Crown Park (13 page)

The moho cheered.

Godfrey continued. “We went to
the edge and looked down at them. Boris was extremely angry. If
looks could kill then we’d be dead.”

“I poked my tongue out at him,”
said Morris, puffing out his chest.

“Whoa!” said the moho.

Jack put a hand over his mouth,
trying to stifle his laughter.

But Morris hadn’t finished with
his tale of bravery. “Then I turned around and pooped into the
hole.”

That was too much for the
listening birds. They looked at each other in wonder. Who would
have thought that a moho could ever do that to an adzebill? It was
unbelievable.

Jack could no longer control
himself. His laughter exploded past his hand. He quickly tried to
make out it was a coughing fit, but Godfrey wasn’t fooled. He
turned and winked at Jack. There was the hint of a chuckle in his
voice when he continued.

“After that, we made our way
here. Chainsaw set a cracking pace. I think he knew that something
big was going to happen with The Source.”

“How did he know that an
earthquake would trap the adzebills?” asked Emily.

“Some animals can —” began
Fluoro.

But Morris butted in. “Chainsaw
makes them happen,” he said. “His tail is magic. He flicks it three
times and wham. We have an earthquake.”

All eyes went to the cat.

Chainsaw slowly lifted his tail
and gave it a flick. And then another one. The moho gasped. Jack
moved his hand, took the tail and tucked it back into place.

“Phew!” said Morris. “That was
close.”

“What a great adventure,” said
Lucy, standing up to take charge again. “OK, moho, it’s time to get
back to bed.”

The moho groaned.

Lucy stamped her foot. “Enough
of that. Off you go. It’s much too late for you to be up.”

“Yes,” said Fluoro standing. “We
must go too.” He looked out over the devastated land. “It’s over
now, at least for a while. It’s time for us to go, Jack.”

Jack wasn’t sure about leaving.
In this place, Chainsaw lived. Would that be true in the real
world? Maybe Chainsaw only existed in this place now.

And yet, the animals seemed to
think that the cat was leaving too. They gathered around him to say
their goodbyes. Pat became emotional, snuggling up to Chainsaw’s
head, and begging him to stay. As always, Chainsaw said
nothing.

There were farewells also for
Fluoro and Jack, but it was clear that the animals were just being
polite. The humans wouldn’t be missed. Lucy in particular seemed
keen for them to leave. Maybe she had some idea of what would
happen to moa when other humans arrived and stayed.

Finally, Fluoro and Jack moved
forward to take a last look at the now quiet volcano.

“Thank you, Jack, for this,”
said Fluoro.

“I didn’t do much.”

“I could not have done it by
myself. Believe me, I’ve tried.” A pause. “You treated me like a
human, Jack, when most didn’t.
That’s
what you did, and that
was the difference.”

Jack nodded. “Will you tell
others about this?”

Fluoro chuckled. “Ah, no. I
think my reputation would suffer if I started writing about talking
animals. But I will write about the eruption. I’ve got lots of
ideas from this experience. There are many things I want to study
further. Enough to keep me busy for a long time.”

He turned to Jack, offering his
hand.

Jack shook it. “Goodbye,
Professor Fluoro.”

The man smiled. “And goodbye to
you Jack. I hope your life goes well. Perhaps we’ll meet again some
other time.”

And with that, they left.

Jack was back in his bed. The phone was
on the pillow beside his head. He went to end the connection, but
the phone had turned itself off. He pressed the on button. The
screen lit for a moment, displayed the message “Charge Battery”,
before turning back off.

He wondered when it had died.
Just now or part way through the story? Was it possible that the
story continued without the phone? Maybe anything was possible in
the link between the present world and the past.

Then Jack had a great idea. He
sat up. If anything was possible then maybe Chainsaw was still
alive. Perhaps now was the time to go looking for him. He got out
of bed and quickly dressed.

The house was quiet as he crept
through the lounge to the outside door. The door squeaked, sounding
a lot like Pat when he got excited. Jack smiled at the memory of
the little bat. Already he missed him.

The moment he stepped outside,
he knew he didn’t have enough clothes on. The ground was covered
with frost, and the air temperature had to be well below zero. It
was no night to go looking for a cat. The pet cats would be curled
up inside and even the wild ones would have found a sheltered place
for the night.

If Chainsaw existed, where would
he be? The only two possibilities Jack could think of were behind
the takeaway shop and in Fluoro’s old place. Both would be freezing
on a night like this. Perhaps this great idea wasn’t so great after
all.

He was standing on the path,
shivering while deciding what to do, when the porch light came on.
The door opened.

“Jack! What on earth are you
doing out there?” It was his mum. “Come inside right now.”

Jack went inside. Anna led him
into the kitchen and sat him down at the table. She saw the
shivering and rushed off for a blanket.

“Now tell me what that was all
about,” she said, after wrapping him up and sitting beside him.

“I was looking for
Chainsaw.”

“Is that Mike’s cat? The
professor’s?”

“Sort of. Chainsaw made friends
with both of us. I think he was a stray.”

“So Mike hasn’t got him?”

Jack shook his head. “I think he
got run over when I was in hospital.”

“Then why were you outside just
now? The doctor said to take it easy for a while. It’s only four
days since you had an operation. Being out in the cold isn’t taking
it easy.”

Jack lowered his head. “I was
just hoping. That’s all.”

His mother put her arm around
him. “Forget about Chainsaw,” she said gently. “We’ll get a kitten.
Maureen at the motel says she knows someone who has one to spare.
It’s a ginger tabby. We’ll go and have a look tomorrow, eh?” She
patted his shoulder. “All right?”

Jack nodded.

“OK. Now let’s get back to bed.
I’ve got to get up in three hours time.”

His bed was still warm from
earlier. Yet he didn’t go to sleep right away. He thought through
the conversation with his mother. She’d said to forget about
Chainsaw. But he couldn’t do that. Friends didn’t forget each other
so readily. However he did know that worrying about the cat
wouldn’t help. All the worrying in the world wasn’t going to bring
him back.

Getting a kitten was the right
thing to do. He thought about the cat his mum had mentioned. While
it wasn’t a grey tabby like Chainsaw, maybe it would grow up to be
just as good.

Then an image came into Jack’s
head of Chainsaw as a ginger tabby sitting beside Fluoro. Both were
dressed in orange. Jack laughed out loud. Yes, a ginger tabby would
do very well. The tabby stripes reminding him of Chainsaw, and the
colour, the professor. “Fluoro,” Jack whispered into the darkness,
and the name sounded exactly right for an orange-coloured cat.

Jack woke to a noise. He didn’t know
what the noise was, but he knew he’d heard something and it was
close. He scanned the shadowy shapes in his room. Nothing
different.

Maybe he’d imagined it. He knew
he’d been dreaming, but couldn’t remember any details. The noise
could have been part of that.

He’d snuggled back down when it
came again. Something was tapping on the window. Jack relaxed. It
would be the plant that grew out there. In strong winds it often
bashed against the house.

It came again. And again. And
yet again. If the wind kept going like this then he’d never get
back to sleep.

But was it really the wind? Jack
thought back to when he’d been outside shivering. There had been no
wind then. Everything had been icy still. He listened. There was no
sound of trees moving.

Again the tapping. This time
more urgent.

Jack got out of bed and opened
the curtain. There was a shape on the window ledge that shouldn’t
be there. The shape of an animal.

That was the moment when Jack
heard another sound. It was the meow of a cat.

With racing heart, he unlatched
the window.

Chainsaw pushed his way through
onto the sill. There was no hello meow or any welcome. For a while
he looked around the room checking things out. Then he eyed the
bed. Crouching back, he leapt across the space where Jack was
standing. For a while he sniffed at the duvet before moving to the
warm centre. Only then did he turn and look back at Jack.

Jack wanted to say “Hello,
Chainsaw” but his mouth wouldn’t work. Nor would any of his
muscles. If he moved, the dream would be broken and the cat would
disappear.

Chainsaw had no such problems
about moving. He began kneading away at the bed, forming a nest.
When he had it to his satisfaction, he turned to Jack and meowed.
It was a clear invitation to get back into bed.

Jack forced his body to take a
step forward. Nothing changed. So, taking care not to disturb
Chainsaw’s space, he lifted the duvet and climbed in. When he was
settled he stretched out to stroke Chainsaw’s head.

“Hello, Chainsaw,” he said, very
softly. “I thought you were dead.”

Chainsaw gave a little mew and
rubbed his head against the hand.

“I’ve been thinking about
getting a kitten.”

Chainsaw stopped rubbing. He
raised his tail and glared at Jack.

“A ginger tabby.”

The tail moved. Flick.
Flick.

“But I’ve changed my mind,” Jack
added quickly. “I’ve decided that a grey tabby called Chainsaw
would make a much better pet.”

The tail relaxed.

So too did Jack. “Are you here
for good?” he asked.

In answer Chainsaw turned in
circles three times before settling down tight against Jack’s legs.
The chainsaw started and the claws came out. One pierced all the
way through the duvet, the sheet, Jack’s PJ’s, and into his
thigh.

To Jack, it was the best pain
ever. It proved that this was no dream. He now had a pet cat — the
one he had wanted all along.

The noise of the purring got
louder and louder until it filled the little bedroom. Some people
might have found it difficult to sleep with such a racket. But not
Jack Stewart. To him it was music. A song that he hoped would keep
him company for many years to come.

The Taupo eruption at around
200 AD was the most violent in the world anytime in the last
5000 years. All plant and animal life within 90 km of Taupo
was destroyed by the “giant, dull-red blob.” (Scientists call it a
pyroclastic flow.) Ash fell over most of the North Island. Streams
and rivers were blocked, forming lakes. The floods that occurred
when these burst spread mud as far away as the East and West
coasts.

Will it erupt again?

Yes!

When?

Who can say? It could be in a
few years, or thousands.

Will we get any warning?

Yes! Taupo is surrounded by
equipment that records any changes in the molten rock that lies
deep below the lake. There will be time for people to get away from
Taupo, Rotorua and other towns that could be affected. It will be a
huge civil defence emergency, but if everyone is sensible, no
humans should die. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the
millions of other animals that live in the area.

All the species described in this story
survived the eruption. Lucy’s species — North Island giant moa,
Dinornis novaezeelandiae
— lasted until Maori arrived and
settled. They were probably extinct by 1400AD.

Godfrey’s lot —
Cnemiornis
gracilis
— also lasted until about 1400AD. Like the moa they
would have been hunted for food and feathers.

Boris and the rest of the
adzebills —
Aptornis otidiformis
— were able to defend
themselves better than the moa and geese. Nevertheless, they still
died from hunting and were gone by 1500 AD.

The moho —
Porphyrio mantelli
—
survived much longer. The last was seen in 1894. Their South
Island cousins — takahe,
Porphyrio hochstetteri
— were
thought to have also disappeared around the same time. Fortunately
a colony was found in Fiordland in 1948.

Emily’s species — kaka,
Nestor meridionalis
— survive in native forests throughout
New Zealand, and in some places are increasing in numbers.

And last, but not least, is Pat
the bat’s family. The lesser short-tailed bat —
Mystacina
tuberculata
— is still around, but only just. Like many other
New Zealand native species, they need human help to survive. We
must kill the stoats and rats that attack them. We must also make
sure that the forests where they live remain unchanged. But most
importantly we must understand that these species have an equal
right to live in this land.