice place I’ll spend the last little bit of my life in my nightie doped to the eyebrows, I won’t know if it’s night or day” she sprayed crumbs at me “That’s not fair on anyone, is it?”

One of Gran’s greatest fears was of losing her dignity and being a nuisance to others. Very old school, my Gran. She had always dressed herself well and looked after her figure. Gran had been a beauty in her day. She still did her hair nice every morning and wore a clean house dress, put on some make up if she was going down to the shops.

“No Gran, sucks to be you alright” I had always been pretty blunt with the old girl, she knew me too well to try and sugar coat it. But I could distract her.

“So why did you make a house out of paua?” I asked her. I had played with the ugly lumpy thing when I was a child. It was more of a whare than a house, a squat ‘A’ frame of card board with chunks of paua shell glued over it in swirly patterns. It would take more than just a bit of glue to fix it now.

“I haven’t had a feed of paua in years” said Gran with her head titled to one side and I could see her winding back the years, but then she winced and the pain brought her back to the present day. She moved restlessly.

“Blue fritters, your Dad used to call them. Just like mince fritters but blue.

And tasting of the sea” said Gran.

“So nothing like mince fritters at all” I thought to myself.

“Please can you get me a drink of water dear? I should take one of those blue pills after I’ve eaten” Gran had been taking a low dose of morphine for a couple of weeks now, but the pain was getting harder and harder to keep at bay.

“Here you go Gran” and I got the pill out for her and dropped it into her trembling hand “Knock back your Viagra and tell me about the paua” and I put the pill bottle back in its place on the shelf next to the tea bags.

“There was a reef just to the north at Ohawe, huge paua there” she moved around in her chair trying to get comfortable “When the moon was full and the tide was low we’d all hop on the back of the farm truck with a load of sugar sacks and down to the sea we’d go”.

37

“Who is we, Gran?” I asked. I could see her relaxing as the drug started to work. The constant movement of Gran trying to ease her internal pressure was slowing. I had been aware of the rustle of her nylon slacks on the old vinyl chair, the static electricity coming off her bum would be enough to boil the jug.

“Mum would sit in the front of the old Farmall truck, and all us O’Malley kids and the neighbours kids would rattle off to Ohawe or Kina Road or the Waitara river mouth” Gran told me in the special sing song voice she saved for telling tales.

“Dad always seemed to know where the fish would be or a mussel bed that was easy to get to. We’d fill sacks with kelp for the garden after a storm. Once we even went up north and got a huge feed of pipi, only beach in Taranaki where you could find them. Freezing our butts off coming home in the dark, all wet and salty and itchy from the sea. It’s a wonder we never caught the flu and died really. Still we were tougher in those days” Gran was smiling away to herself.

“I used to bike out to Ohawe beach when my kids were at school “she said Gran had never learnt to drive a car.

“I’d leave my coat and towel on the beach and swim out to the reef. I was a good swimmer, looked good in a pair of togs too” Gran had always been proud of her figure “At low tide I could stand knee deep on a shelf of rock out there and duck down for the paua. On a good day I could get a good dozen of them in about half an hour. And that’s as long as it was safe before the waves started coming in again. I had a few close calls in my day. And do you know how I got all those paua home?”

Gran asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Some kind of bag, I guess” but I was sure there was going to be more to her story than something as ordinary as just a bag.

“When I got a paua I’d stick it down the front of my togs. 20 was the most I ever got in there” she laughed at the look on my face “And I’d swim back to the beach and wrap the towel around me and put my big coat on over the top and ride like hell for home” She watched me with a faint smile on her lips, as I mentally tried to banish the idea of the paua crawling all over my Gran’s naked body. I knew then that I would never eat a paua fritter again without thinking of my Gran, or more likely just never eat a paua fritter again full stop. My God! It must have taken her a good half hour to bike home again. And they would be sliding around, sweltering under her coat and wet togs.

“It’s true” said Gran “I’d get home and hop under the shower and peel the buggers off. Sluuuurp” and she did the actions of peeling a paua from under her armpit. It had to be true, not even my Gran would have made that up.

“Never told the family where the paua came from” and we laughed together. I thought perhaps I wouldn’t tell my Dad this story of Gran’s.

38

“Mind you, your Pop wouldn’t have minded” she said slyly “Randy old bugger that he was” “Gran!” I was shocked.

“Come on Maisy” Gran replied “I was your age once, and younger. Did you think your generation invented sex?”

“No, but it’s not something I want to think about, thanks Gran” I sounded prim and foolish to myself “I mean, ew, crusty sex!”

“Ha” she scoffed “Don’t you think your parents still do it? It’s not just a privilege of the young and good looking you know. I mean, when was the last time you and your Peter had a bit of slap and tickle? ” I could feel my face flushing and I was angry and uncomfortable. She might be off her tits with the drugs but really! I was not going to discuss my sex life with her. Not now, not ever. I didn’t particularly want to hear about hers either.

“1979 it was” Gran went on regardless. “My last time, not long before your Pop died. He wasn’t a well man then. Dickey ticker and gone in the knees, I just about killed the poor bugger then and there. Still, what a way to go! ” “Well I really must be going Gran” I said abruptly getting up and pushing my chair back. I really didn’t want to hear anymore. As it was I was going to have trouble looking at my Gran in the same way again. I mean, paua and sex tainted for me all in the space of half an hour. I probably needed counselling.

“Yes, go home and make yourself nice for your man” she told me. There was a faint slur in her voice and she was looking quite drowsy. Gran was slipping away to play with the fairies, that little blue pill must have packed quite a punch.

“Are you going to be ok Gran?” I asked as I stood by the kitchen door. I was thinking that I should help her off to bed.

“Maisy, I’m dying dear. I don’t really think I will ever be OK again. But I know what you mean, and you mean well. Run along home dear, I might go and have a little lie down” but she didn’t get up.

As I walked down Gran’s garden path I started thinking perhaps she had the right of it, the not caring of what people think thing.

The next day I knocked on Gran’s back door but she didn’t come to answer it. My heart gave a nasty cold lurch as I opened the unlocked door and called out “Gran?” But there was no reply.

39

I found my Gran lying on her bed, still dressed as I had seen her the day before but she was still and cold. Her eyes were shut and she looked peaceful as I put my hand on her forehead and stroked her cheek. I sat beside the bed and held her cold bird like hand, I could feel all the little bones under the thin glove that was her skin.

I cried for a while, but there would be time to feel sad for Gran at her funeral.

I just wanted a bit of time before I had to call the family and the undertakers. A bit of time to throw away the empty pill bottle that I thought I would find on the shelf next to the tea bags.

Judge’s Comment What an enviable title! And what an effective, moving story, in which the central character's life, plus her place in others' lives is fondly revealed via her words and the events. A sustained scene with wide implications, a tight plot, excellent characterisation.

40

Second Place Bad hare day

By Emma Collins “When did you last do your hair?” Rachel asked Sue, standing over the woman at the desk.

Strangely, Sue cast a guilty glance under the desk and checked her watch before her hand went to her hair. She patted the straggly bun at the back of her head, dislodging a few more stringy wisps.

“I’ve been a bit busy lately” Sue was immediately defensive “You know what spring is like on the farm. I don’t have time to go to the hair dressers” “Not like you, spoilt bitch” Sue thought to herself.

Rachel was the boss’s new wife, Greg was a good sort and Sue had worked in the office of his contracting business for several years. Once a week Rachel lowered herself to come to the yard to collect the weekly banking, and she always looked immaculate. Beautifully set hair and gorgeous clothes, she was slim and fit, everything that Sue wasn’t, and Sue hated her with a vengeance. The animosity was shared.

“It doesn’t take long to look after yourself properly Susan” Rachel went on “You are the receptionist for Ashley’s Contracting you know, there is a certain standard to maintain here. What must the customers think?”

“Half our customers come in covered with cow shit Rachel!” Sue pointed out “They don’t give a damn about anything except getting their grass cut before it rains. I could be sitting her in my pyjama pants with my knickers on my head and no one would notice as long as the job gets done” “Well, I still think you need to try and make an effort Sue. Get your hair done, and watch what you eat. You seem to live off pies when you are at work” Rachel pointedly looked into the rubbish bin by the desk and sure enough there was an Anderson’s pie wrapper poking out.

“I’ve been gluten and lactose free for two months now and I am feeling so much better for it. You should give it a go Sue, you are what you eat after all” Rachel pointed back at the rubbish bin “What on earth is that?” Rachel saw movement in the shadow under the desk.

“That’s Debbie” Sue said

41

“What is Debbie and what is it doing under your desk at work?” Rachel said sharply.

“Debbie is a baby hare the kids found. A leveret. I have to bring her to work as she needs a bottle every 4 hours. We’re going to let her go after pet day. Have a look, she’s really cute” and Sue leaned over and pulled a cat cage out from under her desk. Sure enough, a small brown hare was crouched in the hay, and it was very cute indeed.

“You can’t bring pets into work!” Rachel exclaimed “It’s not hygienic. It’s probably a health and safety issue. It’s sitting there pooping and weeing. If someone reported this the council could fine us or shut us down” “Don’t be stupid woman” Sue snapped back without thinking.

“Don’t call me stupid!” Rachel voice was shrill.

“Tidy your act up and get that animal out of here. I can give you a warning for this kind of behaviour you know” “Now, now what’s happening here?” Greg had heard the women’s voices from the workshop and come to investigate. He was hot and sweaty looking and sounded a bit pissed off.

“Do you know what this is?” Rachel demanded of him pointing at the cage on the floor.

“Yeah, that’s Debbie” Greg replied bending down “Debbie, Debbie” he called in a silly high pitched voice, and the little hare hopped over to the side of the cage to sniff his fingers.

“You don’t see baby hares very often Rach” Greg stood up again “Sue’s been feeding it special pet milk, its lactose intolerant like you babe” “I don’t care, Greg, she can’t bring the thing into work, I’m just not having it” and with that Rachel stalked out.

“Just keep her in your car and bring her out when Rachel’s not here eh?”

Greg said to Sue when Rachel was safely out of earshot “It’s only for a few weeks right?”

“Yeah, thanks for that Greg” Sue said gratefully and that was the last time they spoke of it. For a week.

Sue bought a box of hair dye from the supermarket and one of the mums from school used to be a hair dresser and was only too happy to give Sue a quick tidy up. Debbie kept coming to work with Sue and when she knew Greg was off on a job, Sue let her out for runs around the little office with the door closed. The little hare was growing daily and starting to eat grass, but the tiny little black pellets it was leaving on the carpet didn’t smell and were easy to pick up. On the day Rachel

42

was due back Sue left the hare in the car covered with an old towel, Sue was getting a sly sense of pleasure defying Rachel’s stupid order behind her back.

“Nice to see you’ve taken my advice” was the first thing Rachel said when she came to collect the banking that day “How is the diet going?”

“I am starting my diet after pet day” Sue was going to make an effort not to have a go at Rachel this time “We’re making cakes and lollies this weekend, and then we always have to buy someone else’s cooking, not a good time to be giving up” she was trying to keep it light.

“How quaint!” Rachel sneered “A cake stall at pet day. I bet there would be nothing there made without gluten and lactose and loads of fat” “You might be surprised” Sue said. An idea was beginning to form in her head. This bitch needed to be taught a lesson.

It was a bare 5 minutes later a cry came from the smoko room.

“Sue!” Rachael sounded angry “What is this doing in the fridge?” and Rachael marched into the office brandishing a box.

“This is pet milk! What’s it doing in the work fridge? You better not have that bloody rabbit here” and she bent down to look under Sue’s desk.

“Phew!” thought Sue, but she replied with righteous indignation “I think you owe me an apology Rachael. I do not have the hare under my desk” “Well, sorry then “Rachael said with bad grace” But don’t do it again!” and marched out.

The next week, after Pet Day, Sue brought smoko into work. She was sitting at the kitchen table with Greg and the other drivers when Rachael arrived. They were all scoffing big gooey looking chocolate muffins and having a laugh. Rachael pursed her lips with disapproval.

“That doesn’t look very healthy. Greg, you know you should be watching your cholesterol levels” Greg wiped his mouth with the back of his hand but kept chewing.

“I bet he doesn’t get any at home” Sue thought to herself “Not tonight, anyway” but what she said was “Actually I’ve got something for you too Rachael” and Sue got up and took a covered plate from the sink. She uncovered the plate with a flourish and held it out to Rachael.

43

“Peace offering. Try one of these Rach. These are completely healthy with no gluten or lactose. In fact, they are made from completely natural ingredients.”

Rachael reluctantly took one of the muffins from the plate. She studied it before she dubiously took a small nibble. Then her expression changed.

“Why thank you Sue, this is lovely! “And she took a larger bite “Mm, I can taste fresh herbs and carrot” “That’s right” said Sue “All home grown. I googled lactose and dairy free recipes and added a few tweaks of my own” “And I did it in work time on the office computer too bitch” she thought to herself and smiled.

“They are vegetarian “she said, and thought “But I didn’t say they didn’t contain animal products, now did I” “Scrumptious “said Rachael “You guys should try these” “We’ll stick to the chocolate thanks” said one of the drivers.

“Well that all the more for me” and Rachael took another one “What are the seeds on the top, are they some sort of poppy seed?”

“No” smiled Sue “Google said some people can’t eat poppy seeds so I tried these new ones, Nigella seeds they are called” and behind her back she crossed her fingers “You are what you eat after all”

Judge’s Comment Another witty title, and an equally witty story, which deftly won your sympathy for one character, established your dislike for another, and used a neat, briskly moving plot to tell a whimsical tale which had the added satisfaction of showing justice done. A very well-controlled piece.

44

Third Place Hemi and Hine

By John Sargeant Hemi loved Hine from the first day he saw her.

That was thirty five years ago. Four daughters later and their fair share of the ups and downs of everyday life and they are still as much in love now as then.

They met in 1978 when Hemi’s Rugby team went to Wellington to play in the finals.

Hemi was on the bench and never actually played in the game but he was still as proud of that day as anybody could be.

He met Hine at the hotel lobby. Hemi always told people they met in the hotel’s revolving doors and they’ve been going round ever since.

They lived in the same house they bought thirty years ago after they scraped the deposit together. They still had a mortgage – “four daughters don’t come cheap” Hemi always said.

Life was good for Hemi. He worked at the local freezing works where he started on the chains twenty years ago as a boner and had worked his way up to supervisor.

Hemi and Hine would do anything for their four girls. They were a very close knit family. Hemi insisted they all eat together at the table, every night. “A family that eats together, stays together” he said.

The eldest daughter, Charlene, went flatting in the city. Despite the best advice, she became pregnant. When she plucked up the courage to tell Hemi and Hine, the news was treated with a short silence then five minutes of hugs and seven months of extra vegetables.

Aroha was born and lacked for nothing as Hemi and Hine’s love wasn’t divided but multiplied.

Hemi took out a small loan to turn Charlene’s old room into a nursery especially for the homecoming of their first mokapuna.

The mortgage was increased but Hemi didn’t mind a bit. “Four daughters, the missus and mokapuna don’t come cheap” he said.

The second eldest, Kylie was keen to become a lawyer; she had the brains and the motivation, but lacked the where-with-all. “Easy as” said Hemi, “leave it to me” and it went on the mortgage.

45

“When Kylie is a top notch lawyer she can pay it all back” Hemi told everybody.

“She’ll be earning heaps down there in Wellington”.

The two youngest were twins, Ata and Atarangi. They were both in the sixth form.

They too had brains and wanted to go to University; Ata to be an environmental engineer and Atarangi, an accountant. At the dinner table Hemi announced he would pay their fees. “What we do for one, we do for all” said Hemi. “It’s only fair”.

Hine looked at him sideways knowing the consequences of his decision.

Hemi and Hine loved their family so much. They were everything to them.

They didn’t live in paradise, they were paradise.

It was Saturday morning.

‘The Animals’ were singing ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ on the radio.

Hemi was singing along wandering around the house in his track pants and singlet.

“She’s been the ruin of many a good man…” Hine bellowed as he pottered around the house.

Hine smiled to herself.

The sun was shining and the Tui’s were calling from the garden, heralding a sunny day.

“What’s the plan Stan”? Hemi asked.

“Just the usual, you do the shopping and I’ll take the girls to netball” said Hine.

“Don’t forget the Lotto ticket” Hine called out as Hemi threw himself into the station wagon.

“As if” he yelled back.

Hemi enjoyed doing the weekly shopping on his own as it gave him time to think.

He also knew that when he came home there would be fresh pikelets waiting for him.

The groceries all bagged up, he checked last week’s Lotto ticket.

“Not a Winning Ticket. Good Luck Next Time” came up on the screen.

Hemi was disappointed but not surprised. He bought another ticket using the same numbers he and Hine picked in 1987 when it first began. They had never won any big prize but it was the thrill of the chase and the anticipation of winning the big one Hemi enjoyed.

46

Just for a change he put Charlene name on the back, “might bring more luck” he half whispered to himself.

He packed the groceries in the back of the station wagon and headed home for fresh pikelets.

Hemi knew his life was rich. He loved the predictability of his life, his family and his world.

But the following Monday the mood at the freezing works was anything but predictable. The chains were silent and sombre faced union workers shepherded everybody into the cafeteria.

In front of Hemi and his one hundred and sixty workmates, management announced the works were to close in three weeks.

Losing sales to overseas markets and inefficient work processes were blamed. Of the three works across the North Island, Hawkes Bay was to be upgraded to produce all the meat for the company, Taranaki and Wairarapa were to close with all jobs lost.

The news soon spread across the small town and Hemi didn’t have to tell Hine, she already knew.

The obvious hit them immediately.

With no money coming in what were they to do? Their world was wrapped around their family and a regular income they thought would last forever. It upset Hemi deeply that he no longer had any control in his life and his ordered existence was shattered.

Over the next few days most of his mates talked of going to Australia, but Hemi didn’t even have a passport, his family and his home were here. It was all he knew and all he ever wanted. Anything else was alien to him. He couldn’t even bring himself to think about it.

To Hemi and Hine’s surprise, the girls called a family meeting. They all said they would pull their weight from now on. Kylie, Ata and Atarangi declared they would pay their way through university, take out a loan “like everybody else did” they told the family.

Although the house was already mortgaged, partly for Kylie’s fees, the announcement was a relief. After the girls had gone to bed, Hine, always the practical one, made Hemi promise he would visit the bank in the morning.

The news from the bank was not good. The mortgage was maxed out. It was bigger than when it was first taken out all those years ago.

47

The routine and stability of the family fell apart. Hemi drew into himself as the responsibility for his family which he had always taken in his stride, now became a massive worry to him.

The Saturday morning shopping, instead of being enjoyable served only as a reminder of what he would soon not be able to afford.

Atarangi was a natural at maths but even she couldn’t make the budget work. There was more money going out every day with Aroha growing and with only a few weeks until the works closed for good, Hemi knew the family would soon be in serious trouble.

Buying only specials at the supermarket Hemi tightened down on the spending knowing what lay ahead. No more Lotto or chocolate biscuits, certainly no more chippies. House brands and specials were to be the order of the day from now on to prepare for when he had no more pay packets coming in.

At the checkout he took out his EFTPOS card, along with the last Lotto ticket he bought; forgotten about in all the unrest and worry.

“Sorry, not a winning ticket. Good luck next time” Hemi said looking at the screen expecting to see the inevitable. “Please see the supervisor” came up instead.

“Geez, what’s this about” thought Hemi.

“You may like to sit down sir” said the Lotto operator.

“You have won second division prize of two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.

Congratulations”.

Hemi’s head was spinning when he gave the news to Hine. “It’s true” he insisted, “Look, I have the forms to fill in to get the money”.

Hine, having a level head started to fill in the claim. “Hemi, you put the ticket in Charlene name, according to this form, it’s not your ticket”.

“Geez” said Hemi, I paid for it so it’s my ticket alright”.

“It’s what we have been praying for since I got the news about the works closing.

We’ll share it anyway, what’s it matter”?

Hine called the Lotto office in Wellington and found out that it did matter.

“Only the person whose name is on the back can claim the prize” they said, it’s the law”.

Charlene held the ticket in her hand and sat down, stunned at the news.

“This means I can get a flat back in the city, buy a flash car. Maybe even buy my own place” she said.

48

She may as well have struck Hemi and Hine with a hammer, the result would have been the same. They were in disbelief of what they heard.

Hine took Charlene to one side.

“Listen girl. Think about what your father has done for you. Think about what this family has done for you and Aroha. This is our time of need as a whanau. You have the power to change that and all you can think about is yourself. Think hard girl and do what we have brought you up to do and think of others first”.

Hine walked away unable to hold back her tears.

Charlene grabbed her jacket and left the house.

Hemi and Hine sat around the house in disbelief.

Charlene came back that evening.

“Mum, Dad, I’m leaving home”.

“I cashed the ticket and the money is in my account”.

She pushed an envelope to Hemi.

“Dad, here’s ten thousand dollars to help out. You brought me up to be independent, well, now I am. I’m taking Aroha back to the city where we both belong, not in this sleepy town anymore. I’ll send for my things”. She walked out again slamming the door.

Two weeks later, the works closed for good. Hemi said that he would give up anything for things to be the way they were before he bought the ticket.

“We’ll find money somewhere to pay the mortgage somehow, but we will never see our daughter or granddaughter like it was before” he said.

Hemi went shopping during the week now when he had the money or just had to get some food in.

He hated shopping now.

But Hine taught Hemi how to make pikelets to help keep him busy.

“You’re home all day now man, you can cook them yourself” she told him.

After a while, Hemi started inviting friends over to show off his new skills. “It takes a man to cook pikelets properly” he told people and started to laugh out loud.

He started telling people about Kylie, about to go to University. “She’s taken out all the loans herself. When she’s a top notch lawyer down there in Wellington, she can keep me out of trouble” he laughed.

49

Two weeks before Christmas Kylie brought the news that she was going to have a baby in July. Secretly delighted, Hemi and Hine decided there and then that they would look after the baby while Kylie studied.

Kylie readily agreed.

A month after Christmas, Hine got a job in the supermarket through a friend.

Hemi and Hine never heard from Charlene. That is until Kylie’s baby arrived.

One day, shamefaced, Charlene arrived with Aroha, hungry and penniless.

It took two days for Hemi and Hine to give her a hug and when they did Hemi told everybody he was rich again.

Judge’s Comment An affectionate narrative of two battlers, their relationships with others, their changing fortunes and unchanging devotion. It could easily have been too sentimental, but by keeping the plot moving boldly in time, and by showing instead of telling, it remained energetic, convincing, and ended neatly.

50

Highly Commended Full Time

By John Sargeant Craig Hi Dad. How you goin’?

Dad

Son! What you doin’ here?

Craig Just passing after the game.

Dad

How’d it go?

Craig Lost.

Dad

How many points?

Craig 65 - 21 Dad

Sheeeit.

That’s a thrashing.

Rex play?

Craig Nah – Coach wouldn’t let him.

Dad

He been on the piss again?

Craig Nah – he’s been off it lately.

Coach said he’s missed out too many training nights.

Dad

Them’s the rules eh!

How’s business?

Craig Goin’ good.

The economy is good so people buy new kitchens.

People are spending up large right now. …………..Those pills kicked in yet?

Dad

Nah – no good.

Bloody pills for Africa in this place.

It’s only that morphine that does the trick.

I can do it meself now see.

Just press the button and it’s all good. …………..Rex coming?

51

Craig Just parking the car.

You know what this place is like this time of day.

Dad

Bloody oath………..y’ know that boy could have been an All Black if he wanted.

He’s got the goods - just wasted it.

Craig You know how busy he’s been since it all went tits up Rex

Hi Dad. Had to go half way to town to park the car.

What you pick this place for?

Dad

Not me son.

You know your mother said it was for the best.

Eric Trinder liked it.

Said the nurses were pretty; ‘nuff for me.

Rex

Yeah he did - but he came out feet first in a pine box.

They all do.

Dad

Cheerful bugger you are!

Craig Yeah Rex, shut up.

Dad

How my grandson doing?

Rex

Good.

First day at school tomorrow.

He already knows lots of kids there.

Got his pack all sorted an’ all.

Really looking forward to it he is.

He’s a bright kid.

It’s Rach’s day to have him but me ‘n Rach’ both going down to the school together first thing, give the lad a start.

Dad

Craig says you lost the game.

Rex

One of those things.

Can’t win ‘em all.

Dad

Can’t bloody well win any lately.

You gotta get to training lad.

You could have been an All Black if only you applied yourself.

Rex

Daaaad. Not again. You know how it’s been since Rach’ and me split up.

52

Dad

Pine Tree wouldn’t let crap like that get in the way of a game.

You know he played with a broken arm?

1970 against the Yarpies, Eastern Transvaal it was.

Some dumb arse reporter asked him how he played with his arm broke.

“At least we won the game” Pine Tree told him.

Bloody hero he is.

A bloody hero.

Rex

Yeah, I know. You’ve said so before ……once or twice.

And I suppose he had a sheep under the other arm at the same time?

Dad

Don’t be cheeky.

Pine Tree was a man’s man.

None of this professional crap.

Ain’t the same since the pretty boys took over.

I still remember my first try.

I was on the wing.

Ronnie Williams hooked the ball out the scrum and passed it to Rangi Tuhi.

Rangi threw me a long pass and I took off like greased lightning up the wing.

I was supposed to send it back to Rangi to take it up the middle, but I saw a gap and ran.

I just knew I could do it.

Right in front of the crowd it was.

They stood up and roared to a man.

I can still hear it.

It was like time stood still for a few seconds.

I ran like fuck and pushed the oppo’ out the way like nine pins, then slid over the line for the win.

I was knackered I can tell you.

I swear if Eric Trinder hadn’t pulled me out the mud I would have drowned.

Rex

You’ll be able to ask him in a while eh?

Dad

You’re a cheerful sod today Rex boy.

Craig I told you Rex, shut the frig up!

Dad

The coach filled the cup with whiskey and told us to empty it.

Shit, it was a long trip home that night.

Craig We still got the clipping from the paper…… ‘bout your winning try.

It’s in the chocolate box in the sideboard.

I’ll bring it in if you want.

Dad

Nah. I’m past things now son.

Thanks anyway.

You keep it.

Craig Dad. Me ‘n Rex got somethin’ to say 53

Rex

……. it was Craig’s idea really.

Dad

Well – get on with it son.

Rex

Shit, text from Rach’.

She can’t come to the school with Zeb Monday. Wants me to do it on me own.

Dad

It’ll be that new fancy man of hers.

The pilot.

He’ll be takin’ her off somewhere flash I ‘spect. Fiji maybe, America even.

Rex

He only flies in New Zealand Dad.

Craig Taihape then!

Dad

Now who’s the cheeky shit?

Anyway, Taihape’s still too good for that mole.

Good job she’s gone son.

You’re too good for the likes of her.

Rex

She had her good points.

Dad

Yeah, well, shaggin’ your best mate wasn’t one of them.

Don’t you ever forget that boy.

Rex Dad

As if…..

When was the last time either of you saw your Mum?

Craig Couple days back.

Dad

Rex?

Rex

Last Sunday …. for tea.

Dad

Well just you two make sure you stick around won’t you? You know your Mum will need you when…….well……. when…… you know when.

Rex. Why don’t you ask Mum to go to school with you an’ Zeb for his first day?

She’d love it.

Remind her of when you were boys.

The school ain’t changed that much since then anyway.

Rex

Reckon she’d go for it?

Dad

Wild horses wouldn’t drag here away son

Rex

You’re a star Dad – thanks

54

Craig Wind’s eased off.

It buggered the game this morning.

Dad

Yeah, like the French test in ’61?

Athletic Park it was, Millard Stand.

Me and your grandad were half way up and I struggled to hold on to the rail ‘gainst the wind.

Your grandad had to hang on to me to stop me from being blown off.

The wind so strong it blew one jokers hat off ‘n it ended up in Karori.

True story that is.

It was in the Dominion the next day.

The Boot kicked a conversion against that wind.

A bloody miracle it was but the fuckin’ frogs took the game from us with a runaway try.

Bastards!

Froggy bastards!

Craig All right Dad, take it easy.

Dad

Well… it was our game to win and the French took it off us.

Rex

Settle down Dad. That nurse is looking at you.

Dad

That one’s a miserable bitch too.

Don’t know what Eric Trinder saw in this lot.

Craig She’s only doing her job Dad. Dad

Yeah.

Well she can do it somewhere else.

Craig Like I said, me ‘n Rex want to tell you something.

Dad

So you said before – what’s it all about?

Craig You know……well….. like… how you feel about Pine Tree?

What he means to you.

A hero and all of that stuff.

Dad

‘course

Craig Well, that’s how me and Rex feel about things.

Dad

What things?

What are you babblin’ on about son?

Rex

Yeah, well. …

What we mean is that we…we love you Dad. 55

It cuts us up to see you here like this and we know there ain’t nothin’ we can do I know.

The doctors have done what they could ‘n stuff……but talking with Mum last week she said she can’t remember us telling you like.

So there you are, we have now…..

Dad

Craig!

Rex! What brought this on?

Rex

You know.

You being here like this.

Mum can’t handle it so we said we would come and see you today, after the game like….

We were supposed to win today for you Dad and tell you but it all turned to crap in the forward play cos of the wind.

Dad

Yeah well, like I said…… you look after your Mum after I’m gone won’t you.

I’m relying on you two.

And you Rex boy.

You got good skills, it’s the other buggers who let the team down.

Rex

No Dad. It’s me.

Like you said, I got to apply myself, do the work.

Make you proud of me.

Dad

What the frig you talking about?

I’ve always been proud of you.

What made you think I ain’t?

You too Craig.

There’s never been a time when I haven’t been proud of you.

Both of you.

Rex

What about the game?

Screw the game.

You’re my boys.

Nothing tops that.

Not even winning the world cup in 2011 when we beat the frogs 8 points to 7.

Fifty fuckin’ years it took to take that smile off the frogs face.

Bastards!

Froggy bastards

Rex

It took the pretty boys to do it eh Dad?

Dad

Smartarse!

56

Rex

But you never told us before Dad.

Dad

Neither have you boy!

Not until now.

I just thought we all knew it, we’re a family – didn’t have to actually say it….. did we?

Well, you don’t do you?

Rex

I always thought you were ashamed of me cos I never made the baby All Blacks.

Dad

Ashamed?

Ashamed?

There’s nobody at the RSA I ain’t told about you boy.

How you can handle that ball.

How you can tackle any bastard that comes your way.

You could have taken on Jonah and beat him.

Craig Buuuuullshit Dad

You Craig.

I’ve still got the wooden box you made me at High School.

Here, it’s right here in in my locker.

Look, see.

There ain’t nothing that means that much to me.

Same as the cabinets you made for Mum’s kitchen when you were at school still.

Real craftsmanship it is.

Craig Geez Dad. You got your newspaper clipping in there.

Dad

That ain’t mine son.

That’s the one ‘bout you two both being s’lected for the first fifteen in the same season.

Shit that was a good to see my boys playing in the same team together.

That was the best.

Even better than winning the World Cup from those froggy bastards.

Craig …………..Dad. Dad

Geez, that bloke who just come in don’t half look like Eric Trinder.

57

Rex

Where?

Dad! Dad! DAD!

Craig NURSE.

Judge’s Comment A script (and therefore an interesting variation) which developed an engaging and moving little character arc, and which also maintained a deft balance between what we heard the participants say and what we sensed them feel.

Tight, quick and firmly controlled.

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Highly Commended Mercy

By Marama Salsano Mercy had never lived up to her name. Not as a Police prosecutor. Not as a campaigner for women’s rights. Not as a neighbour. And certainly not as the partner of pushy males who demanded offspring. Once, Mercy’s administrator absentmindedly called Mercy ‘Ruth’ (as in ‘ruthless’, a name Mercy knew she’d been baptised behind computer screens and gossip-loving palms). And Mercy, not living up to her name, sent the limp-haired, drizzle of a woman home – along with her smiley smile photographs and love-heart graffitied calendar.

Tyrone was not exempt either. Mercy buried him last week, sort of. And now she sits on the fraying sofa in her conservatory (carefully positioned to snatch the last rays of sun before they slide behind the mountain), awaiting the arrival of Tyrone’s niece, Amelia. Mercy strokes the spidery ‘M’ that Tyrone engraved onto their coffee table. Not a table exactly, a chest made of scavenged wood; Tyrone was skilled like that. Mercy peers down the slope of bush and tangled vines at the edge of the property, scouting for a tui to brighten her day and listening to the latesummer gurgle of the Waingongoro River. Yesterday, she’d spotted a native falcon: Falco novaeseelandiae, according to the poster Tyrone had blu-tacked to the wall.

Instinctively, she’d yelled for Tyrone to come quick, before remembering he never would.

When Tyrone died, his family intimated that Mercy had killed him. This, of course, was ridiculous – she’d read the autopsy report. And even if his family hadn’t read it, not even Mercy could orchestrate the random loosening of a log on a logging truck; a logging truck that would overtake Tyrone and Amelia; a loose log that would shatter the driver’s side window of Tyrone’s truck and sever his ties to earth forever. Mercy scattered Tyrone’s ashes under their eucalyptus tree out back, to which his aunt had said: A eucalyptus tree? Our boy’s under a eucalyptus tree?

Mercy tried to tell her they’d spotted their first tui in the shining gum, which was why they’d bought the little river cottage in the first place. Like the two of them, prosecutor and truck driver, the eucalyptus nitens seemed so awkward and out of place, yet thrived anyway.

The front door chimes. Amelia. Mercy is not really up to seeing any more of Tyrone’s family, but at least the plastic bag with Amelia’s things from the truck, is ready for her to collect by the door. As Mercy passes through the kitchen, she spies the crumpled front page of the Taranaki Daily News on the counter and feels sick.

Amelia. The twenty-ish woman in the picture stares blankly over Mercy’s shoulder.

Her hair is pulled back from her face and a pair of sunglasses sit on top of her head like a second pair of dark eyes. Swathed in black, Amelia balances her hands over

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a framed photograph of Tyrone which rests on her lap. The ambiguity of a photo within a photo always makes Mercy uneasy. To her, it feels like a piece of evidence that could exonerate a convicted killer – it just shouldn’t exist.

In the hallway, Mercy runs her eyes over her mirror image and fluffs up her dark blonde pixie cut. Her colleagues thought she was nuts to cut her hair, which used to swish just above her lower back or sit, carefully braided, down the curve of her spine. At least give the braid to charity, they’d said, for wigs, or something.

Instead, Mercy threaded the one piece of her she could gift Tyrone, through his fingers before sending him on his way.

Mercy inhales sharply and opens the front door. Amelia faces her, sunglassed and sombre, wearing an armless shirt and skinny jeans that bunch at the ankle and half cover a pair of stillettos. Amelia flips her sunglasses onto her head, places a hand on her hip and says, ‘I have no uncle because of you.’

‘It was a freak accident, Amelia,’ Mercy replies. ‘A tragic accident.’

‘No, it wasn’t. Uncle Ty was gutted. What sort of woman are you anyway?’

Mercy pales. What sort of woman is she? That Friday, Tyrone was driving to Wellington. Amelia, who nearly had her HT licence, had been accompanying him for a while. It was also the day they’d fought, fiercely. Mercy stares at Amelia; the girl’s mouth moves but Mercy hears no words. Mercy remembers the screams and Tyrone yelling over the phone saying I want a family, Goddamit and Bloody hell, Merce, you’d be a great mum. She remembers throwing the phone at the wall and swearing to remain devout above all else. What sort of woman did that make her?

The sort who’d adored Tyrone’s musky scent after chopping kindling; his ghastly wear-a-beanie-with-everything-even-a-suit dress sense; and his prickly moustache and god-awful goatee. She might’ve felt differently about children, one day, but now Tyrone was gone and there was no point wondering.

Amelia grabs the bag from Mercy’s hand, storms to her car and backs down the driveway. Near the curb, the car shudders slightly before revving up and racing off. In its wake, a large bird lies, unmoving, in the gutter. A falcon. Mercy sprints over. Her heart pounds sure and strong as the falcon’s heartbeat thins and weakens. Mercy strokes the wings of the powerful creature and knows it will not make it. She cradles the falcon and remembers her mother’s words. Mercy, love, sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind, she would say, just before she euthanised an animal that was too far gone to be saved. Mercy carries the bird out back to the wood shed. She finds Tyrone’s kindling axe and ends the falcon’s misery with one short swoop.

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Under the eucalyptus tree, Mercy digs a hole with her hands to bury the falcon. Grime and tears and ashes mingle and settle beneath her fingernails.

Exhausted, she leans against the tree trunk and peers through darkening brush to the peaceful light of the conservatory above. Mercy closes her eyes and listens to the late-summer gurgle of the Waingongoro River, allowing the pungent smell of absence to surround her completely.

Judge’s Comment An economically written character sketch which covered a number of relationships in a short space, and revealed an intriguing contrast between appearance and reality.

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Poetry Open Division First Place West Coast Orange Eaters

By Maria Taylor Far from the orange groves of Spain, here, even in the warmest summer we’ve known, fruit wouldn’t grow as sweet.

Juice from brown fingers is washed away despite water restrictions while the pith settles under fingernails

ageing us before our time; a rancid momento of things better fresh.

Here, the bitterness lingers longer even far from the source.

Judge’s Comment I chose West-coast orange eaters as the winner because of the well handled ambiguity at the heart of the poem. While it seems a simple description of oranges, underneath it hints at other tensions in the poet’s life without letting us know what those are. It is a good example of using a simple image to say something more profound, leaving a wonderfully bittersweet aftertaste.

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Second Place Gladstone Road

By Jason Wright

That way lies Gladstone Road, clothed in Douglas fir, wild fires, home cooked food and us, brother.

Arriving year one by motorbike, year two by Austin Allegro, bright as the sun battling rutted gravel roads, lumpy river stones, turning up on a rise with ‘hard men’ and their Land Rovers.

Under our tent fly, it’s poles lost on the highway, we kick off clinging clothes boots and darned Norsewear socks blue and red from the bargain bin, and hang them on a line the way dad did.

The fire: crackling, sparking, to see off that sideways stinging rain that soaked us to the bone, out on Gladstone Road.

Judge’s Comment I really loved this poem. Of all the poems in the competition I think it was the most sure-footed. In a poem every word needs to be weighed and every gap in between each word should be weighed as well. Reading it should feel like crossing a river by leaping from dry stone to dry stone. And that's what reading 'Gladstone Road' felt like. It is also a wonderful evocation of place and time.

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Third Place Whakapapa

By Maria Taylor There is no shrine for meat this raw, no God but the end-of-the-week.

Carving up the beast he can earn his living and keep the demons away til after five when there’s the beer to wash away the thought that this legacy of guts and offal isn’t worth passing down the bloodline to a child not yet born.

He’s made no will.

No words are needed when there’s nothing to say and the worth of a sharp knife does not amount to an inheritance.

Judge’s Comment I liked 'Whakapapa' for thinking to juxtapose the killing chain in a meat works with the chain of genealogy linking generations together. It reads well technically there is a simple and taut core running through the poem - but what I really liked was its anger. Poetry has a long tradition of protest and 'Whakapapa' sits well within that.

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Highly Commended ‘Ofa anga

By Ingrid Frengley-Vaipuna In our kitchen the smell of boiled fish heads and a pile of sucked naked bones discarded by your beautiful fingers.

You’re home.

I go looking for your solidity and the orange dog who follows you everywhere.

Judge’s Comment I desperately wanted to reward this poem. It's is a delicious tip-toe into the shadows that those people we love leave behind.

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Poem with Best Line Wahine Toa

By Jenny Bennett Born of Papatuanuku Cradled by Tangaroa Raised in the shadow Of Taranaki Here te haumoana whispers Through rimu, totara and karo Over cool mountain streams And you At kuia’s knee Heard old stories of ancestors Your whakapapa Passed down Through generations The canoe Kurahaupo Bore bold voyagers Your tupuna From Hawaiiki To these shores Of Aotearoa A fertile land Where gods are kind Tane, Papatuanuku Ruaumoko and Tangaroa And you At kuia’s knee Learned respect and reverence For the legacy of the gods The knowledge of her father And his father before him At tide’s edge Filling kete with kai Paua, mussels and kina Harvesting the bounty of the sea For the whaanau Taonga of Tangaroa

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Riding on his back Exaltant in the thrust and surge Of rolling breakers Surfboard bowing down To the power of Tangaroa Paying homage to his majesty Rejoicing in his embrace On cliff-top crags Pohutukawa stand Scarlet sentinels A fantail flickers While sun shimmers On Foam-capped waves And sapphire sun dazzles Lift up your heart In aroha for Opunake Your port in stormy seas Your kainga Blessed to be a child Of the mountain and the sea

Judge’s Comment

Best Lines

I felt that this poem had the best line - Blessed to be a child of the mountain and the sea

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Poem with Best Lines Awakefulness

By Marama Salsano Her baby cries most nights for breast milk made of mountain water and pineapple flavoured Raro.

She, on the other hand, sleepwalks past:

first fifteen hakas at Stratford High School scootering squeals on concrete

crude graffiti on Colonel Malone’s fence Romeo and Juliet on Broadway

decaf lattes from Nelsons Café stench of pee down Railway Lane

ducks gliding over Windsor Park beach raindrops on a Labrador’s tongue

memories rippling from Whakaahurangi marae ancient stones under Patea river.

The baby wakes, screams once more.

She unhooks a cup, heaves it to the side and feeds her baby tropical dreams, disguised tonight as breast milk.

Judge’s Comment Her baby cries most nights for breast milk made of mountain water and pineapple flavored Raro 68

Poem with Best Image Fishing Boats

By Jason Wright Overlooking the harbour, its tide riding in: the houses of managers, men in big hats driving silver cars that flash like daggers drawn, looked down their pointed noses, sharp beaks that picked and ripped at limpet hatted men, ruddy faced and stout till they bled out, turning their faces grey.

Still oily diesel fumes drift towards us as we sit propped up against the rough-cast pebble-dashed wall of a closed down fishing stall a diesel engine rumbles, coughs splutters and rumbles again, and a black backed seagull squawks, hovers lands and picks at tiny black mussels clinging vigorously to sodden clefts and rotting footholds, picks at limpets from shit splattered dry grey rocks as the tide comes in lifting the hulls of small mens’ fishing boats, Alive again.

Judge’s Comment For me this Poem had the best image; driving silver cars that flash, like daggers drawn.

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Poem with Best Title Ninjas Prefer the Afternoon: A Cautionary Tale for Those Inclined to Accept Adulthood as a Passage Toward Enlightenment

By Rachael Kellogg I.

‘Does anyone have news?’

The teacher’s pink face hovered over tiny waves of hands, young ripples in bright sun.

Isaac was chosen.

The brown waters rested.

And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.

II.

‘The ninjas only come out in the afternoons.’

A bristly eyebrow arched. A rubied mouth smirked.

‘Oh? Is that so?’

Isaac nodded once, a prophet before Nebuchadnezzar, casting pearls before a swine.

‘Okay.’

She smiled the innocent mask of a con-artist.

Isaac’s liquid eyes sparked.

The brown waters murmured.

And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.

III.

Afternoon manifested a wormy apple, the only remnant on dry land.

The teacher left hastily, strode headlong into three ninjas waiting in the parking lot.

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‘What the - ’ she gasped, snorted, reassembled her mask.

‘Don’t tell me. Ninjas right?’

The ninjas advanced grinning indulgently.

The brown waters watched, turned gold in waning light.

And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.

Judge’s Comment I considered this poem to have the Best Titles - Ninjas Prefer the Afternoon: A Cautionary Tale for those Inclined to Accept Adulthood as a Passage Toward Enlightenment.

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