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At seven forty on a warm still morning the two Berg girls bounded out of the Land Rover and headed into the classroom.
"Look at the computer," Kylena said as she smiled up from her desk.
Julie swung around and walked over to the screen that displayed a photo of a large school building with smiling pupils in front. Welcome to the Davidson Junior High School Home Page blazed across the screen top.
"My old school," gasped Julie. "You found their web site."
"Not only that," Kylena replied. "Click on the Chat icon."
Julie nodded and did. The screen changed to a chat page document similar to a small T.V. screen with two sections and a column of buttons down the left side. On the dot of seven forty a tiny buzzer sounded and a green button shone to indicate a message had arrived.
"Click on the icon that looks like a mobile phone," Kylena advised. "That will show you are ready to receive an incoming friend.
Julie nodded, bit on her bottom lip in nervousness and did so. Immediately words began to run across the screen in red letters.
"Hi Julie. We hope you are there. This is Samantha Jones, Mandy Mazzini and Jenny Bozejowski here."
Julie just stared wide-eyed at the screen then up at her teacher before she almost screamed in delight. "My friends from last year. But how?"
"Type a reply, " Kylena said.
"Yes I'm here," Julie typed and watched as her words came up in blue.
"Gee, it works," Red words ran across the screen. " Samantha here. We're in the main computer room with Mr. Mann. What time is it there?"
"He was my English teacher," Julie explained and began tapping on the keyboard. "It's quarter to eight, Thursday morning and I had no idea this was being set up. How are you guys?"
"Jenny here. We're fine. It's quarter to two in the afternoon and ... " the words kept spilling out as the three girls across the world told their news.
"Oh Miss Delton." Julie grinned up from her chair. “This is marvellous but how did you do it?"
"It's our chat link As long as you know the time to call up, you can chat to your old school or leave a message. Your Dad's downloaded the software at home, too so you can use your computer there, too. Your old school agreed to allow your friends to use a computer time every Wednesday afternoon at this time to contact you. "
"Oh my God." Julie replied in excitement as she read the incoming news and began her reply.
"There is a new game on the other computer for you, Helen," the teacher added. " You have to make up sums to help the three bears escape from the forest. You’ll be the first one to use it if you'd like to try.”
Helen's face changed from a disappointed scowl to a smile. "Yes please, Miss Delton," she replied and rushed to the adjacent computer.
Within a moment, both Berg girls were glued to their screens while their teacher stood back and felt proud of her efforts. "If you're set, I'll go and do some other work now," she said.
"Sure," Julie mumbled and giggled at the news coming through.
"The little bear is out of the forest," Helen called out without moving her eyes from her screen. "Mama Bear is still lost, though."
"Keep trying, Helen. You're going well."
It was moments like these when teaching was its most satisfying.
*
That afternoon Fiona found something that jolted her emotions like a thunderbolt. When she helped John and Harold shift his last furniture and personal belongings down from the top cabin. The old Bedford was piled high with Harold's last gear.
"I liked it here," Harold reminisced as he gazed at Fiona who was packing a pile of sketchbooks into a box. There were dozens of them, all organized and dated.
"You don't mind if I glance through your drawings, do you?" Fiona asked.
"Not at all," Harold replied. "Most are not complete. I intended to produce paintings of the best ones but never really got that far." He smiled. "Perhaps this winter I'll start."
He wandered off to help John lift a chest of drawers onto the truck and Fiona was alone. She packed for a few more moments until she came to a pile of half a dozen blue covered sketch books; quite different in size and structure to the others. A piece of twine was wrapped around them with dates from the early eighties written down the spines. She slid the first one from under the string and opened it. Inside was a picture of a girl of around Julie's age. The whole book had drawings on her in all manner of activities such as horse riding, playing with a dog, in formal clothes as if she was preparing for a prom, and so forth. Brief notes stated Aggie with Sandy, Aggie on a swing and so forth. There were thirty or forty drawings, all of Harold's daughter.
Fiona slipped the sketchpad back and pulled out the second one. This showed an eighteen year old at a high school graduation gown, a beautiful teenager winning a running race, sailing on a yacht and other scenes. She frowned and took out two more sketchpads. One showed the same woman graduating from university and one with her in a wedding gown. The groom was but a silhouette in the background and the woman was smiling directly at the artist with piercing blue eyes.
She was so absorbed in the drawings she never heard Harold behind her until he gave a slight cough. "Aggie, my daughter," he muttered.
"But you said you've never seen her since she was twelve?" Fiona said.
"I haven't," Harold sighed. "Those are just the vivid imagination of an old man."
"You mean they aren't real?"
"The first pad is," Harold replied. "After she left I just sort of imagined what she might look like and what she could be doing. Whenever, I was lonely I'd draw another picture of her as she might look at the time." He shrugged. "It became an obsession, I guess, a fantasy daughter that I pretended things happened to."
He reached to the last pad, this one crisp and new. "This was the last one I drew not long before John and you took me to hospital. Aggie would be thirty five now and could easily have children." He shrugged. “That’s what I imagined, anyway."
"Oh Harold," Fiona said as she opened the pad. “The woman in the drawing again smiled directly at the artist but was standing with three children in front of her, a girl almost her height and two smaller boys."
"Tell me," Fiona asked in a compassionate voice. "Is Aggie still alive?"
Harold took the sketchpad from Fiona's fingers and slipped it back in the pile. "You think I might be hiding some tragedy but no. To be honest, I don't really know. After that letter from the social welfare on her eighteenth birthday, I spent months trying to trace her. The only information was that she'd never returned to New Zealand. The Australian authorities were no help. My guess is, her mother changed their names or moved on to another country. She was quite a talented academic and could have gone anywhere."
"But that was a long time ago," Fiona added.
"Five years back, I tried again but had no luck." He grimaced. "As I said, she is not real any more, just a figment of my imagination."
"But the drawings are so life like," Fiona gasped.
"My company. I lost faith in humanity, Fiona."
"But why?"
"Just events," Harold muttered. "I gave my life to my career but in the end the government department I worked for was disestablished and I retired."
"Well, I'm glad you decided to shift permanently down to John's cottage."
"Why should you care?" Harold asked in a quiet voice.
"Because I do, Doctor Bentley," Fiona retorted. "I also think you should start trusting humanity again instead of living in a world of fantasy and what might have been. I followed my son-in-law across the world because I could not bare being alone and do you know what?"
"What? " Harold's eyes fixed on her.
"It was the best thing I ever did."
*
The next morning Fiona decided she'd do something to help Harold find his daughter. Perhaps he had it all wrong. He had said his wife was an academic, he was one, so couldn't the daughter have become one, too. Highly educated people often were so interested in improving their education a social life became second. What if Aggie Bentley was not a married woman with a bunch of children but an academic at a university somewhere? Fiona smiled. It was somewhere to start.
After the girls left for school and John headed out on the farm, Fiona sat in front of the computer and brought up the Google search engine. She typed in University Academic Staff and pressed Search. Three hours later, though, she had nothing. Her head felt thick with the concentration after the thirtieth university she'd contacted had no Doctor Angelina Bentley, a Ms Angelina Bentley or any Angelina with another surname.
"John," she asked at lunchtime. "Could you discretely ask Harold what his wife's maiden name was?"
"Why me?" He frowned.
"Because, if I asked, he'll become suspicious. Just drop it in the conversation about Kylena reverting to her maiden name."
*
Three days later John ambled in and shoved a piece of paper under his mother-in-law's nose. "I have two names," he said. "She ran off and married a guy called Harrington and her maiden name was Sands."
So, armed with this new information Fiona returned to the Internet and began plugging away. Four days drifted by, colder now with rain sweeping through the valley. It was good weather for staying inside and searching the Internet. United States seemed to bring a blank so she switched to United Kingdom and continued the search.
But there was still nothing.
*
At the Board of Trustees meeting, Frank Amberley, the new chairperson, said he wanted to put on record the board's deepest regret about the attack on Kylena and also the high regard they had for her efforts that made the school year so successful to date.
"I think the stamina of Julie Berg at the cross country and that of our principal reflects the good heart our school is in," he concluded and held his hand out to Kylena. "Our next item on the agenda also reflects this. I believe you have more information, Kylena?"
Evidence of the recent attack had, by now, almost faded from the principal's face with the swelling reduced and the cut under the eye now a faint red diagonal line. "There were an amazing thirty five applications for the temporary position as junior teacher," she began. "Most are new graduates still hunting for a job but it ranges up to a forty five year old farmer's wife wanting to return to teaching."
"And have you any recommendations?" Frank's wife, Janet asked.
"Yes," Kylena replied. "One woman, in my opinion, stood out from the others."
*
Vicky Taylor, the successful candidate, was so thrilled to have won the position; she offered to spend the last week of the term at school on no pay to set up the junior room and to get to know the children. This tall, dark haired woman had a personality that the children responded to and Helen, for one, was enthusiastic about moving into Room 2 with her new teacher and ten classmates.
"We'll have so much room, Daddy," she told her father. "Ms Taylor has already put hundreds of charts on the wall and the new desks have arrived. They're all metal with little drawers to put our things in. I wish it was next term, now." Her eyes glowed.
"And a class of eleven." John grinned across at Kylena. "It must be one of the best situations in the world. At home, these small schools have long gone. It would all be an hour's bus ride into Marton and a school of five hundred kids."
"It'll probably come to that," Kylena replied. "That was their real reason for the threat to close us down here. Controversy in a district just makes it easier for the ministry to step in and shut a place down."
"And from what I heard, the infighting has shifted over to Junction Road. That Newson boy you had all the trouble with has been suspended from the school for three days."
"Oh my God!" Kylena gasped. Her eyes flashed with worry. "I hope they don't bring him back here."
"Don't worry," replied John. "He's been enrolled at a private boy's boarding school in the Hawke's Bay. I heard they offered a substantial donation to the school's building fund to get him in."
"And where did you pick up all this news?"
"From the vet. He called in yesterday."
"And men say women gossip," Kylena said with a laugh.
*
With only one day's warning, the contractor rolled in and began felling the pine trees across the road from the school. It was an efficient operation with the top corner of the track to the plateau sliced through in a few hours and two trucks rumbled up to dump gravel on the new section. The contractors started at the top and worked down. Chainsaws howled from dawn to dust and bulldozers used chains to wench the logs to the top plateau where they were stacked on John's side of the boundary and a fleet of logging trucks carted them to Wellington two hundred kilometres south to be loaded on a container boat and exported to Japan.
By the end of the second week the trees were gone, debris had been pushed into a ravine on the property so only stumps and raw earth remained. The weather throughout the time was fine so there were no problems with the track except for minor subsidences due to the weight of the vehicles. True to his word Kelvin had the contractors scrap off the whole track and gravel was added in several places.
"They're certainly efficient," John said.
"Yeah, the boat was waiting and if they missed the deadline, the storage fees at the wharf are phenomenal," Kelvin grunted and puffed at his inevitable cigarette. "You know there was a mill near Marton but closed it down a few years back. Seems bloody stupid to me to send the logs all the way to Japan but I shouldn't complain. They paid me top dollars for the plantation."
"And you're still going to plant the hill in grass?" John asked.
"Yeah. I've a different contractor coming in to haul out the stumps but they won't need to use your track. I want it ploughed before winter so I can sow in the spring, about October I guess. It should be green by Christmas unless we get another bloody drought."
John nodded. The view had certainly changed. Brown dust covered the trees and buildings around the house but he guessed this was only a short-term inconvenience. A hillside of grass would enhance Kelvin's farm but to him, it seemed a strange time to be doing things.
"Our winters aren't as severe as you're used to," Kelvin continued. "Some farmers even sow in autumn so the grass can begin to grow as early as September if the weather is mild."
"Sure, "John replied. "I'm used to months of snow and having to keep all the stock in barns. I think I'll appreciate the milder climate here."
"We still get some pretty white frosts in winter and snow for a few days."
"What about rain?"
"Plenty of that," he replied. "Cold southerlies are the worst. Bloody nuisance in lambing. In spring we also have the warmer north westerly."
Kelvin drove off in his Landcruiser just as Kylena arrived. She tucked her arm into John's and gazed at the new scene. "It looks awful," she muttered. "He could have left some trees, especially on that steep section down from your boundary."
"I tried to tell him."
"Yeah," Kylena laughed and dug her partner in the ribs. "But you bloody Yanks know nothing."
John grinned and tucked an arm around her, “Come on,” he said. "How about a coffee break?"
*