The Worm King (12 page)

Astrid thanked him and said if there was
anything she could do, don’t hesitate to . . . oh, of
course . . . 

He left with more butter.

Āmiria was thinking about Ngaruawahia. Her
mind drifted back to the footy park on the north side of town, by the main road
bridge heading towards Auckland, where the swirling, muddy waters of the Waipa
River merged with the mighty Waikato. You could nearly always see trout flashing
in the current near the edge, ducking and weaving but you had to know what to
look for because they’re hard to spot with their speckled backs. The rugby clubrooms
were right beside the river and one wall of the building was covered with this
enormous mural of a war canoe surging through the water. The warriors in it looked
ferocious as they paddled like demons straight at some unseen enemy. Unbeatable.

She wondered if her father would be angry that
she hadn’t made it to Tamworth yet. Sometimes his angry face really scared her,
not that he often did get angry and almost never with her. Most of the time his
face was completely expressionless, or perhaps more serious when explaining
something complicated, and very occasionally smiling if something funny
happened, but hardly ever angry. The odd thing was, over the last two weeks since
it’d been dark all the time she’d increasingly only been able to remember his
angry face. Even stranger, was that it always seemed to be in conjunction with a
nightmare she used have. This dream first started after her dad took her to
Murawai beach late one night when they’d been back home for a holiday. For
several months after that night, every time she drifted off to sleep this awful
image would flash into her mind of the cliff at Murawai, and she’d be falling
off into the ocean and looking up to see her dad’s receding face staring down
at her. The worst thing about it was that he didn’t look distraught, or the
least bit concerned she was falling, just angry—really angry—and glad to see
her go. She’d hardly been able to sleep for ages after that night, and he’d
asked her what was wrong numerous times, but she never mustered the courage to
tell him. Eventually the dreams faded, forced out by more pressing concerns
about exams and hockey and Guides and what that skank girl Tara McMasters in 4E
was saying and a million other things.

Now the dreams were back.

Lord Brown gently placed a plate on the
floor in front of her, then sat opposite. Canned spam chopped up finely and mixed
with canned spaghetti; a diced, near-rotten onion; and quarter of a carrot, all
heated to a boil in one pot on the ancient woodstove in the kitchen. John the
Hat sat on the sofa with his plate resting on his knees. Winston, Astrid and
her parents had already eaten and gone to bed.

Āmiria shoveled a few quick mouthfuls
down, then paused thoughtfully. ‘Those Clovis, how did all that go for them
again?’

‘Fairly average by the sounds’ said the Hat.

‘The Clovis,’ replied Lord Brown, ‘invented the
fluted spear point. The Clovis Point it’s called. It’s very distinctive and has
a lovely aerodynamic shape. It was a huge technological breakthrough at the
time. In the spear-making world that is, and spears back then were—’

‘Like the invention of the jug,’ interjected
the Hat.

‘Indeed. But instead, useful.’

‘Maybe they just run out of food,’ she
suggested, ‘if the spear was that good and stuff.’

‘That’s always been one theory.’ He nodded, smiling
at her deduction. ‘But the number of animals that disappeared at exactly the
same time was just too . . . too much for a differently
shaped spear. When you’re up against some four-ton mammoth and it all comes
down to the crunch, you’re still just holding a pointy stick.’

The Hat jabbed his fork into the air a
couple of times then tilted his head in contemplation. ‘I bet plenty of them, right
at that crunch when you had your mammoth cornered would’ve been thinking: Fuck!!
Wish I’d gone for the berry gathering option today, rather than this. This is a
really shit job. And wish I’d carved a few extra flutes on my pointy stick too.
’Cos this cunt looks big!’

Outside the wind had picked up and leaves
and rubbish were rat-a-tat-tatting on the glass. ‘There would’ve been this single,
dazzling flash in the sky,’ said Lord Brown grimly. ‘The Clovis would’ve just
had time to glance up, and see other flashes bursting quickly until the entire
sky was a massive, seething fireball. But before the heat of it could get to
them, the shock wave would roar over, flattening trees, breaking legs, backs. Everything.’

 ‘Steady on,’ objected the Hat.

 ‘So what else did it get, besides the
Clovis? she asked. ‘Maybe they all just . . . ate each
other. If my Uncle Monty had’ve been there and they were running out of food,
he might’ve done that, I bet.’

‘No evidence for cannibalism that I’ve heard
with the Clovis. At the same time sabre-toothed cats disappeared; so did
mastodons, which were similar to an elephant; American lions; giant bears;
giant sloths; and terrahorns, which were meat-eating birds with a wingspan longer
than a car. Anyway, at least thirty different types of animal disappeared at a
stroke. The human population, going by the number of arrowheads, dropped by more
than three-quarters virtually overnight. The arrowheads after the Clovis were a
mixture of different shapes, as though new tribes had moved in to take up the
vacant space. World temperatures plunged enormously too, just like they’re
doing now.’

‘How long did it stay cold for, back then?’

‘A thousand years.’

Chapter Seventeen

Getting Wood

T
he fallen eucalyptus loomed slowly and ghostly from the gloom. It’d
dropped across the fence, breaking the top wire but the next one had held so
most of the tree remained supported.

‘It happened around here,’ said Winston.

‘If it
was
this paddock, this’ll be
it,’ confirmed Nathan. ‘There’s no other trees down that I know of, and I’d
done a circuit right ’round this one, looking for wood just beforehand. Well, only
a couple of hours before at the most.’

‘Where was she?’ Lord Brown asked Winston.

‘On the other side. I’d put down my torch to
try’n find some rope in my bag, and I heard her scream. I grabbed the torch,
yelled “Āmiria” then ran around the tree in time to see some guy holding
her but he bolted when he saw me.’

Lord Brown stood at the exact spot of the
attempted abduction. He eased to one knee and bent over to get nearer the
ground, then shone his torch in an ever widening semi-circle although completely
unsure of what he expected to find. A fine grit covered the dead pasture. He
scraped at it. It was like a grey talcum powder. More scraping revealed yellow
grass stems which broke apart under his fingernail. This place must’ve had its
share of droughts, awful ones, but this . . . 

Squeak!
The
fence. None of them had been touching it, so something must be moving along the
wire. He flicked off his torch and whispered to Winston, ‘Turn off your light.’
Click
. The darkness swallowed them, and there was no sign of light in
either direction the fence ran. It must be an animal, perhaps a sheep or a roo lying
against it.
Squeak
.

Squeak
.
Squeak
.
It had an odd regularity.

‘Might be best to head back,’ Lord Brown
suggested quietly.

The news regarding the tighter security
arrangements wasn’t greeted well. Nathan, Winston, the Hat and Lord Brown had decided
the girls should no longer go outside by themselves. That meant Āmiria,
Astrid and Nathan’s wife were confined indoors unless they had an escort. It
was decided in a quick, hushed conversation during a rare moment when none of
the girls were present in the lounge, although none of the “boys” were keen to
pass it on either.

Nathan had already had a sniff of trouble. ‘Do
you
want to tell Āmiria she can’t go outside anymore? She called
the last meal I served up “shit-arse” and said if she’d dished that up at home,
her father would’ve “torn her a new one.” I can’t even imagine where a girl
that age would pick up that kind of talk! A new one? Astrid never found it
necessary to use language like that, I can tell you.’

Somewhat surprisingly, Astrid turned out to
be most upset by the new regime, startling all by shouting, ‘No way, who’s
going to get your bloody wood then!?’ Even Āmiria was taken aback by the
outburst. ‘Anyway, I have to go to Canberra and make sure those twins are
alright.’ Her mother gasped and clutched both hands to her mouth.

‘Can you drop me at Tamworth on the way?’ asked
Āmiria immediately.

This caught Astrid off guard. ‘I thought
you’d wait here? I . . . I thought I’d try and find out
about your father at the station as well, you’ll have to give me the details, and
if I don’t have any joy we can give Tamworth a go after that?’

Āmiria scowled and folded her arms, the
issue clearly not resolved.

Nathan stood wearily and picked up the scarf
draped over the back of his chair then wrapped it twice around his neck before
tucking it down the front of his woolly jersey.

His wife watched him anxiously. ‘Where’re
you going?’ He was breathing heavily and it occurred to Lord Brown that Nathan
probably needed looking after when he was outside a lot more than the Māori
girl did.

‘Fishing,’ he replied, dredging up a smile. ‘I’ll
get the wood. Don’t worry darling.’ He stepped over and bent low, kissing her
on the forehead although this didn’t seem to reassure her much.

‘A breath of fresh air sounds spot on,’ said
Lord Brown, standing and tightening the belt around his coat. Within seconds
the Hat was on his feet too.

‘Alright for you fūllas,’ grumbled Āmiria.

‘I’ll wait here,’ said Winston, reluctantly.

Nathan lit the spare kerosene lantern using
a tightly turned screw of newspaper which he first dipped into the tiny flame
of the lantern already burning on the table, then touched it against the wick
of the spare. When this was done, Lord Brown and the Hat followed him into the
hall and out towards the rear of the dwelling. At the front of the house was a
small tearoom-cum-cafe from which Nathan and his wife earned a subsistence
living but they’d closed this off to keep the place warmer. The trio exited via
the back door. The garage was tucked behind a row of dead lemon and mandarin trees,
and linked to the house by a narrow gravel path. Nathan entered the garage
through a side door which he had to unlock first with a large Yale key. The entrance
would’ve normally been well hidden, if the trees had had leaves. He held up the
lantern; a wooden dinghy took up roughly half of the available floor space. It sat
on a trailer on a series of rollers and padded supports, the supports being covered
by strips of carpet in the same pastel-yellow as in the house.

Nathan walked down the side of the boat, stroking
the wood with one hand and holding the lantern high with the other. ‘It’s a
clinker. I modeled it on a Newfoundland whaleboat, three-quarter size.’ The
varnish gleamed as the light passed over it. Lord Brown and the Hat walked
behind. Nathan stopped at the bow where a coconut-sized figurehead jutted
proudly. On closer inspection Lord Brown realized it was an elaborately carved mermaid
holding a miniature wooden sword and shield against her chest. The face of the
figurehead looked remarkably similar to Nathan’s wife. ‘The planks are Sydney
blue gum and the ribs are silver ash from Queensland. I used blackwood from
Tassie for the thwarts, and the keel and knees are jarrah from West Australia. The
only imported piece is some New Zealand kauri for the figurehead here, because
someone gave it to me and it’s such a rare, beautiful wood that I wanted to use
it somewhere and it fitted just perfect there.’ Nathan caressed the timber,
running his fingers over it like a man might stroke a woman he loved more
than . . . well, absolutely anything. ‘Took me five years
to build from scratch. Each plank was more than two day’s work to plane down
and fit. The only metal, apart from the outboard when I’ve got that on, is the
rod-holder.’ He walked down the port side and laid his hand on the polished
brass tube bolted near the stern.

Lord Brown felt the wood and despite the
cold air, it seemed warm to the touch. ‘What do you catch?’

‘Murray cod. Golden perch every so often.’

The Hat stood at the bow, studying the figurehead.
‘Whereabouts?’

‘Usually the Murrumbidgee River, because
it’s so close. Two years ago I got first prize in the Lake Mulwala Cod Classic
with a giant that went 92cm nose to tail. It was tucked in behind a big snag on
the Murray and nipped out to eat this live scrub worm I’d tossed out. Took ages
to get’im in and I knew it was a winner straight off.’

A variety of tools were attached neatly to
the garage walls on clips, or stacked at various points around the floor. Nathan
stopped before an upright rack, in the corner opposite the door.

He picked out the
biggest axe and walked slowly back to the boat.

WEATHER
BADGE DIARY

Today we got back from Goulburn and the
roads were frozen so we slid into the ditch twice. Mr Snow got angry at the man
driving who started crying.

Canberra smells like the barbecue Uncle
Eric always has on Australia Day, except in the dark and we can hear people
shooting.

Krystal lost our rain gauge. Cumulonimbus
clouds are the ones you have to watch for rain. Mr Snow said they are like big
anvils with low, black bottoms and tall fluffy tops and cause all the
thunderstorms. Without the sun you can’t see them but he said they are still
there.

Mrs Sheng
said our parents are sure to turn up at one of the checkpoints soon.

Natasha