Grass Stains, Ghosts, and a Missing Chicken

"Come onnnnn, let's goooooo," Olivia called down the hallway. Her blonde head poked around the corner towards her brother's closed bedroom door. Without warning, David flew from his room and tore down the hallway past Olivia, through the kitchen and out the back door. Olivia squealed and ran after the boy-shaped tornado. A game! And it's only just after sunrise! 

"Bye, Mum!" David called.  

Standing at the kitchen sink, their mother stuck her head out the kitchen window as David and Olivia ran under the sill. Their attention focused only on the fence at the end of the yard.  

"You two be careful", she called. Her top half hung out the window as she tried to maneuver her face under the open window. "And don't forget…."  

Too late.  

Their mother's attempts to remind, lecture, advise, or caution were now a muffled squawk, drowned out by the crunch of the gravel driveway. It's not like the kids didn't know what their mother would say anyway; David and Olivia had heard the same thing every time they left the house to play on the farm. Every. Single. Time.  

Rule #1: Don't go outside the farm boundaries. As a 6-year-old, Olivia had zero idea of where the property boundary was and held an equal disinterest in further learning. That was the job of her big brother, who was four years older and tasked with the directive: "look after your sister". Their parents forbade the kids to go past the swimming hole (the one with the rope swing) and stay inside the fence adjacent to a small empty silo.  

Rule #2: Be home before dark. This was a statement with no substance - as if the kids would ever miss a Saturday lunch or a dinner, the idea didn't even cross their minds. But of course, as this was rule #2, the rules had to be reiterated.   

Rule #3: Stay within earshot. The truth be told, this rule was a little unnecessary. Their mother once stood at the fence line with her bellowing voice, calling their names with such volume that nearby livestock mistook the call to announce feeding time. They galloped to the fence to see only a large woman in gumboots baring no food and were shooed away, hungry and confused. 

The adventure was now in full swing; David and Olivia ran down the gravel driveway adjacent to the house. They raced past the small garage with its recently broken window, evidence of a terrible event a few months before. The pet peacock - curious, just not that smart - ventured into the garage; becoming disoriented and desperate for escape, it flew through the closed window. Miraculously he was unharmed, but caused quite a commotion for the dogs, scared the guinea fowls half to death and caused the chickens such distress they wouldn't lay eggs for weeks.  

The kids stomped past the white Ute parked in the driveway and past their bikes. David's gold BMX was strewn on the grass as he dismounted before stopping. At the same time, Olivia had rested her small pink bike (correctly) on its stand. Now onto the final stretch, they passed the chicken coop, the former home of Olivia's one-time pet chicken, Vicky. 

A few months before, their Dad, somehow unable to discern the difference between Vicky, a plump white chicken from the other 30-odd plump white chickens, indiscriminately culled a portion of the coop's clucky residents. Both parents became acutely aware of their mistake when Olivia spent the afternoon searching frantically for her beloved Vicky. That night it was suggested - not that the children's naivety was being exploited - but perhaps Vicky may have been taken by a weasel? As dinner reached the table, this suggestion was delivered simultaneously as the rabbit stew. A very chicken tasting rabbit stew indeed. 

"I won!" David said as he arrived at the fence before his sister, cementing the victory with a tap of the wood. 

"Urgh, it wasn't even a competition", Olivia scoffed.  

But to the commonly undiagnosed 1980s ADHD boy, everything was a competition. At a fast pace. All the time. Where inquisitiveness was taken as naughtiness and boredom as rudeness. However, when David had the opportunity to run on the farm, he took it. And he was always first. 

David leapt over the turnstile and pelted across the grass towards the open farm, borderless and vast. While careful to navigate the turnstile, Olivia jumped heavily onto the ground on the other side of the fence and ran after her brother.  

"Wait for meeeeee", she called to David, who, as expected, didn't wait.  

They ran in a single line. David led, and Olivia tried to catch up. Behind them, growing smaller in the distance, was their house, and to the right was the long clothesline in the centre of an otherwise empty paddock. The wind whipped the washing so violently unshielded by trees that the sheets wound around the line into a tight fabric cylinder.   

"Want to go along the riverbed or up the hill? Olivia asked.  

"The hill," David said confidently as he picked up a stick and started to thrash the tops of the tall thistle bushes.  

"Yeah, but let's just walk, ok," Olivia grinned. Once she saw David wholly distracted by his attacks on the thistle, she ran for it - as fast as her legs would go - and she was winning for a few brief seconds.   

At the top of the hill, the kids looked out over the property. The grass was thick and lush from the regular New Zealand rain. The bright green slope of the hill was scattered with small bushes, rocks and thistles. Past the bottom of the hill was another winding dirt road that connected the house with the farmland. They could make out, past the tall but spindly trees, the riverbed.    

At the bottom of the hill lay the overused old potato sacks. David and Olivia ran down the hill to retrieve them; momentum nearly toppled them over as they tried to control their pace. Lugging the sacks back up the hill, David perched himself high on top of the slope; Olivia joined him, side by side in a race. They sat on the sacks and curled the front edge up like a toboggan. 1... 2...3...GO! Their bodies lunged forward, and they were off!  

Expertly navigating their way past the piles of rock, past the thistle bushes (thank God!), they dodged and weaved, avoiding calamity. Olivia overcorrected, and the sack slid out from underneath, sending her flying and rolling down a good portion of the hill on her butt. David seeing his sister unhurt, started laughing as Olivia scrambled to her feet to inspect the damage. Grass stains on her elbows and a long green skid mark down her left leg, which took the brunt of the fall. Twigs stuck out at all angles in her boy-cut hair. The knees of the tracksuit, with a long history of mending, were decorated in patches. A red apple with a smiling face on the left knee and a rainbow on the right knee. David's matching tracksuit pants told their own tale with a skull patch on his left knee. Soon enough, the laws of hand-me-downs would dictate that those pants with the skull patch would soon be Olivia's.  

Lugging the sack once again up the hill, they repeated the fun. Up the hill. Down the hill. Up the hill. Down the hill. Eventually, David (calling the shots again) announced it was time to find something else to do. Throwing the sacks back down at the base of the hill, they trudged their way off the grass and followed the long dirt roadway.  

Ahead, between the rows of trees and slightly off onto the grass, stood the old tractor. It was long out of order, its metal seat rusted with holes, baring only wheel frames with no tyres - it was discarded and forgotten. The kids climbed on, David in the driver's seat, and Olivia perched on the metal railing; her sense of fun overshadowed her discomfort.  

"Imagine driving home on this thing", David said. "Reahhhhm Reahhhhm", the changing of the gears, the pulling of unknown knobs and the pressing of now useless buttons.   

Olivia laughed, picturing her mother's reaction. David being chased around the yard, their mother in her gumboots, her face increasingly ruddy, waving her arms.  

"Reahhhhhm", David animatedly turned the steering wheel like the movies. Suddenly he stopped. "Did you hear that?" he asked Olivia, who froze. 

"What?" she asked, moving only her eyeballs and grinning at the potential for another game.  

"You don't see it? David asked as he looked behind his sister, his face in animated shock. "Don't move; it's right behind you." 

"Nooooo....what is it?" Olivia squealed in a high-pitched voice.  

"Shhhhh... it's a ghost." 

Unwilling to speak, Olivia tried to steady herself on the cold metal frame. 

"I think it will try and sit on you," David said. "We need to make a run for it, ok?"  

Olivia gave a long, slow nod. 

"On three, ok?" David said.  

"You wait for me, though". 

"Yeah yeah...Ok, three, two, one...RUN! Goooooo". David had already leapt off the tractor and hurtled down the dirt road towards the open paddock, never intending to wait for Olivia.  

Olivia leapt off the tractor and screamed until she and David reached a clearing to the right of the dirt track. They know there is a hiding spot, a ditch deep enough to be invisible to the roadside. They crossed the grass and jumped into the ditch, their backs flat against the earth like soldiers escaping the enemy fire.  

"Daviiiid! You said you would wait; you never wait for me!" Olivia said. 

David laughed between trying to catch his breath and ignored her complaints. "Wanna go to the river?" he asked. 

"Yeah, let's go to the swimming hole", Olivia said, quick to forgive. "I wanna jump off the rope".  

"You're not scared this time?" David taunted.  

"Shuddup, that was one time". Olivia replied.  

Pulling themselves out of the ditch, they made their way towards the sound of the flowing creek to the swimming hole, the boundary to the property. Quickly stripping off their respective track pants at the riverside in an unabashed childlike fashion, they ran towards the water in their underwear.  

David latched onto the rope from a sturdy branch hanging over the water. Pulling back as far as he could, he took a run-up flying off the river back and over the water letting go at the exact moment – Plop!  

When David resurfaced, Olivia quizzed him on the water temperature, knowing full well that the river's freshwater was always cold; her question meant to ask exactly HOW cold it really was.  

"Cold? Nah, it's good", David replied through chattering teeth. 

Olivia grabbed the rope, took a run up and launched into the water. Hitting the water was like needles into her skin, so shockingly cold, it took her breath away. She kicked furiously to the surface after what felt like an eternal deep dive into a frozen abyss. 

"Urghhhhh, sooooo cold!" Olivia screamed as she surfaced.  

David scrambled up the bank and attempted another rope dive into the water. Not nearly as brave (or foolish), Olivia assessed the outside air was even more freezing now that she was wet - and opted to stay put. Beneath the surface, Olivia could feel movement against her legs. She looked down in the clear water, unbothered to see eels twisting their bodies through her legs; their smooth, slimy skin made her giggle.   

After a while, conceding it really was that cold, they scrambled up the bank to their pile of clothes. They stuffed their wet feet into their socks and put on their matching black and white sneakers (more hand-me-down opportunities). They gathered up their clothes, tucked them under one arm and ran along the riverbank in their sopping underwear. The icy wind was like thorns against their bare bodies.  

Out of breath, David and Olivia arrived upriver. Now dry from the wind, they put on their clothes, their underwear still damp and uncomfortable. Their favourite spot, a part of the riverbank, was protected by two large trees. Underfoot was mud and red clay, messy, thick and sticky. Small clay balls in a pile near a tree showed evidence of their last adventure. Wordlessly, they get to work keeping hidden from the protection of the trees; they made more and more clay balls the size of tennis balls. Ready and prepared.  

David rose and checked the river.  

"D'ya see Paul?" Olivia asked. 

"Nup, not yet", David said as he returned to work. 

Soon, they hear the river begin to change. It's not flowing; it's slapping and moving. It's battling against an intruder.  

"I think that's him", David says. 

Olivia squealed and clasped her hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle. Paul was Davids's best friend from school. His parents owned the farm next to theirs, and every Saturday morning, he took his homemade raft down the river. Clearly, his Mum hadn't told him about the property boundaries.  

"Tell me when", said Olivia. 

"Shhhh, I'll tell you. Just be quiet." 

"Heheehehe". 

"SHHH!!!" 

Olivia clamped her mouth again. She waited for David's cue. As if she would ever go first and risk messing it all up.  

David, clay ball in hand, hurled it at Paul and smacked him in the arm.  

"Aurghhhhh" Paul yelled and looked up towards the flying missile. 

Olivia threw her soft clay ball. Missed. She threw again. Missed again. She thought this was the best, picking up another ball with the skill of someone in for fun and not the purpose. She continued to miss.  

David, successful with all attempts, now made his presence known. 

"Oh, hi, David", Paul laughed. 

"Hi, Paul", David waved. "What are you doing?". 

"Came to see if you wanna come back to my house for lunch," Paul asked. "Mum won't mind". 

"Better not", David said.  

"Ok, maybe next Saturday? Will you ask your Mum?". 

"Yeah ok",. 

"Ok, well, see ya". Paul awkwardly turned his clumsy raft around and made his way back up the river to his house. The flowing water proved much more difficult for the 10-year-old than he anticipated. It would be a long journey home.  

"I'm hungry", David announced. Not knowing the time and guided only by their stomachs, the kids made their way home. They clambered up the hill to another gravel road connecting the farm to the house and out to the main road.  

"Muuuuuum", David said, announcing their arrival. The smell of bacon and pastry wafting out of the kitchen windows.  

"You two back? Must be hungry, are you? Their mother asked, knowing the reason for their timely presence.  

David and Olivia stood on the back steps of the house. When they left that morning just before 7am, they were vastly different looking children to what was presented to their mother around noon.  

"Ok, sit outside. I'll bring you lunch; you're not coming inside looking like that", the children's mother said.  

The kid's black and white sneakers were now a poo brown with flecks of red clay; their tracksuit bottoms had big wet patches from the half-dried underwear (aka the farming swimsuit). Olivia had a swipe of red clay covering her left cheek, and David's hands were the colour of old tobacco. Both children, head to toe in biddy-bids - a small prickly bur that clung to anything like glad wrap. And to top it all off, they reeked! How do they smell so bad! Where have they been? 

David and Olivia inhaled the warm bacon and egg pie as they waited on the back steps. Still warm from the oven, they ate in silence but quickly; there was no time to waste when there were things to do.  

"Wanna go to the silo? Maybe someone has fallen in there," David said. 

Olivia laughed, flecks of egg spraying out of her mouth. "Yeah, maybe they fell in", she parroted.  

David grinned and gobbled up the rest of his pie, winning the lunch race. His empty plate tilted towards Olivia as evidence. 

Leaving their plates on the step, daring not to venture into the kitchen, David announced their departure to their mother.  

Never listening to adults about engaging in activity on a full stomach, David and Olivia ran at full pelt down the gravel road past the garage with the broken window, the chicken coop, and the turnstile. In the faint distance, they hear the final word from their mother, rule number three: You two be back before dark!