Free Conrad Cooper's Last Stand ePub by Leonie Agnew

came today, I’m an official Kiwi.’
    ‘You mean you’re not from an island any more?’
    ‘Well, I’m still from
Ireland
, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve been living here on a residency for twelve years, so I applied for citizenship. Look, I’ve got extra stamps on my passport. I’m a true-blue New Zealander.’
    She waves her little book at me, like a paper flag.
    ‘Um, Mrs O’Leary?’
    ‘Yes, dear?’
    ‘Does that mean, like, anyone can change their … their … what’s it called?’
    ‘Nationality?’
    ‘Yeah. I mean, if I moved to England would I become English?’
    ‘If you lived there long enough, certainly.’
    ‘So, Ravi in my class, he’ll be a New Zealander? So long as his parents get proper stamps?’
    ‘Of course.’ She laughs – she finds everything funny, even when I haven’t told a joke.
    And I thought,
hey.
People can change their nationality, so maybe I can become Maori. I mean, they were here first and I’ve lived here for ages, so that means I must qualify!
    Cool eh, Tane? I figure this way you won’t have to worry about me being European and, if I’m Maori, I can just walk up the hill and help out. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
    Yours in the name of the … oh, I always forget this bit.
    Amen.
    PS. It’s Conrad, by the way.
    Tane, being a Maori isn’t easy.
    Truth is, I don’t know a lot about Maoris, seeing as I’m not one. I can’t just go and ask someone how to be one, especially not after Miss Cody told me off for talking to Mere. I might be rude by accident.
    I need to get up that hill, so I can work on being seriously good. But where am I going to learn about being Maori? … Oh, I know! Every year we do a school project on the Treaty of Waitangi, so there should be excellent information in there, right?
    I find my last Treaty project under my bed, alongwith my report cards and three odd socks. It’s covered in dust, so I blow that off and start reading. There’s at least three pages of refill, and my handwriting looks like beetle tracks, so it takes me ages.
    Talk about a waste of time. All we did was copy out bits of clauses and then answer stupid questions like, ‘What was the name of the Governor-General?’ At no point did the early settlers write down useful stuff like, ‘How do I become a Maori?’ or ‘How do you cook a hangi without getting dirt all over the chops?’
    Next day I ask Miss Cody and she says, ‘For heaven’s sake, Conrad. It’s a legal document about land agreements, not a recipe book. Now go and sit down.’
    It’s a bit hard to argue with that.
    So I’m stuck, like someone glued me to this stupid problem. If Miss Cody is a teacher and she can’t help me, I’ll just need to do proper research – and there’s only one place for that.
    When the lunch bell goes, me and Jasper head into the school library and look for books. He finds a series called ‘It’s a Small World’. Each one has a different kid on the front saying things like
Hello, I’m Danish!
or
Hello, I’m a Native American!
We both stare at the shelves and Jasper scratches his head. ‘Maybe it’s out?’ So he goes up to our librarian, Mrs Havell, and asks, ‘Do you have
Hello, I’m a Maori!
?’
    She stares at him, then looks at the pile of SmallWorld books and says, ‘Oh, no. They didn’t do one of those.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Uh, well …’ She shrugs. ‘I’m not sure, but we don’t really need one, do we? Seeing as we live here, we already know a lot about Maoris.’
    ‘We do?’
    ‘Um … yes.’
    Being a grownup, I guess she knows more than me, so I say, ‘Excellent! Can
you
tell me about them?’
    ‘Me?’ She blinks. ‘Well, let’s see. Uh, they’re the native people of New Zealand and they used to live in fortified villages called pas.’ Her voice gets smaller, like the words are trying to disappear. ‘And … there’s a special meal called a hangi, where they cook food underground, and … is that enough? I … I can’t think