Aroha Witinitara
Anga Atu
We eat our fish and chips off the green-and-tan plastic prison plates
that come with matching knives and forks that no one bothers to use.
We drink hot milo out of the glass marae mugs
and snap our bikkies in half so we can dunk ’em.
The snacks are kept in a little cabinet on top of the fridge.
Everyone knows that the red K-Bars are the best,
that’s the box that always sells out first.
The purple ones are a close second.
My introduction to inflation came when they put up the price of the Freddo frogs.
It’s Aunty Jan’s job to guard them. She isn’t very good at that job.
Every time we play a round of table tennis, she gives one to the winner,
so we play a lot of table tennis.
We play with bats that we made ourselves.
We have proper ones, with the smelly red rubber, and little girly handles,
it’s just that no one likes to use them.
The table was donated to us a long time ago, it came with a net,
but someone flipped the table after losing a game and bent it out of shape.
Uncle Tony built something to replace it in the woodworking room.
A long wooden bar, slightly taller than the original net.
It’s proven to be much harder to break.
Sometimes we play pool but not often.
We much prefer to play on the computers.
They’re kept separately from everything else, to reinstate their specialness.
Only one game is deemed appropriate to build our teamwork skills: CS:GO.
Six computers, working so hard that they heat the space a few extra degrees.
The room runs on a strict schedule.
There are hooks on the wall, in little rows of six,
and an ice-cream container full of little plastic keychains with our names on them.
The names on top are next ones in line,
and there’s an oven timer, set to scream at twenty-minute intervals.
The second the timer goes off the foreboding rumble of footsteps approaches.
Players scramble to avoid getting trampled.
The night ends in the dining room.
Someone reads the karakia off the laminated sheet.
But not before you, Take. Your. Hat. Off.
Uncle Tony has planned out the most efficient way to drive everyone home,
he always tries to sort the naughty kids into his van,
it’s one of his many looming punishments.
I always go in Aunty Jan’s van because it’s more fun
and I get to sit in the front seat.
It gets quieter and quieter as we check the houses off our list.
Aroha Witinitara has work published in Salient, The Dominion Post and Wairarapa News. They are currently studying a Bachelor of Communication at Victoria University.