Free Billy and Old Smoko by Jack Lasenby Page B

Johnny Bryce. “It’s the biggest baker’s oven in the Southern Hemisphere.”
    “Wow!” said the other kids. “Fair dinkum?”
    “And the baker took one look and said it must have been the biggest boar pig in the Southern Hemisphere!” said Johnny.
    “Remarkable!” Old Smoko said softly.
    “My father’s got the best holding dog in the district,” said one of the Ellery boys. “Dad says he’s a bully-kelpie cross with a bit of alligator in him.”
    “My father’s got the best finder and bailer south of the Coromandels and this side of the Mamakus,” said a kid from out Soldiers Settlement.
    “My father says I’m the best finder and bailer in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Johnny Bryce.
    “Fancy that!” said Old Smoko. “Tell us more, do.”
    Billy felt sorry for Johnny Bryce.
    “Tell you what,” said Johnny, “I bet I’ve got the biggest pair of tusks in the Southern Hemisphere.”
    Through the reins, Billy could feel Old Smoko smiling to himself. “Tomorrow,” said Old Smoko, “everybody bring your best tusks, and we shall hold a competition to see whose are the biggest. I shall provide the prizes.” He paused and said, “I am looking forward to seeing Johnny’s tusks. The biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, I think you said?”
    Johnny Bryce nodded but looked a bit dazed.
    “My bed’s full of crackling crumbs and there’s a smell of roast pork and Rotorua in my kitchen,” said his stepmotherwhen Billy walked in. “I’ve an itchy feeling in my funny bone that there’s something going on just let me find out what they’re up to I’ll straighten them out good and proper mark my words!”
    For their tea, she and Billy’s father ate the pork chops she found in the safe. “Pork chops are too rich for a growing boy they heat the blood and give you lustful dreams,” she said and gave Billy a worn-out bit of puha.
    Billy pushed it around his plate. “Can I get down?”
    “You’re not getting up from the table till you’ve finished the last delicious mouthful of your lovely puha.”
    When his stepmother wasn’t looking, Billy shoved the puha off the plate, over the edge of the table, caught it between his toes, and rubbed it into the lino till it disappeared. He did the dishes, scrubbed the frying pan, piggybacked his stepmother and father to bed, and told them the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” again.
    “If I was his mother I’d wallop that Jack into the middle of next week I’d show him selling a good cow for a few lousy bean seeds,” said his stepmother, and she turned over and snored.
    Out in the kitchen, Old Smoko had roasted the other pork shoulder and leg. They ate them with apple sauce, made prize sandwiches for the tusk competition tomorrow, and talked about Bert Brute.
    Old Smoko showed Billy how he’d climbed the kahikatea, and how they rocketed off at just the right moment. Billy showed him how he stuck the sow. They danced, kicked over chairs, and made a lot of noise and a cup of tea.
    Billy was just putting out his light, when Old Smoko stuck his head in the window and said, “Johnny Bryce is going to have to masticate and swallow his words.”
    “Does masticating do you any harm, Old Smoko?”
    “It only means to chew. Good night!”
    Billy wrote in his real mother’s book, “Old Smoko likes using long words.” He dated the observation, wrote the time, and slept.

Chapter Sixteen
Why Old Smoko Frothed, How Mr Strap Whakapohaned the Whole School, and Picking Up the the Cabbage Tree Leaves and Scrubbing the Dunny Seat.
    A t the Wardville turnoff, next morning, they all sat on the side of the road and watched Maggie Rawiri pull a decent-sized pair of tusks out of her school bag. Old Smoko measured them with his thumb.
    “Not inconsiderable,” he said.
    Meredith Rawiri’s jaw had lost a grinder on one side, so that tusk had grown in a circle and back into the lower jaw. “Must’ve hurt, eh!” he said. “I’ll bet the dental nurse would’ve