Write a novel: Moe and Hine (working title)

Chapter 1: Girl (Part 1)

Maui’s ‘Magic’ Hook.. Not quite sure where this pounamu will enter into the novel, I just know that it will be important at some stage. Photo courtesy of Michelle Levy

Here we go! I’m excited and nervous to start this journey with you. And impatient. I just want to write and write and write. I want to make this my full time occupation. This is where my soul soars. It is a wairua thing.

This is Chapter 1, but I will deliver it in parts over the next few posts. Eventually, this will become a paid subscription, so if this kind of thing is not you (which is perfectly fine too), it won’t end up coming into your inbox.

But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the journey that we (and Moe and Hine (aka Girl) are going to go on. Here is the Prologue incase you missed it. Or the link to the PDF version. Anei whanau….oh and BTW remember Hine (aka Girl) has no filter and has a potty mouth. So please don’t be offended.

Chapter 1: Girl (Part 1)

It was his name that got me. I’d never met another Maui before.  Not since you. I’d found me a spot to sit in the sun in Lambton Quay and I saw him walking around with his clipboard and smile, going up to people and talking to them. He was dressed in jean dungarees and had this purple and pink bandanna on his head. The bandanna had all these koru’s on it, just like the Māori clothes the Asians sell down at the flea market. Most of the people he was going up to were darkies. Like me. He’d kiss the chicks on the cheek. And the fulla’s, he’d hongi with them. I could hear his laugh. One of those real hori laughs. And even from the distance away that he was, I could see the colour of his eyes. A deep dark brown. Like how I’ve seen your eyes.

But you see, he caught me watching him and smiled at me. Then he began to walk towards me. I looked the other way and lit up a cigarette. I didn’t want him to come up to me. I just wanted to watch him. That’s what I like to do during the week. My flatmate thinks I’m going to work. It’s not that I have lied to her, its just the routine I got to when I was living with Hone. I caught the 8 o’clock bus every morning and went to my waitressing job. I guess I just kept doing that when I moved in with Wai. Left my flat in Newtown in the morning. Catch the bus and find different  places to sit around watching the black suits and high heels clip clop past me. Wondering what lives these people lived. It was always best in the howling wind, watching them all struggle against the wind. Watching them all trying to stay dry and keep their umbrellas from turning inside out. The wind and the rain never bothered me.

I turned back to him and scowled. But that didn’t stop him. He was almost bouncing his way over to me. I tried looking past him like I had just seen someone I  knew, but that didn’t stop him. His clipboard in front of me.

“He Māori koe?” he asked.

I looked to either side of me, like he was talking to an imaginary person next to me.

“What?” I spat. As shitty as I could.

“Are you Māori?” he asked, smiling.

“And who the fuck wants to know?” I snarled.

He whistled. “Mmm, Tu’s strong in you sister. Or maybe its Tawhiri-“

I cut him off. “What the fu-“

He cut me off. “You could do with a bit more of Rongo.”

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.

“Ko Maui ahau,” he said, holding his hand out to me to shake. “My name’s Maui.”

But the name. It was the same name as yours.

I can remember hearing that song for the first time and the kid that requested it on the radio. His name was Maui too. I knew somehow you sent that song to me. I was 16 years old and I was sitting in the clinic waiting to go through. This was the day that you left.

In the receptionist area, they had on a Māori radio station. I reckon it was cause the receptionist was an older Māori lady who looked like, don’t mess with me, I listen to what I want to listen too. And me, I’d never listen to that crappy radio station. But I wasn’t going to say anything. But that is where I heard that song. Heard those words. Heard this young boy ring up and request this song. So excited to be on the radio.

“Ko wai to ingoa?” the DJ asked.

“Maui!” the boy said.

“Tena koe Maui. I hope you’re not getting into any mischief. Speaking of which, why aren’t you at school? I hope you are not getting into any mischief like your tupuna, Maui tiki tiki a Taranga?”

The boy giggled.

“Nah. It’s a teachers only day,” he said.

“Pono?” the DJ asks. “You know that you are named after one of our most infamous ancestors, who liked to play tricks. Sometimes rukahu too. Tells lies. Trickster, shaman, magic maker.”

“I’m not lying,” the boy said. “Hey Mum?” he yelled. “Its teachers only day ay? My Mum’s nodding. ”

I smiled hearing the words trickster and shaman. Like me.  

“It was Maui who slowed the sun. And Maui who tried to make us live forever.”

To live forever.

“It was Maui who went to his grandmother and persuaded her to give him her jawbone so that he could fish up the North Island. He was the ancestor who showed us that the impossible is possible. Who else could fish up the North Island. Could you?”

“I reckon I could,” Maui boy replied. “Can you play a song so I can do a shout out to my mates at school?”

“Are they good mates?” he asks. “Have they got your back?”

“Yeah, my mates are cool ass.”

“How bout I play a song fitting for a Maui?”

“Choice,” Maui said.

“And your school?”

“Cannon’s Creek”

“And who are your mates?”

“Mmm. Ok, so there’s Hemi, Oscar, Tyrone and Sherice. Oh can I say my Mum too. She’s choice ass too.”

“Alrighty. How about this song Maui?  Born of Greatness. Sung by the up and coming rōpu Aria with a big shout out to Maui and all the tamariki at Cannon’s Creek School.”

“And my Mum,” Maui giggled.

“And Maui’s Mum,” the DJ finished. “For Maui and his Mum. Born of Greatness.”

I sat there listening to the song. It was a song about belonging and I knew somehow I had to find that belonging. To make sure you meant something.

The nurse took me through to the ward. As she spoke to me and explained everything, the white cup with the pill that would mean no going back, I just kept hearing the song in my head over and over. I kept hearing Maui giggle. And I thought about his Mum. And I knew then who you were.

I lied and said that I was being picked up at 1pm. Because my Aunty didn’t finish work until then.

As I walked out of the hospital later that afternoon, I already knew where I was going. I began thinking about making the impossible possible. That song got stuck in my head. I had my package in my bag. I caught the bus back to Cannon’s Creek. Hone was in the sleep out. I went inside to their kitchen and opened up the freezer compartment and hid it right at the back. I went back to Hone and said to him that we needed to leave. That we couldn’t stay around here anymore.

When we took off, I kept thinking about you being the one to show me about the impossible being possible. Just like the demi-god you were  named after. When me and Hone finally got to Auckland we went and stayed with his cousins out in Mangere. I went to the local library and started reading up about your name. Maui tikitiki a Taranga. The fulla who tried to slow the sun. Who fished up the North island with his grandmother’s jaw bone. The fulla who tried to defy death.

Chapter 1 has begun in earnest. Please share to anyone you think might enjoy coming along for this journey.

And any feedback, questions, queries most welcome. Nga mihi aroha ki a koutou. Now onto my Day Job. Lol.

Tihei, Mauri Ora!

Lisa