Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

Skylark was entranced. She didn’t know what the kaka were doing, but they were either at very aggressive play or very subdued war. She gave a small scream as one of them flew down and landed on her shoulder. The weight surprised her.

Kra! Kra! Ka! And who is this? Pretty polly, pretty polly, polly wolly doodle.

“Meet Flash Harry,” Joe laughed. “He’s the most gregarious of the colony. Say hello to Skylark, Harry.”

Flash Harry hopped closer up Skylark’s shoulder. She gave a small squeal as he started to nip at her with his beak.

Hello darling. What brings a sweetie like you to this neck of the woods?

“He’s giving you love bites. Harry loves women.”

Flash Harry gave an appreciative whistle and wink.

“That was a wolf whistle!” Skylark gasped.

“Only a bird would get away with it,” Arnie whispered to Joe.

Suddenly another kaka came flying down from the trees. This one landed on Arnie’s shoulder. “Hey —”

“That’s Carmen,” Joe said. “She’s Flash Harry’s mate and she’s just reminding him that she can play the flirting game too.”

Skylark laughed. Carmen gave a delicious sigh as she nestled close in to Arnie’s shoulder, and that set Flash Harry off. He bristled with jealousy, and with a screech, pounced on Carmen. With a haughty flip she moved out of his reach. A flutter of wings and she was away, leading Flash Harry on a merry dance through the forest and delighting other kaka. They joined in the chase, chuckling, whistling, and sometimes breaking off from steady flight to tumble about in the air, looping the loop around each other.

“They’re so wonderful,” Skylark said.

“Well, if you lived with them all the time you mightn’t think so,” Joe answered. “Always carrying on and calling day and night. But they’re the very reason why Auntie Ruth set up this bird sanctuary in the first place. Did Hoki or Bella tell you how Man interrupted the Great Circle of life, death and renewal? How he chopped down the Great Forest or set fire to it so that he could create pastureland for his sheep and cattle, or create towns and cities to live in, or the highways between? How he brought with him the dog, feral cat, rat and other bird destroyers like the stoat and even the honey bee? The possum and the deer came with Man too, raking the barks of the trees with their claws and antlers. Sometimes Man introduced a new species to control an earlier species he had let loose in the wild. He totally ravaged the forest and changed forever the ecology for all the bird species. What is worse is that Man also shifted the balance in favour of the seabirds. Where he went he created the environment for seabirds to feed upon. Food dumps, rubbish pits, offal: there you will find the great gull scavengers. Because of Man they have increased in numbers, size and cruelty. And, you know, Man was so stupid when he tried to replace the great forest. He planted beech forest, which did not have the same vital food supplies for the landbirds. No wonder they declined so drastically.”

Joe’s voice was passionate. “This is why I live on this offshore island, Skylark. The forest on the island must be preserved because it is the only kind in which the kaka, as a colony, can survive. It provides them with the holes in the trunks where they can build their nests. The big trees also provide the kaka with an all-year-round variety of food — berries, shoots, nectar and the larvae of insects. When the giant trees decay and die, even in their death they attract the grubs of woodboring insects that sustain the kaka colony. The kaka love the wood-boring beetles. Only here has the Great Circle of Life been reinstated — life, death, renewal for the benefit of all. I must continue Auntie Ruth’s work and maintain the island’s ecology for as long as I can.”

Skylark pressed Joe’s hands. “You’ll do it,” she said.

Joe looked away, embarrassed. She began to scrape in the dirt.

“Whenever I find a dead kaka, I always bury the parrot. Somewhere here is Flash Harry’s father. Now he was a real Casanova. Ah, here we are.”

Joe picked up a skeletal frame. With delicate fingers, she detached its beak and intoned to its owner: “Your beak, old one, goes on a journey of its own now. Give to her who possesses it the power to split any branch, crush any seed, break any rock. Be proud that through it you will live again.”

Joe turned to Skylark. “Remember, Skylark, a beak is not just a —”

“Beak,” Skylark said. “Yes, I know.”

“It comes from a powerful bird with a double-jointed jaw. With a beak like this you will truly have the voice of leadership. It is also through the beak that a bird is able to breathe. A beak allows the bird to eat and drink. To sing, call, cry, warn in the night. And it is also strong enough to kill. All these things a claw and a feather cannot do.”

Joe looked at Arnie but winked at Skylark. “I suppose I’d better give your boyfriend one too. You never know.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

“What’s wrong with you, boy?” Joe scolded. “Haven’t you heard of old Chinese proverb: ‘Bird in hand worth two in bush’?”

Joe gave a raucous laugh. The kaka colony caught her laughter in their wings and played a game of netball with it. Thrown like a ball, its sound ricocheted among them as they twisted, looped, chuckled and tumbled in the air.

He’s not her boyfriend! She’s not his girlfriend! Ha-ha-ha!

Led by Joe, Skylark and Arnie walked back towards the beach.

“This might sound like a dumb question,” Skylark asked Joe, “but after we leave you, do you know where we’re suppose to go?”

The sun skipped through the thinning canopy. “Why, you have to go to see Deedee,” Joe said, as if Skylark should know. “She’s the one who knows about the Time Portal. I only know about the beak.”

Through a gap in the trees Skylark saw a blaze of yellow sand. Further out, was the blinding blue of the sea. “And where does this Deedee live?”

“She’s down in Nelson. When you get there, ask for her at the Maori Language Centre right in the middle of the city. She teaches young Maori children the reo.”

Arnie groaned. “Another ferry crossing. Oh no,”

“And I suppose she’ll have the magic potion or spell or, hey, maybe she can dial up the Time Portal and ask the pizza boy to deliver it,” Skylark said. Joe led the way out of the forest, scrambling among the rocks down to the sand. Skylark was busy looking at her feet, trying not to trip. Arnie was behind.

“Skylark, do you always mock everything? I know you’re resistant to being told what to do and I can see that in you patience is not a virtue. But you’re just going to have to learn to hold your temper. Don’t be so reactive, and don’t bad-mouth everything just because you can’t understand it. The Apocrypha doesn’t tell how these things are done. Sometimes we have to work it out, try to solve the enigmas, find the answers to the puzzle.”

“My mother’s in a coma. I’m in a hurry.”

Joe wasn’t listening. Already she had reached the sand. “Nothing of importance ever comes quickly or easily. You’re not going to help your mother at all if you don’t do everything in the proper order. Hoki’s given you the claw, Birdy’s given you the feather, you’ve got the beak from me. With these you can go to the next level. But only Deedee can tell you how to get there.”

Just then Skylark felt something thump her hard on the back.

“Ouch,” Skylark laughed, assuming Arnie had tripped and put a hand out to steady himself. Then it happened again, hard, this time on her head. She put her arms in front of her, to protect her face, and the world became a crazy kaleidoscope of sky, sand and sea as she fell. But there was something else there too, something solid black in the centre of things, something which kept fragmenting, with pieces falling away —