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No. She’ll be all right. Eh, Kahu?’
    Kahu’s eyes were shining. ‘Oh yes . Can I go, Nanny?’
    ‘All right then,’ Nanny Flowers grumbled.
     ‘But tomorrow you have to be my mate in the vegetable garden. Okay?’
    So it was that Kahu became the mascot for me and the boys and it only
     seemed natural, after a while, for us to take her with us wherever we went — well,
     most places anyway and only when Nanny Flowers didn’t want her to help in the
     garden.
    But that first night I got my beans from the old lady.
    ‘ Hoi ,’ she
     said, and bang came her hand. ‘What did you do
     with Kahu at the shed? She’s tuckered out.’
    ‘Nothing,’ I squealed. Biff came her fist at my stomach. ‘She just helped us sheepo and
     sweep the board and press the wool and pick up the dags and —’
    Swish came the broom.
     ‘Yeah,’ Nanny Flowers said. ‘And I’ll bet all you
     beggars were just lying back and having a good smoke .’
    You could never win with Nanny Flowers.
    At that time the school sessions were proving to be
     very popular. All of us felt the need to understand more about our roots. But Nanny Flowers
     still grumbled whenever we had our hui. She would sit with Kahu in her arms, rocking in the
     chair on the verandah, watching the men walk past.
    ‘There go the Ku Klux Klan,’ she would say loudly
     so that we could all hear.
    Poor Kahu, she could never keep away from our school. She would always
     try to listen in at the doorway to the meeting house.
    ‘Go away,’ Koro Apirana would thunder. But there
     was one school that Kahu could not eavesdrop on, and that was the one which Koro Apirana led
     when he took us out in a small flotilla of fishing boats to have a lesson on the sea.
    ‘In our village,’ Koro Apirana told us,
     ‘we have always endeavoured to live in harmony with Tangaroa’s kingdom
     and the guardians therein. We have made offerings to the sea god to thank him and when we
     need his favour, and we have called upon our guardians whenever we are in need of help. We
     have blessed every new net and new line to Tangaroa. We have tried not to take food with us
     in our boats when we fish because of the sacred nature of our task.’
    The flotilla was heading out to sea.
    ‘Our fishing areas have always been placed under the
     protective custody of the guardians,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘In their
     honour we have often placed talismanic shrines. In this way the fish have been protected,
     attracted to the fishing grounds, and thus a plentiful supply has been assured. We try never
     to overfish for to do so would be to take greedy advantage of Tangaroa and would bring
     retribution.’
    Then we reached the open sea and Koro Apirana motioned that we should
     stay close to him.
    ‘All of our fishing grounds, banks and rocks have had names
     assigned to them and the legends surrounding them have been commemorated in story, song or
     proverb. Where our fishing grounds have no local identification, like a reef or upjutting
     rock, we have taken the fix from prominent cliffs or
     mountains on the shore. Like there and mark . And there and mark . In this way the fishing places of all our
     fish species have always been known. And we have tried never to trespass on the fishing
     grounds of others because their guardians would recognise
     us as interlopers. In this respect, should we ever be in unfamiliar sea, we have surrounded
     ourselves with our own water for protection.’
    Then Koro Apirana’s voice dropped and, when he resumed his
     lesson, his words were steeped with sadness and regret. ‘But we have not always
     kept our pact with Tangaroa, and in these days of commercialism it is not always easy to
     resist temptation. So it was when I was your age. So it is now. There are too many people
     with snorkelling gear, and too many commercial fishermen with licences. We have to place
     prohibitions on our fishing beds, boys, otherwise it will be just like the whales
     —’
    For a moment