Deadly Sky (ePub), The by David Hill Read Free Book Online

There’s never been a weapon powerful enough to kill almost everyone on the whole planet.’
    Aw, come on, Darryl thought, the government would never let
that
happen.

SEVEN
    Darryl did go to the boys’ high with his mother the next morning.
    ‘Why don’t Tahitian kids go to France if they want a different education?’ he asked, before they left their room to meet the taxi.
    ‘New Zealand’s closer.’ Mrs Davis was checking her blue dress in the mirror. (‘
Don’t
tell me I look “OK”!’ she’d warned her son.) She wore a dark blue flower made of some kind of cloth in her hair. She’d bought it from a fancy shop near the café the night before, while Darryl stayed outside. (‘No way I’m going in there!’)
    His mother scooped up her folder of notes. ‘Plusthey know our government’s opposed to nuclear testing, so they like us for that.’
    Our government’s opposed to nuclear testing? Darryl thought. Nobody told me.
    The high school principal shook his mother’s hand, kissing her on both cheeks. She smiled, and went pink. Darryl took a step back, in case the guy was planning to kiss him, too, and stared. Just as well his father wasn’t here. Weird to think now that Mum and Dad were always rowing because Dad was wanting them to do something different, while Mum said they needed to make a steady home for him – and now she was the one doing something
really
different.
    The school was a couple of long, two-storey buildings. Palm trees rose along both sides. He’d seen a stretch of sandy ground with soccer posts on it, but no green playing fields, and no rugby posts. How could you have a boys’ school without rugby posts?
    ‘The senior pupils are ready for you,
madame
,’ the principal was saying. ‘And your son – he will speak to a class, yes?’
    No! Darryl gaped. But his mother just smiled. ‘You’ll be fine. Tell them about the weather.’ Before he knew what was happening, a young teacher appeared, shook hishand, and led him along a corridor and into a classroom. Thirty boys all stood up as they entered. Darryl turned to see what important person was following, then realised that the class was standing for him.
    ‘Thees ees Dah-reel from
la Nouvelle-Zélande
,’ the young teacher said. ‘He weel speak to you.’ Turning to Darryl, he went: ‘If you would talk slowly? The boys, their Engleesh is leetle.’
    Darryl swallowed, and stared at the rows in front of him. Blue shorts, white shirts, sandals. Dark heads. Some faces looked interested; a few looked bored already. Suddenly he wanted to show those ones.
    Talking slowly gave him time to think fast. ‘G’day. That means
Bonjour
.’ Several boys laughed, and repeated ‘G’dayee’. Darryl felt better. ‘It’s twenty-two degrees here in Tahiti?’ The young teacher nodded. ‘Well, back home it’s ten degrees.’ The boys murmured.
    Darryl went on: ‘And it’s probably raining. And snow is falling on our mountains and on our volcanoes. So I like the weather in Tahiti.’ More laughter, and even some clapping. Darryl felt great.
    He told them about his school uniform. ‘Grey. And more grey.’ About playing cricket in summer. How he liked listening to The Jackson Five, especially their sixteen-year-old singer Michael Jackson. He talked about New Zealand rowers winning a gold medal at the 1972 Olympics, and how shocked everyone waswhen terrorists shot dead some Israeli athletes. The class nodded.
    ‘Some of our Maori people can speak their own language as well as English. But most of us speak just English. You can speak two languages, so I think you are clever.’ He stopped.
    A lot of grins and clapping. A boy at the front row put up his hand, and asked, very carefully: ‘What— what you enjoy in Tahiti?’
    ‘The sunshine,’ Darryl told him. ‘The pineapples. The market. I went there.’ He hesitated. ‘I saw the march – against nuclear tests.’
    Another hand. ‘In
la Nouvelle-Zélande
, you say no to the