No, not that kind of trouble. Boys are creeps or juvenile idiots, and never grow up, as far as I can see; even the men Mum ends up with fit the description one way or another and so far I've met very few I'd bother to talk to.

No, I'm talking about another kind of trouble, the kind where you scream as they torture you beyond reason, or cut little bits off to get you to tell them something. You don't believe me? I have trouble believing it myself, and I guess I might be completely wrong, but I've never taken a chance on trouble ever since at seven I realised Mum couldn't be relied on.

The trouble I'm talking about now is something that might get me missing, or killed, or worse, and I guess I had better write it all down for Pops, at least. He used to be a policeman, and I'm sure that if something did happen to me he'd see that someone was punished for it, one way or another. Writing things down certainly makes things clearer, and I have the time while the others are watching TV.

The rain is becoming heavier, and I see the ceiling is beginning to drip in the corner of the lounge again. That means a bucket, right now!

When I read back on what I've just read I've realised there's a lot I have to explain to make enough sense that someone can work out what happened. I'll have to tell you about Mum, and about the house, and school, and the Red Comacheros, and why we have to leave this place. The house is really old. It was built somewhere about World War 1, Pops once told me. It's got a steep roof and a little roof over each of the windows, and a verandah that goes all the way around the place, or it would if someone hadn't built the extension on alongside. We now use that as a lounge because it’s the warmest in winter. It’s quite a nice house, with pungas reaching right up to the top windows, and rimu and rata trees leaning over on the uphill side. In the summer tuis come for the flax flowers, and wood pigeons come right up to perch on the verandah railing even when we hang the washing. Sometimes we can even hear a morepoke in the early evening. Mum got to rent the place cheap because the last tenants were kicked out for drug dealing and car stealing. There used to be a lot of rusty old cars parked every which way in our drive and quite a way up the street, but when we moved in Pops arranged with his police friends for all of these to be taken away. What a difference that made! I think the whole street gave a sigh of relief and they leave us pretty much alone, which is both sad and good at the same time. Before that we used to live in a flat in Hillsborough. It was twice as expensive, and not nearly as big, and there were yelling couples and kids on each side of us. Moving out of there was no hardship, plus we've become very used to shifting, sometimes to Pop's for a few months, sometimes to another flat, depending on how Mum is with work, and how much money we have. Mum's a singer, or as she says, an entertainer. She does magic tricks sometimes, or dances, but there's not too much money in it. I know, because she gives me most of it to pay the bills. I'm much better at that than she is, she admits, but I think the real reason is that she lives in a dream world with just enough sense to get by. I wonder what she did before I was old enough to do things like that... I remember the first time. I was telling her what had come in the mail. Bills, of course, and more bills. She sat down on the sofa and just looked at them, still in her working dress, then suddenly reached out to cuddle me and began to sob. 'Maddy, what can I do, I'm such a fool; I can't ask Dad for any more, and even if I did, you know I'd spend it on something else.' She wiped her eyes and looked directly at me. 'Maddy, you'll have to manage it for me. Take it away, and hide it, don't let me waste it. Here'. So saying, she'd opened her purse and extracted a wad of notes and thrust them at me as if they burned her hands. Even then I don't think she even knew what she'd given me, but I looked into her eyes and nodded. 'OK, Mum, I'll try, but you'll have to listen to me when I ask'. That had begun a new way of life, with Jonesy and me working together to keep us afloat. Jonesy was only ten at the time, now he's twelve, nearly thirteen, and still helps me. Vi is still too young, she's six, but she already knows what we do. Mum's special, but as you can see, she takes some looking after. Sometimes she has to go as far away as Rotorua and Taupo, and once all the way to Wellington. We used to go along when we were younger, but when Mum had Vi it became much harder and generally we got to stay with Pops. Once I'd started school we were pretty much grounded. Pops has been wonderful. He and Nana live down in New Lynn, in a small brick house that was built for the returning soldiers of World War 2, or so he says. It's one of a series of almost identical buildings in the street, with a small grass patch for a lawn, and vegies growing out back. Jonesy's pretty good with plants, and he helps Pops when he gets out the gardening stuff. Vi and I spend time with Nana, but Nana is not so well these days and spends a lot of time in bed. I help with the household jobs when Pops lets me, but he's pretty fierce about what I'm allowed to do. Not that he's really fierce, he's really a gentle giant who pretends. I'm a better cook than he is. Pops taught me the basics after Nana had her first stroke, the one that left her face all twisted for a while, and once I got the hang of it I found I could learn from books, or simply experiment. I liked it, and it was a simple way to repay them for their kindnesses. I do the cooking here too, but the other two help me with just about everything, now. We need to get ready for school, to make lunches, and iron clothes. It's not so hard, just boring, but I never had much chance to have my own friends, what with jumping from school to school, and with being so busy. Most of the other kids get to go to swimming, or netball, or something, but none of us do because it costs, and because of the picking up and deliveries. Mum doesn't have a car, but her work pays for taxis, so we sometimes squeeze a bit more that way, but very often she's out working. We make our own fun, and sometimes get cheap Monday morning videos from the shop at the village. I can see I'm getting away from my troubles. I really have to tell you, the reader, about Caspar. That's not his real name, which is actually Alf, but he got the nickname because of his habit of haunting houses. Anyone's house. Things would go missing whenever Caspar the ghost was about. Yes, Caspar is part of my problem, but not the whole problem, if you know what I mean; He's a boy of about fourteen, and part of a gang up here in Titirangi. He goes to school now and then and unfortunately that's the same school I go to. I don't know how he got involved with this gang, but it probably has something to do with his brother Vernon, who is undoubtedly simply a criminal. Vern's a natural bully who likes to hit people and make them cry. Caspar isn't like that, but he's sneaky and perverted, if that's the right word. Once I caught him at the back of the girls' changing sheds, peering through the holes in the wall. He likes secrets and uses them, but he's not mean likeVernon. He and I had a fight once, but that's another story. These two boys have always been responsible for the car thefts and petty stealing that goes on in this area, but lately they somehow got involved with something much more serious. The Red Comacheros is a bikie gang that moved into the old Prentice place about four streets away from our place, having come to Auckland from somewhere near Gisborne. Most of them are Maoris with names like Big Jimmy and Tonto, but a handful of the Pakehas are real bad people. Saturday night

I'm finding it hard to write things down. Look at last week, I got to Casper and Vernon and had to stop and attend to more leaks, and then it was time for bed for Vi, and she wanted to sleep with me because of the rain dripping into the pot in her own bedroom. Now we're staying at Pop's for the weekend, because Mum rang them and said she'd be away on the Friday night. Pop drove around and picked us up, and we've been playing cards in the old sleepout at Pop's place. All three of us sleep there on a big double bed, especially when it's been raining and turned cold, like it did last night. I spent some time with Nana too. She was telling me about when they were living up north at a place called Mangonui, which is nearly up at the North Cape.

When I said so Nana laughed. 'You have the same idea as most Aucklanders', she said, her face almost normal with the smile. 'There's quite a long way to go from Mangonui to the Cape, young lady. Mangonui is a nice place, with hills surrounding a harbour, and Pohutukawas brilliantly red at Christmas'.

'So why did you leave?' I asked her, and she looked measuringly at me.

'There was a storm, a tropical cyclone, really, and the house was damaged. Then Angus was transferred to Auckland. Vicki was about sixteen or seventeen, then, and she wanted to come down here too.'

'So you came down just for a storm?'

She looked pensive. 'Not exactly, but that was the outcome. That storm blew a couple of strays into our patch who changed our lives in unexpected ways. Once we'd moved, and Angus was seconded to cases down here, there was never another opportunity to return. Vicki was distraught, and trying to cope with a new school, new ways. In the end it was easier to simple soldier on here.'

'So Mum didn't like it here?'

'Oh, she liked it fine. She had to grow up in some ways. You know, we were really too protective of Vicki, she suddenly had a lot of life's lessons to learn, and the cost was considerable. She became pretty wild.'

I tried to imagine my mother going to school in the same way as I did now, but somehow the image was alien.

'What did you mean by strays, Nana?', I asked for want of something else to say. It had been so long since I'd talked with her, really talked, I mean, and I guess I'm always on a fishing expedition to learn things about my Mum.

She hesitated, and looked in my face, carefully.

'Maddy; you know your mother is a little unstable in certain ways, don't you?'

I nodded.

'If you mean she's disorganised, forgetful, a dreamer and living in a world that's different to you and me, I guess so.'

'No, Maddy. Vicki was a different sort of person, once, but now she... she has a sort of obsession. Maddy, you're old enough now, I guess... Vicki has been attended by several psychiatrists and a whole range of doctors. She has a sort of compulsion that overrides everyday life, did you know that?'

I watched her face carefully. Mum crazy? I didn’t think so. Mum was always honest with us, even when it hurt, and always did her best. Crazy? No.

“I think she’s OK, Nana. It’s just how she is, always away on gigs. She does the best she knows.”

Nana nodded.

“I know she does, love, but it’s not normal to be able to do the things she does. Have you seen any of her magic?”

“Magic? No, not really. When she comes home she sings, but doesn’t do anything magic.”

“On stage she does magic. Angus and I have been to several of her shows and the things she does are not possible. Totally impossible. She… you must ask her yourself. Anyway, when she started to do these things we brought in the specialists to try and cure her, you know, get her to admit she was making it up, but she confounded them all by proving she could do these strange things. The psychiatrists could not cure her of something that was for all intents and purposes real, but they tried to take her mind apart, to rid her of this one other obsession…”

I looked at my grandmother very carefully. Magic? Obsession? I wondered who exactly had an obsession. In my limited experience grown-ups had more strange ideas than us kids, and I knew my mother pretty well. We understood one another, and there had never been any hint of the things I was now being told about. Well, maybe a hint, my inner self grudgingly admitted, but magic? I had to know more.

“Obsession, Nana?”

She nodded firmly.

“Yes, an obsession. I have to tell you because I think she’s about to start on it again. The only thing that stopped her before was you kids, and now that Violet is nearly seven she’s starting to talk about her search again. Maddy, I have to tell you about these people who came in with the storm that day in Mangonui. There were two girls, Tanu and Kelly, and they sailed a yacht all the way from Papua New Guinea. Did Vicki ever tell you about them?”

I sighed inside in relief. I knew this story, I was sure.

“Mum told us about them. They became friends with Mum, didn’t they?”

She nodded.

“More than friends. Did she say what happened to these girls?”

“She never gave me details, she just said that Tanu was killed. She gets all sad when she talks about it. Tanu was an island girl, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, and Kelly was a white girl. A very short girl. Maddy, they were murdered, both of them shot by a gunman, right here in Auckland. It was something to do with drugs and how they had evidence about some higher-ups in the drug trade. Both of them are buried at Waikumete cemetery, just down the road.”

I nodded. I’d known in general terms, but not the circumstances of their deaths.

“Mum never mentioned the other girl, but she often goes and puts flowers on Tanu’s grave. We go with her, most times.”

“And Kelly’s grave? It’s just a few yards to the east. Does she do the same there?”

“No. In fact, I never knew about the other girl dying, not before now, in any case.”

Nana nodded slowly.

“That’s her obsession, Maddy. She refuses to believe Kelly is dead and buried, she insists the girl is alive and living somewhere, and she’s determined to find her.”

I thought about it for a bit. Mum could certainly focus, if that’s what it was, and she always had ways figured out to do what she wanted to do, I knew that, but it was never just her, if you see what I mean. Us kids were always part of whatever grand plan she had. We were going on any crazy trip she made.

I suddenly realised I had an opportunity here.

“Nana, these girls who died, you say Mum was friends with them?”

“Yes, they saved her life once, and another time they went to Great Barrier with them for a couple of weeks, if I remember rightly.  That was just after we came down from Mangonui. Madeline, look up there on the shelf… no, at the very top, that photo album… thanks, love. I think they’re in here somewhere…”

She started to riffle through faded snapshots of a life gone by. I got glimpses of family groups, of beaches, of fishing lines at a beach, and one of a blue and white chequered Police 4WD before Nana found what she wanted.

“There, see? That’s the three of them together not long before…. Well, one of the last we have of the other girls. That man behind you can just see, that was Kelly’s Dad, he’s talking there to Harry Proctor… Vicki must have been just over sixteen when that was taken.”

I looked with interest at a picture of three girls with arms linked, looking straight at the camera with a certain joy in their faces. Mum seemed so young, barely older than I was, and the islander girl towered over them both. The third girl was short, with brown hair and a wide, mischievous smile that I liked immediately.

My brain tickled.

That’s the only way I can describe it. A sort of tickle. It means it’s put two and two together, somehow. I’ve had to get used to tickles like this throughout my life, and had got to recognise a pattern.

I looked more closely; there was something familiar, something recently familiar in the girl’s face. The world around me slowly stretched treacle-like in a personal time warp while something in me made connections.  My brain is like that, I don’t know why, but it never fails me…

Nana looked at me curiously.

“Hadn’t you seen this shot of Vicki before, Maddy?” Of course I hadn’t, it came from her hoard.

I shook my head.

“No, Nana, I haven’t, as you well know. The funny thing is, I saw a picture of this girl quite recently, at school. Is this Kelly?”

She recoiled in shock.

“Seen her? Madeline, she’s dead. Dead. Has been for years. I hope you’re not getting like Vicki…!”

I looked into her face.

“No, Nana, of course not. There’s nothing wrong with me, or with Mum, for that matter, it’s just that a girl as school showed me a similar picture a couple of weeks ago.”

“At school? Who was it? How could she have a picture of a dead person, or this dead person. No, it must have been someone else.” She was becoming a little flushed and upset.

“No, Nana. The photo she showed me was from somewhere ‘way down the South Island, near Invercargill, I think. It was a picture of a girl on a horse, and I remember now, her name wasn’t Kelly, it was Nicole. Penny said she was a housekeeper for her and her brother for a while. The girl in the picture looked just like that.”

“Penny?”

I nodded. “She’s a relatively new kid at our school. Her brother’s there too. Nana, they live just two streets away from us, with their own Nana. We all go around there now and then on the way home from school. Aunt Emma is nice, you’d like her.”

Nana looked a little mollified.

“So how did you get to talking about this girl?”

I smiled. “Penny is a really nice person, with red hair and really green eyes… Nana, she told me quite a few things about where they lived down there. She had a pony of her own, she said, and that was what she showed me at her place. She said Nicole was learning to ride and fell off in some cowpats. I can just imagine!”

“Doesn’t this girl, Penny, you said, have a mother or father?”

“No. I asked her that, and she said her Mum died some time ago, and that their Dad was missing, lost at sea or something. That’s why they were living with their Aunt Emma.”

Nana was interested, I could see, relieved that we were off the subject of this girl Kelly or Nicole, whoever she was. She was keen to close the book and I began to wonder what exactly had happened so long ago that she wanted to hide from. No doubt she thought I would forget, but the coincidence of the same girl appearing in both worlds was beginning to itch in my mind once more.

Penny’s Nicole had been older, but there had been an unmistakable resemblance. I stored it away for future reference.

Abruptly a car pulled into the driveway and stopped, the lights still playing on the front door and lighting up the curtains now closed against the chill. Doors slammed, and after a brief murmuring of voices the car reversed out again and footsteps sounded on the shell path.

I knew those steps! Mum was here after all! I quickly got to me feet but was beaten to the door by Vi who opened it and almost leapt into Mum’s arms.

“Mummy!” Jonesy stood behind her, looking over at me with shining eyes, then stepping back to let our mother enter the house.

My mother isn’t tall. She’s not fat, and she’s not beautiful. But she’s pretty, there’s no doubt about that. Her dark hair was cut short this evening, and she wore large silver earrings with some sort of turquoise inserts. Her stone-washed jeans were complemented by a heavy woollen jersey, and she had a coat over her arm.

She looked over at me as she closed the door, then in to Nana who was struggling to her feet. Before the slow process could get fully under way she’d gently disengaged from Vi and Jonesy and bent to touch Nana’s arm.

“Don’t get up, Mum. I’ll make us some tea, shall I?”

That was actually code for ‘Maddy will make the tea’, but I didn’t mind, and relinquished my seat to go and put the kettle on. While Mum, Nana and the others gathered together I met Pops coming in from the outside shed to find what all the fuss was about. He smiled a welcome to Mum and followed me into the kitchen.

“What’s the story, Maddy? I didn’t know Vicki was coming tonight?”

“Neither did I, Pops. Let’s wait and see if it’s good news or bad…”

We both knew my mother too well…

It was a bit of both, it appeared.

“I’ve got a job on a cruise ship,” she announced when the tea was delivered.

“A cruise ship? What about the casino job, love?” Nana asked.

“It’s really the same job,” Mum said. “Jimmy Colenso owns the casino, and he’s picked up the entertainment contract for the next three months. That’s for the ‘Island Princess’ on the voyage to Australia, Vanuatu, Kiribas, Hawaii, Panama, Easter Island and back again.”

It was a measure of our past experience that we just looked at her, saying nothing, until the silence drew an exasperated sigh.

“Well! I thought you’d be pleased, especially as I arranged with Mr Colenso for my family to come with me!”

I looked at her, unable to believe what I heard. A cruise ship! And what exactly was this costing us, I wondered. Nana’s face showed similar conflicts, I could see, and Pops was stroking his jaw thoughtfully.

Mum looked confused for a moment, then sort of snorted.

“I can see that none of you believe me! Well, it’s really happening, thanks to one of the cruise people. There are four of them and they flew in to Auckland to meet Mr Colenso and make a deal. I’m in it because of the magic, but I’ll also be a singer, and Mr Colenso gave me a week off on full pay so I can arrange the passports and stuff like that. I thought you’d be happy… The ship arrives on Wednesday week, and goes on the following Friday, so we don’t have much time.” She reached in her handbag and withdrew some folded papers, passing them over to me. “See, Maddy? Passport applications. We’ve got to hurry up to get them in on time.”

I took the sheets and briefly scanned them. It was true, they were indeed passport papers, but I had a sort of feeling about this trip. On the other hand, it might just solve my other insoluble problem…

Pops had questions.

“Vicki, what about school, and the house. We can’t just leave it empty, can we? And is this a once only circuit, or is it going to be how you live for a while?”

“Dad, I’m not sure, but all the other support staff are hired by trip. I got to talk with the secretary to one of those men who flew in, and she explained it to me. She said they often did talent scouting, as she called it, but not everyone got to stay on beyond the one trip. She said it was more common for staff to be rotated between vessels, so most likely we would know what was to happen much closer to the end of the circuit. Oh… and she did say they repatriated everyone to their port of hire, regardless.”

“You mean they’d send us back to Auckland even if they decided they didn’t want us any more?” I asked.

Mum nodded. “That’s what the contract said.”

“What about the casino job?” Nana asked.

“Oh, apparently they get paid some sort of finders fee. I don’t quite understand it, but Mr Colenso didn’t seem too unhappy about it. Actually, I feel sort of like I’m being bought and sold, like a prize cow or something. That’s why I stuck out for you kids, I wasn’t going off without you. I was quite surprised to discover this is pretty common, and that they even have a school on board for kids of staff members.”

We all paused to take it in. If this deal was true it meant Mum had a win, and so too did we, if only indirectly. There was a catch somewhere, I was sure, and from the look on the face of Pops I guessed he and I were on the same wavelength.

“So who do you work for now, Vicki?” Pops finally asked.

Mum reached into her handbag and withdrew some glossy folders with photographs of cruise ships and coral atolls. She shuffled through them and at last handed one over to Pops.

“This is the man, his name’s Martino Russo.”

I craned my neck to see around the corner, only to receive the greatest shock of all. I felt my face whiten as I gazed on the face of a man I already had pictures of, pictures of him doing things to children and young women.

I must have gasped, for Nana looked at me in concern.

“Maddy! Do you know this man?”

I shook my head.

“I’ve never met him, Nana.” Frantically I tried to keep my face calm and normal, but inside I felt panic rising. The pictures I had were in a special package I’d stolen from Caspar’s rucksack, and I couldn’t admit that. Nor could I admit that the same rucksack contained nearly a million dollars in various currencies, or that there were people looking for that rucksack even now. It was ironical that the cruise ship trip, which should have saved me from whoever might finally track me down, would actually lead me directly to the one person I presumed was the owner of what I had stolen.

What a quandary. If I resisted the cruise plan I was likely to be discovered by the Red Comancheros and their pals, or if I went along with it I was going to be on the same ship as a proven paedophile, and one who apparently owned the ship! With my siblings!

Fortunately Vi began to ask about cruise ships and what it all meant, so I had time to compose myself and try and think of some other way of getting out of the fix I was in.

I was still stalled on the Monday when Mum went to school with us to explain to the teacher what was planned. Mr. Grantham, the headmaster, listened patiently as Mum explained what was planned and waited until she finished.

“Mrs Urquhart, are you sure this is the best thing for the children? They are all very bright, I’m sure you know that already, but they need a stable environment, friendly and familiar faces.”

Mum nodded.

“Yes, I know that. I was torn, I didn’t know quite what to do, but it represents a very much larger income, even if I get put off after the cruise. That income is vital for my family too – I’ve not been able to provide for them very well to date, Mr. Grantham, and if this all falls through they’ll be no worse off. School holidays are two weeks away in any case, aren’t they, so we’d not be upsetting their schooling that much…”

He shook his head.

“That depends. Madeline is a particularly intelligent girl, a good musician, and she’s very quiet. Jeremy is quickly becoming the same, he has a particular talent with computers, I have just discovered, and Violet is just beginning to read. Reading is a critical phase, you know.”

I could have told him how Jonesy – Jeremy to Mr Grantham – spent hours patiently teaching his sister, and how he’d adjusted our own old computer, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. I was pretty sure they’d be OK.

“I’m told the ship has a school on board, Mr. Grantham. Would you feel better if you could speak with the people running that?” Mum was obviously willing to go all the way to get her chance, and even this dowdy schoolteacher could see it.

He sighed.

“Very well, Mrs Urquhart, I’ll obtain statements of achievement for all of them which will allow any teacher to understand where they’re at. If you could come and see me the day after tomorrow they should be ready.”

He stood and extended his hand. “Good luck, and you too, kids. Send me a postcard from some coral island, won’t you?”

We were ushered out and as the door closed I heard Mum take a deep breath.

“Guys, that was pretty good going. Not a peep and I didn’t even have to ask. Thanks.”

I linked my arm through hers while Jonesy took Vi’s hand and walked on ahead.

“Mum, you’d better be sure about this. Really sure.”

”But I am, Maddy, I am. Can’t you see? Hello, who’s this…?” We were intercepted by Penny Hurst who was clearly interested in meeting my mother.

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