New to Thieves? Start here
The island of Fiji sailed into the distance with the Chief Kiwi in chains. Her kinfolk sat forlornly on Bondi Beach.
‘I hope you’re feeling proud of yourself,’ Hemi snapped at Stu. The poor young Kiwi sank his head and looked away.
‘That’s enough of that talk, Hemi,’ said Shirelle sharply. ‘We can play the blame game later, if we need, when all this is over. Right now we need to keep our heads. We’re Kiwis, goddamit!’
‘Well, what exactly do you think we’re going to do about this?’ said Hemi, his voice rising to a shout. ‘We’re stuck in bloody Australia. The South Island has been stolen. Chief Kiwi is in Pacific Police custody and Grandad Kiwi is asleep on the Northland!’
‘We still have one card to play,’ said Shirelle. ‘Old Granny K.’
She looked out to the horizon. Somewhere, beyond the sea, high on flat white, New Zealand’s oldest Kiwi was hunting her lost homeland.
‘C’mon, Granny,’ said Shirelle. ‘You’re our only hope.’
*
A long, lonely night passed for the Kiwis on Bondi Beach. While they slept, hoping for a brighter morrow, a single figure carved the waves of the Pacific with a graceful front crawl.
Granny K swam through the night on the South Island’s trail. She rested occasionally by hitching a lift with a whale or a dolphin. Marine life instinctively recognised the good nature of all Kiwis, and they were pleased to help Granny on her quest. It seemed the stars would never give way to day, but eventually the sun rose once more on the vast Pacific.
The first rays of light skimmed the surface of the water and struck a long, dark object drifting in the currents.
The lights were off on the South Island. Every building was dark, every streetlamp extinguished. The solitary swimmer found her way ashore in the dim glow of a natural dawn.
Old Granny Kiwi, running on sheer willpower and caffeine, waded the last few steps out of the water and onto the soft sands. Her bare feet padded along her native shore and she felt revived with pure Kiwicity.
When her whole body had absorbed its fill of energy, resolve and sheer national pride, she took stock of her surroundings. Birds, woken by first light, were singing from the bushes beyond the rolling dunes. A single crab scuttled across the damp, packed sand close to the water’s edge.
There was not an Aussie in sight.
Old Granny K had been around long enough to know both islands like the back of her hand. She jogged inland with the confident sense of direction of a woman walking her own garden path.
‘Find the Aussies, stop the Aussies,’ she told herself. Chief Kiwi had given her mission and a flat white. The coffee’s effects were beginning to ebb after the long swim, but Granny Kiwi’s resolve was still strong. She sniffed the air for the tell-tale scent of Aussie.
There was nothing.
She could detect the fragrance of blossom, the salt of the ocean, even the warm, lived-in smell of Kiwiland, rather like the cosy smell of one’s own childhood duvet.
There was something new, however. Familiar, but far too strong. Something…not quite human.
She came over the crest of the hill.
In the marsh valley that lay below, there was a vast sealed cube, as big as a house and built of glass.
It was jam-packed with writhing humanity.
Old Granny K’s eyes weren’t what they once were. She fished a pince-nez from her pocket and perched it on her nose.
The figures trapped under glass came into focus.
There were 22 million of them. Aussies.
Goddamn Aussies. Sealed in a cube.
‘G’day,’ said Bruce, his face squashed against the cube.
Old Granny Kiwi sniffed the air once more – again there was that odour. Not Aussie B.O. but something distinct, curious…and yet strangely familiar.
She put it from her mind.
‘I think you’ve got some explaining to do, Aussies,’ she said.