Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) by Caitlyn Robertson Read Free Book Online Page B

he
joined her at the front of the class while she introduced him.
    “This is Constable Concannon,” she said.
“He’s going to chat to you about how he joined the force, and then you can ask
him questions.” She smiled and gestured for him to start.
    Dex cleared his throat and perched on one
of the tables as he began speaking. There were more boys than girls, and over
half the boys were Maori. He knew the ratio of white students in the school to
Maori students was around five to one, and although the school had implemented
special initiatives to raise Maori achievement, generally he would have named
Maori boys as the demographic least likely to want to enter the force. In fact
to his surprise he recognised several of the boys from previous encounters—two
had been brought in for theft and one for suspected marijuana dealing, although
they hadn’t been able to pin anything on him.
    He spoke for a while about training
programmes and salaries and possibilities for promotion, but it was warm
outside and the class fidgeted, and he sensed he wasn’t saying the right things.
He stopped talking, unbuttoned his police jacket and took off his hat.
    “Why are you here?” he asked the nearest
boy, the one who’d been suspected of marijuana dealing.
    The boy glared at him. “I’ve as much right
to be here as anyone else.”
    “I wasn’t suggesting otherwise,” Dex said
wryly. “What I meant is, why are you interested in joining the force?”
    The boy glanced across at his mate, who
smirked.
    Dex’s heart sank, but he made himself
smile. “I see. Missing science are we?”
    “Phys Ed,” said one of the boys. “Too hot
to run around.”
    Dex glanced at the others.
    “English,” a couple said guiltily.
“Geography,” said another. A few others insisted they really were interested in
joining, but he suspected it was more out of politeness than anything.
    “Okay,” he said. “So let me ask you
something else. Why aren’t you interested in joining?”
    The boy nearest him shrugged. “They won’t
want me. They just want white fellas.”
    “Well that’s rubbish for a start,” Dex said.
“We run special programmes to encourage young Maori men and women like
yourselves to join, and I know half a dozen great Maori officers.”
    The boy shrugged again. “They won’t want
me. I’ve been in trouble.”
    Dex hesitated. He didn’t talk much about
his past. He’d had to declare it when he applied to the Force, of course, and
without the support of his mentor, he didn’t think he’d have made it through
the interviews. And of course Honey knew, and therefore probably did most of
her family, although they’d never mentioned it. But he never spoke about it to
his friends, maybe because he was worried of their reaction—that they’d treat
him differently if they knew.
    But he was here to reach out to these young
men and women. And how could he do that if he didn’t tell it like it was?
    “You want to know why I joined?” he asked.
    The boy shrugged, but a flicker of interest
crossed his features.
    Dex tried not to look at the teacher
listening intently to one side of the classroom. “I got into trouble when I was
sixteen.”
    They all stared at him.
    “What kind of trouble?” asked the boy in
front of him.
    “Theft.” Dex cleared his throat. Then he
sighed. What did it matter? It was all in the past. “I come from Wellington. My
parents separated when I was eight and my mum moved back to England, where she
was born. My two brothers and I lived with my dad. All he wanted was for us to
be quiet around the house and help out with his painting business at the
weekend. He didn’t really care how we did at school—he never came to parents’
evenings or read our reports or anything.”
    A couple of the boys nodded, clearly
associating with that image.
    “I didn’t do well at school,” he continued.
“I was fairly bright, but I couldn’t see the point in bothering. I was never
going to go to