Free Billy and Old Smoko by Jack Lasenby Page A

‘Cinderella’.”
    “If you’re going to argue,” said Billy, “you won’t get a story at all.” They pulled the sheets up over their noses and lay very still while he told them the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk”.
    “Is that all?”
    “The End!” said Billy.
    “That Jack,” said his stepmother, her green eyes flashing, “I’d have given him what for with a big stick! Selling a good cow for just a few beans!”
    “But they got all that gold!”
    “All the same…. What boys need is a bit of what for with a big stick!” Scoffing her teeth together, Billy’s wicked stepmother rolled over, and snored.
    Out in the kitchen, Old Smoko had made a stack of roast pork and crackling sandwiches, packed them in watercress fresh from the creek, wrapped them in damp tea-towels so they wouldn’t dry out, and popped them into a pikau.
    At the Wardville turnoff, next morning, they handed sandwiches around all the other kids. “A small appreciationfor your splendid generosity,” Old Smoko said in his grandest voice.
    “These are the best roast pork and crackling sandwiches in the Southern Hemisphere!” Harrietta smiled at Billy, and everybody yelled, “You bet!” – everyone but Johnny Bryce who was trying to get her sandwich off his little sister.
    “Where’d you fellas catch the fat pig?” Tama Rawiri wanted to know.
    “Down by the river,” said Old Smoko. He didn’t want anyone finding their pig hunting possie, Billy thought. So, even though he was an honest boy, he said nothing.
    During arithmetic, he opened his history book and looked at the painting of Captain Cook. Sure enough, he was long in the snout, heavy-shouldered, and carrying a tusk as big as a cutlass. But the history book didn’t say anything about him hooking up New Zealand, nor anything about his man-eating descendants.
    “Please, Mr Strap, sir?” Billy waved his hand in the air and flicked his finger. “Is it true Captain Cook was a boar pig who hooked New Zealand out of the sea on his tusks?”
    “What are you doing with your history book open?” asked Mr Strap, who was busy hearing the standard threes’ spelling. “Why aren’t you doing your sums off the blackboard? In any case, you’re too young to be reading. Sit up straight, put your hands on your head, eyes this way everyone, paying attention, I’ll only say this once, so you’d all better listen hard.
    “Any more trouble from you, young man,” said Mr Strap, blowing down his nostrils like Bert Brute, “and you’ll bethrown into the school dungeon.
    “Was that you who squeaked, Harrietta Wilson? You watch it, my girl!” He turned back to the standard threes. “Spell dendrochronologically!” he demanded.
    On the way home, Old Smoko handed around the rest of the sandwiches. The watercress had kept them deliciously moist.
    “Mighty good sandwiches, Billy!” said Harrietta Wilson, and winked at him till he blushed. The others agreed and put their pennies in Billy’s school bag. Johnny Bryce was silent till Old Smoko gave him a horse bite just above the knee, when he gabbled, “Mighty good sandwiches!” and paid his penny.
    “My Dad, he’s the best pig hunter in the Kaimais!” said Tama Rawiri.
    “Mine’s the best in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Johnny Bryce.
    “My mother was hanging out the washing, and she stuck a dog-scoffing boar pig under the clothesline,” said June Williams. “It was so big, it wouldn’t go on our wheelbarrow and we had to get the konaki.”
    “My Dad held a boar pig while I stuck it, and it was so big it wouldn’t go on our konaki and we had to get the dray,” said Johnny Bryce. “It’s the biggest dray in the Southern Hemisphere.”
    “My mother’s boar pig was so big, it wouldn’t go into our biggest camp oven,” said June Williams. “Mum spitted it on a telegraph post and cooked it over the open fire.”
    “My boar pig was so big, my dad had to get the bakerin Waharoa to cook it in his giant oven,” said