The Kākāpō Count

The road ended at the water.

Mara had not quite believed it until it happened. For two days, Uncle Tama's old van had rattled south and west, through farmland, then through hills, then through mountains so steep and close that the road had to squeeze between them like a thread through a needle. And then, very early on the third morning, in a grey drizzle that seemed less like rain and more like the air itself being damp, the road simply stopped. There was a small car park, a jetty, a wooden hut with a noticeboard, and beyond that nothing but water and mountains, the mountains going straight down into the water and, Mara supposed, straight on down underneath it.

"Fiordland," said Uncle Tama happily, climbing out and stretching until his back clicked. "End of the world. Best place in it."

Uncle Tama was Mara's mother's younger brother. He was large and cheerful and had a beard like a hedge, and he sang while he cooked, very loudly and very badly, which was why, he said, he always volunteered somewhere far away from other people. For the last six years he had been the volunteer cook for the kākāpō count on Te Motu Kōtuku. This year, for the first time, Mara was coming too.

It had taken a lot of arranging. There had been forms. There had been a health check, and a letter from school, and a long phone call between Mara's mother and somebody called Mere Tipene, who was, Uncle Tama said, the lead ranger, and the most important person Mara would ever meet, and who did not, Uncle Tama said, suffer fools. At the end of the phone call Mara's mother had put the phone down and looked at Mara for a long moment.

"Three weeks," she had said. "No complaining about the rain. Do exactly what Mere says. And whatever you do, do not lose anything on that island, because she will find it, and she will know it was you."

Mara had promised.

Now Mara stood at the end of the jetty with a backpack that had been checked and emptied and checked again, looking out at the water. It was very dark, nearly black, and absolutely still. Far out, a long way off, a ribbon of white mist lay along it like a scarf somebody had dropped.

"There," said Uncle Tama, pointing.

A boat was coming out of the mist. It was small and blunt and white, with a blue stripe and a wheelhouse at the back, and it came on very steadily, without hurry, leaving a long silver V on the black water behind it. Painted on its bow, in neat letters, was a single word: Kōtare.

"Hemi," said Uncle Tama. "He doesn't say much. Don't take it personally."

Hemi Rāwiri brought the Kōtare alongside so gently that it barely kissed the jetty. He was a short, broad man in a woollen hat and an orange jacket that had faded nearly to pink, and he looked at Mara, and at Mara's backpack, and at Uncle Tama, and nodded once.

"Boots," he said.

They took their boots off on the jetty. Hemi scrubbed every one of them in a tub of something that smelled of swimming pools, and checked the soles with a torch, and then went through both backpacks again, pocket by pocket, while Mara watched, astonished.

"Seeds," said Uncle Tama quietly. "Mice. Ants. Anything. One pregnant mouse in your bag, and that's the island gone. Every bird on it." He shook his head. "Not on Hemi's boat."

Hemi found a single grass seed in the cuff of Mara's sock. He held it up between finger and thumb, and looked at Mara for a long, silent moment, and then dropped it into a little plastic bag and sealed it.

"Good," he said, which Mara found extremely confusing, until Uncle Tama explained that it meant he had found it here, and not there.

Then they were aboard, and the jetty slid away behind them, and the Kōtare turned out into the black water, towards the mist and the mountains and the island where, Uncle Tama said, some of the last kākāpō in the world were waiting to be counted.

The trip would take three hours. Mara could go and stand at the bow, out in the weather, and watch the sound unroll ahead. Or Mara could squeeze into the warm wheelhouse beside Hemi, who did not say much.

The wheelhouse was warm and smelled of diesel, wet wool and instant coffee.

Hemi did not say anything when Mara squeezed in. He just moved over, about two centimetres, which seemed to mean welcome. There was a chart on a board beside the wheel, and a radio that crackled now and then, and a small screen where a green line drew the shape of the sea floor underneath them. The line went down and down and down.

"Is it deep?" Mara asked.

Hemi tapped the screen. "Four hundred metres."

Mara looked out at the black water and felt a little dizzy.

For a long time neither of them said anything. Then, without taking his eyes off the water, Hemi reached into his jacket and took out a battered photograph in a plastic sleeve and handed it to Mara.

It was a bird. A huge, round, moss-green bird, with a face like an owl and a wise, worried look, sitting in the arms of a woman in a ranger's jacket. The bird was looking straight at the camera. It looked as if it had opinions.

"Kōhatu," said Hemi. "Old fella. He'll find you."

"Find me?"

Hemi almost smiled. "He likes people. Climbs on them." He took the photograph back and tucked it away. "Don't let Mere see you laughing."

"Why not?"

Hemi thought about this for so long that Mara decided he was not going to answer. Then he said: "Because she laughs too. She doesn't like people to see."

The island came out of the mist all at once.

It was smaller than Mara had imagined, and greener, and wilder: a long, steep, forested hump rising out of the sound, with a pebble beach at one end and, set back in the trees, a low wooden hut with a tin roof and a thin curl of smoke coming from its chimney. As the Kōtare came in towards the beach, a figure walked down out of the trees and stood at the water's edge, waiting, with arms folded.

She was not tall. She wore a green ranger's jacket, gumboots, and a woollen hat pulled down low, and she had grey streaks in her hair and the kind of face that looked as though it had spent a long time in weather. She watched the boat come in without moving at all.

"Mere," said Uncle Tama, under his breath, and straightened up a little, as if he were at school.

Hemi nosed the Kōtare in until the bow grated softly on the pebbles. Mere Tipene looked up at Mara, standing at the rail. Her eyes were dark and sharp and missed absolutely nothing.

"You're Tama's," she said.

"Yes," said Mara.

"You found the seed?"

Mara glanced at Hemi. Hemi was looking at the sky.

"Hemi found it," said Mara. "In my sock."

Mere looked at Mara for a long moment. Then something happened at the corner of her mouth that was not quite a smile, but was not far off one either.

"Good," she said. "Honest. That's the first thing." She turned and started walking back up the beach. "Boots off at the hut. Count starts at dusk. Welcome to Te Motu Kōtuku."