The Trouble with Water

By Janine McVeagh

When Trina is left without a flat or a job and she is contemplating her choices, her twelve-year-old half-brother turns up and won't leave. She decides to take him north to a house her family abandoned a dozen years before and think about what to do next. What should be a short holiday becomes much more complicated as neighbours, family and other locals pull her in different directions. Then there is the river: what has happened to it? What can she do about it? And who will help her to find answers and a new direction in her life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janine McVeagh
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780473378202

Janine McVeagh

I have been published across a wide range of genres and media over the years: short and long non-fiction for children and adults; short and long fiction, including two novels for children (Earthquake and Be Counted, both Scholastic) and short stories on radio for adults. I have collaborated in writing plays for radio and early childhood readers in te Reo Maori.I live in rural New Zealand with my family and am involved in many local and environmental issues.

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The Trouble with Water

First published 2016 by Hihi Press, P.O. Box 96, Rawene, 0443, NZ

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2016 Janine McVeagh

ISBN: 978-0-473-37820-2

Ebook

Junior/YA fiction

English

Janine McVeagh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or digital, including photocopying, recording, storage in any information retrieval system, or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.

This e-book is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

McVeagh, Janine, 1946 -

The Trouble with Water

ISBN 978-0-473-37820-2

Junior/YA fiction

New Zealand rural, social, cultural, environmental issues

Cover Design: Pepper Curry

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

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Chapter One

Where are you going? Trina said. She’d come to find her flatmate Paula packing china and towels into boxes. And what am I going to do now? I thought you said I could stay here until I found another job, but you're moving out.

I'm really sorry Trina, but I just found out that I've been made redundant so I'm going home. Back to Wellington. Dad might be able to find me something at the factory and it'll do while I look around. But I need to get going. Don't worry, I'll leave you enough stuff to get by with until you can set yourself up. And the rent's paid up for a week.

A week! I mightn't find a job for a month. And I haven't got a home to go to, either, she thought. Much she cares! As she helped Paula sort through sheets and pillows, tossing out stuff neither of them wanted, she went through her options in her mind.

Find a job. She'd had lots of those, all of them ending in a few weeks because they were seasonal, or because they'd found out how young she was, or they'd paid her in cash because the whole thing was dodgy. That one was the worst. The boss was a sleazy old man who seemed to think he owned her as well as the car yard. Turned out he didn't own that either and she'd arrived to find a chain and padlock on the gate and no-one there. He owed her a week's pittance too, bastard.

This latest one was the best. A proper contract, award wages, nice little cafe with nice customers who didn't swear at you or grope you. Nice isn't enough in a recession though and the lady owners had sadly had to close. At least, she had been paid out with holiday pay as well. She'd had that job for six months and with that and a bit of baby-sitting here and there she'd saved enough to register her bike for a year, buy a fairly good laptop off Trademe and still have nearly three hundred dollars in the bank. She'd never been so well-off. Now, though, she could be homeless as well as jobless. And friendless. She’d met Paula through the ad for a flatmate, and though you wouldn’t really describe her as a friend they did hang out sometimes.

The next morning, Saturday, she waved Paula goodbye, made herself a coffee in one of the two mugs and opened up the laptop to look for a job, any job, anywhere. She'd have to find a flatmate too. Or another place to live.

Just as she was contemplating whether to move from New Plymouth altogether, find a bigger town with more work for an unqualified almost-seventeen-year-old, there was a bang on the door and someone was shouting her name.

On the doorstep, shivering, dirty and red-eyed, stood her twelve-year-old brother, Shay.

Chapter Two.

She hadn't seen him for months, not since he'd moved with their mother and her horrible bloke Zane to some village a hundred ks away. What was he doing here?

Shay! What's up? You look awful. He almost fell into her hug. Come in, have something to eat, if I can find anything. Might have some weetbix in the cupboard if you're lucky.

I've run away. He was sobbing and shaking. I'm n-n-not staying with them any more. Zane hits me all the time and Mum doesn't believe me. She doesn't want me anyway, so I came here.

She couldn't believe it. "Did you walk? Or did someone give you a ride?" She found cereal, sniffed the milk, decided it was ok and sprinkled extra sugar to disguise the taste.

He didn't seem to notice, was bolting it down as he answered her. I snuck away from school and I got two rides gulp and then I had to sleep under a tree gulp I walked miles this morning, but I got a ride the last bit.

Ok, slow down, just eat. I have to think about what we can do with you now.

He finished his cereal, then grabbed the hot drink she'd made him. I want to stay with you.

You can't! I mean, you can be here for a night or something, but you'll have to go back. Shay, I haven't got a job and the rent on this flat runs out in five days. And I'm not your mother, she thought.

I'm not going back! I hate them! And they hate me. He began crying again. He hits me, Trina, he punches me in the stomach and on the head and everything.

Then tell the police. Surely Mum knows about this?

He never does it when she's around and when I tell her, she says I'm making it up because I don't like him. He said if I told her again, he'd do it worse. Please, Trina, I just can't stand it any more.

Go to the police, Shay. They'll sort him out.

They won’t believe me either, he sobbed. His best mate's a policeman. Please, Trina, I don't know anyone else.

That was true, she reflected. In the years on her own, their mother had moved about every four or five months; Trina'd lost count of the schools she'd been to, the friends she'd tried to make and lost. It would be the same for Shay: he just didn't know anyone where they lived now or not well enough for them to take him in.

She sighed. Let me think about it ok? Go and have a shower then have a sleep in the spare bed, the room on the left, while I sort out something. She found a towel and showed him the bathroom, then went back to the laptop, her mind buzzing.

Chapter Three

Nothing, nothing, nothing in Taranaki. What about somewhere else? As she clicked on 'all areas', a sudden thought came. Years and years ago, when she was almost too small to remember, her whole family had lived in the country way up north. Then her dad had left them and she and her mum had started their wandering. There was a great-aunt up there too, Dad's aunt, who'd sent her birthday and Christmas cards with money in them, every year until Trina had left home two years ago. Aunt Jenny. Trina had met her once or twice when they were still in the north. Jenny Ellerton. She clicked on the white pages. Yes, she was still there, at a place called Patowai. Trina wrote down the phone number.

Jobs. Orchards, oyster farms, maybe tourism. She quite liked the idea of working in an orchard or waiting tables at a tourist resort. Paihia was a tourist town. How close was it to her Dad's place, she wondered.

The shower had stopped running and there was silence in the flat. Trina got up and went in to Paula's old room. Shay was curled up on the bed with all his clothes on. He looked so tired and cold.

I'll find you some bedding. Hang on a minute.

All she had was her own duvet and an old rug someone had left behind. She grabbed the duvet and took it into Shay. As she tucked him in, she said, You get some sleep now, ok? And I'll think about what we're going to do next.

Please don't make me go back. Please! I'll be really, really good. He looked at her in that way he had since he was a baby, soft brown eyes looking straight at her. How delighted she'd been to have a baby brother and Shay was a cuddly, plump little boy, all smiles for her. He'd always come to her when he hurt himself and she'd stood up for him against the bullies at every new school.

Yeah, well, you're going to have to go to school and stuff. Ok, ok, not the same one you're at now, that would be stupid. We'll talk about it when you've had a sleep. She hugged him, his shoulders were stiff, his whole body tense. Poor little fella.

Back at the computer, she brought up the map of Northland and enlarged it. What was the name of the town near their old place? Kaikohe. She found Patowai near Kaikohe and moved the cursor round, trying to find something familiar. She remembered the schools in a couple of different tiny places, or rather, she remembered a friend from one school and her teacher from another. But they'd stayed in so many places, gone to so many schools, until they left the North for Taranaki back when she was about eight, that they had all merged into one isolated farmhouse, one rattling school bus and the same two-room school full of strangers.

She got up and made herself a slice of toast with marmite and thought for a moment.

She'd have to ring Aunt Jenny. She didn't even know if Dad's place was still there or if the property had been sold. She'd never heard from her father since that awful day he'd taken off, first to his aunt's, then to Australia they found out later. Maybe this was a mad idea. Surely someone'd come looking for Shay? Even if her mother and Kane didn't start looking, when he didn't turn up at school sooner or later the school would get hold of her mother and ask questions. Well, that would serve her right, she thought. CYFS was the bogeyman when they were little: if you’re bad, they’ll come and take you away. Her mother would hate strangers coming round asking questions.

Meanwhile, she would ring Aunt Jenny and find out about Dad's place. She tapped out the number and waited, trembling with nervousness. What if she didn't want to help? A voice broke in to her thoughts, Hello?

Aunt Jenny, it's me, Trina, here. Trina Ellerton.

Hello Trina! It's so long since I heard from you. Where are you?

I'm in New Plymouth, but I'm thinking of coming up north for a while.

That would be lovely. Do you want to stay here for a holiday? I should be able to have you for a few days. When were you thinking of coming?

Um, well, what I was wondering ... do you know if Dad's house is empty? I thought maybe…

I suppose it is. I haven't been there since you left it, oh, what's that, about twelve or thirteen years ago now. I don't hear from Thomas and I don't think anyone else does either, so I don't think anyone has lived in it since you left, except tramps perhaps. The voice took on a commanding tone, Trina, I don't think it's a good idea to go over there.

Well, Trina pushed her annoyance to one side and wrestled with how much to tell this aunt she hardly knew. Could she trust her? "Well, it isn't just me, it's my little brother too, Shay. We need somewhere to live and I need to find