Why Mrs Mitchell Jumped Up and Down,
Why Harry Stood With His Head Tipped
Well Back, and How Jack’s Mother Knew
Everything He Was Up To.
“SOME DAY,” Minnie Mitchell told Jack Jackman crisply, “my mother says, some day they’re going to change the stock route through Waharoa. They’re going to stop the dirty old drovers and their dirty old dogs coming past our place, but they’ll still drive their smelly old cows and sheep along your end of the street. The bottom end. So there!”
“Yeah!” said Harry Jitters. “All them stinking old cow plops, and them stinking old sheep poops, too. Your end stinks!” And because Minnie Mitchell was there, he gave Jack Jackman a shove.
Later, Jack told his mother, “I just stuck out my hand to stop myself falling over. I didn’t mean to punch his nose.”
Harry Jitters felt his nose, saw the blood on his hand, and ran bawling for his mother.
“Look what you’ve done!” Minnie Mitchell screamed. “You killed poor Harry!” She clouted Jack Jackman with her basket. “You did that on purpose!”
Jack’s mother always told him boys don’t fight with girls, so he just stuck out his tongue at Minnie, pulled down the corners of his eyes with his second fingers, pulled up the corners of his mouth with his thumbs, waggled his ears with his index fingers, and growled, “Unga-Yunga!,” deep in his throat.
Minnie Mitchell screamed louder and threw her basket in the air so the bread, the paper, and the letters dropped out. “You made me do that, Jack Jackman!” Her face went ugly as she ran shrieking, “I’m telling my mother on you!”
Once before, Jack had tried pulling his face and making his “Unga-Yunga!” noise at Mrs Mitchell, but it didn’t work on her. He went for his life, and hid in the pig-fern around Mr Bryce’s overgrown tennis court on the corner where Whites’ Road cut across Ward Street.
Jack watched Mrs Mitchell come out her gate, grab the basket Minnie had dropped, the bread, the paper, and the letters, and jump up and down. He was too far away to hear, but he could guess what Mrs Mitchell was saying, so he dropped on his knees and crawled along one of his secret tunnels between the brown fern stems.
Safe in his secret possie, Jack stuck out his head through tight-curled fronds thick with brown dust, and took another look. He could see up Ward Street one way, and down it the other way, but he still couldn’t see whether one end was higher than the other. As he watched, Mrs Mitchell went inside, and Minnie Mitchell came out. Then Harry Jitters came out, holding his head well back.
Minnie waved her arms and popped back inside her gate, and so did Harry. Then Harry popped out again, and so did Minnie, and they both waved their arms. Jack thought they looked a bit like the little old man and woman who popped in and out of the tiny house on his mother’s mantelpiece and showed whether it was going to rain or shine.
Harry still stood with his head tipped well back, so he must have been looking at something in the sky, Jack thought, but Minnie stood in her usual way, admiring something about herself.
Jack Jackman jumped out of the pig-fern and shouted, “Unga-Yunga!” He stuck out his tongue, wagged his head, and did his puku dance in the middle of Ward Street. He could tell Minnie was screaming by the way she stood and pointed before running inside, and Harry was bolting for his gate, head still tipped well back.
Jack yelled, “Unga-Yunga!” again and trotted home, feeling pleased with himself.
“I thought I told you not to play in that dirty old fern!” his mother said.
Astonished, Jack asked, “How did you know I was playing in the fern?,” but his mother just smiled to herself.
“I’ve got eyes that can see through doors what you’re doing,” she said. “I’ve got ears that can hear what you’re going to say before you’ve even said it. And I’ve got a nose that can sniff you and tell what you’ve been up to! Don’t you go thinking you’ve got any secrets from me, Jack Jackman!”
Even though he had no secrets from his mother, even though she made him stand out on the back step and brush himself all over before she let him inside, it was good to be home. The only trouble was that Jack still didn’t know whether one end of Ward Street was higher than the other, nor which was up and which was down.