One Crazy Bird by Becca

CRASH! "Oh no, it's broken something in the lounge!" He rushed into the lounge, and the sight inside made him stop in his tracks. Thinking back to the beginning of the day, Fred remembered how this had all started...

Fred was playing on the computer. He was supposed to be doing his chores, but he didn't care. His mum had gone out to do the shopping, so she couldn't tell him what to do. He was so engaged in the game he was playing he didn't notice when something flew in through the open window and landed on the kitchen bench. It saw the closed window on the other side of the room, in the bit that was Fred's lounge. Thinking it was open, the sparrow flapped its wings and took off, knocking over a vase. CRASH! Shards of purple and blue china flew through the air like razor-edged raindrops. Fred rushed into the kitchen and saw the sad, shattered remains of what had once been his mother's prize vase. "Oh no! Mum's gonna kill me!" he groaned. THUMP! "What was that?" His eyes wandered to the window and there he saw a little brown shape, lying on its back. It hopped to its feet and squawked at him. Suddenly it shot into the air and knocked over and entire shelf of glass ornaments. "I think it's a sparrow." Fred thought.

Fred panicked. "If I don't get this thing soon," He thought, watching it glide to the couch and rip up a pillow, "It's going to wreck the house!" He grabbed the thing nearest to his hand and threw it with all his might... before realizing it was a pillow. It missed the sparrow completely and landed in the sink. After throwing a couple more things he gave up. He decided he'd just open all the doors and windows, completely forgetting his mum was a writer, and she had left the bits of paper that made up her latest story lying around before going to do the shopping. The gale coming through the windows started making the paper blow around, so he had to close the windows before it blew out. Mum's story was scattered across the floor. Fred made a mental note to clean that up.

After a quick glance at the clock he realized he only had half an hour before his mum got home. He panicked and started running around in circles before thinking of a plan. "I'll just go into the garage, grab some birdseed and lure the sparrow outside with it." He said aloud. When he returned to the lounge after hearing something else break,the sight inside made him stop in his tracks, drop the box of birdseed and mutter "Oh, my gosh!" The lounge was a complete bombsite! Shards of vases, dinner plates and cups littered the floor along with torn fragments of his mum's story and ripped-up cushions were strewn across the couches.

The sparrow was perched atop a high shelf, staring at him with empty, black eyes, watching his frantic attempts to clean up the mess. Fred gritted his teeth, muttering, "at least I can finally get this mess cleaned up. No thanks to you!" He added, looking up at the bird and clenching his fists. "If you hadn't come here in the first place, none of this would have happened!" The bird returned his gaze and gave a "Chirp chirp!" Of protest. "Oh, come on, don't deny it!" Fred yelled. "You're the one who wrecked the house!" "Tweet." The bird replied. "Oh, I'm talking to a bird!" He cried, throwing up his arms. After that, both bird and Fred remained silent.

After another twenty minutes of cleaning, Fred heard the sound of a car coming up the driveway. "Mum's home!" Fred, exclaimed, but, looking down at the mess, his face fell as he realized he still had heaps more to clean up. He heard the car door closing and the door into the hallway opening... his mum's footsteps coming up the hallway... she was coming in through the door and she screamed. "AHHHHHHHH!!!!!" "Er... hi... Mum..." Said Fred feebly. "What... you... happened...?" She stammered, glaring at the mess as though willing it to disappear. Suddenly Fred burst into a rather bad explanation. "Mum... sparrow... vase... pillow... HELP!!!!" He stammered. His mother stared at him. "You know," She said, "I don't want to hear it. Just get this mess cleaned up." "O-Okay" Fred stammered. Then when his mother left the room, he glared up at the sparrow and said, " I hate you." "Tweet."

Mt Ruapehu

First I'd like to say sorry that I didn't tell you who was writing on the post before this.

It's Becca, one of the kids in room 14.

Anyway, on Saturday we left Rotorua and went to Mt Ruapehu. For about an hour what I saw out the window was either pine/temperate forest and/or meadows/towns, then as we went up the mountain it was cold scrublands (tussock grass and other small plants) which finally turned into snowy rocks. Now, this was the first time I had EVER seen snow, so I want you to imagine it. Imagine the first time you saw snow, and how excited you were. Now imagine how excited you would have been if you had been hearing about how awesome the snow was for about 5 years and not seen it at all until now. Now you know how I felt. I'm 10 now. I was also ten when I saw it.

We were planning to stay there for 2 hours. That was until we discovered that it was 2 degrees outside with 80 kilometer-an-hour winds. Because of that, we stayed for about 2 seconds! We put on warm clothes, crossed the road, picked up a chunk of ice, chucked it in the chilly-bin, and got back in the car! We did stop to look at some icicles on the way down though, and they were really cool.

The picture shows me and my mum by the icicles, and the mountain from the southern side.

Whakarewarewa

On Friday the 19th, I was not at school. I was about 457 kilometers away, in Rotorua, by the time everyone else was sitting around eating lunch. To be exact, I was in Whakarewarewa village. (It is pronouced faka-rae-wa-rae-wa. You can visit their website here.) This village is surrounded by geysers and steam vents, as well as boiling hotpools. The photos show a meeting house through the steam, and a place where the ground is falling away because of the steam. The surface temperature on some of the hotpools is about 200 degrees celcius! THAT IS HOT!!!! The deeper down in the pool you get, the hotter it is. People live in the village too, and they use some of the pools for cooking stuff like sweetcorn in little netted bags held up by a string tied to a rock. They also have put little boxes with lids over some of the steam vents so they can cook their dinner. You can walk all the way around the village and see all the hot pools. You can actually move into the village if you are from the same bloodline as the people living there, but I recommend you don't, not because the people there aren't nice, but because it smells like rotten eggs! Despite the smell, I think it would be really cool to live there! The people are really nice and all from the same bloodline, but there are 26 different families living there. I'll tell you more about the rest of my holiday in later posts (like maybe tomorrow!)

The Secret Lives of School Bags

Today we played a little game I like to call Innies and Outies. We sit in a double circle, one on the inside of the other. Mr Hall picks a topic he wants us to talk about. Today's one was "Things In My Bag".
One of the girls said her buddy had a sea of rubbish at the bottom of their bag. They said they need to clean it up! One of our ten-year-old boys has a baby toy in his bag! One person keeps their luchbox open ALL THE TIME. This causes all the lunch to fall out. Someone has 9 things in their luchbox. One of our 9-year-old girls has another sea of rubbish, as well as two very muddy toy cars that drown in it!
One of the boys used to have a 'Barney and Friends' raincoat!

One of the boys has a cashew nut wrapped in a blanket (the cashew nut is also broken in half. It was wrapped in a blanket to keep warm.) The broken cashew nut has been lost! Here is a photo of the empty blanket.


One of the ten year old boys has a screw in his bag. The screw, named Lenny, has been in this bag since year 4, but we think it is lost.

This bag also has a comb that looks very much like it needs a wash. It is covered in hair gel.
Would YOU use this comb!?

What secrets do you have in YOUR bag?



By Becca. Roving reporter for the Huia Whanau.

Beach Treasure By Becca

It was already hot and for some reason Mum was rushing around grabbing stuff. "Come on." She said, "We're going out." Could this have anything to do with the surprise she was talking about the night before? When I went to the car, in the back seat was Mum's purple backpack that she usually uses when she goes to the gym. Now THAT was weird! Was Mum taking me to the GYM?! But no, the dogs were also in the car so it couldn't be that.

"Mum." I asked as we were driving past the dairy at the top of the hill, "Where are we going?" Mum just kept looking at the road. "Is it the pool?" Still silence. "The mall?" More silence. "The Library?" This was getting annoying. "How about the beach?" This time at least I got a reply. "Maybe" Mum said. 'YES!' I thought. I know that when mum says maybe, she usually means yes. We were going to the beach!

After what seemed like a million years we drove into the familiar car park of Karekare beach. The second I stepped out the door I was almost knocked off my feet by a howling wind. While I was waiting for Mum I went around to the back of the toilets where I could see the beach. I could see the hot sand, where it was made mud-like by the pounding waves, the soggy debris scattered by the tide, the volcanic rocks in one corner of the beach beside the towering cliffs. Then Mum called me back to the path and we walked down to the beach.

We put down our stuff in a corner of the beach beside the rocks. Mum gave me a plastic bag and told me to go look for shells. I walked over to a bunch of rocks that looked like a good place to find shells. I looked behind a rock and... "WOW!!!" I exclaimed! There was an amazing array of shells, some broken or dirty with sand, but all with fascinating colours and shapes. Suddenly I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. I turned around and I saw it, even though it was five large rocks away. It was huge, and coloured like the rainbow.

It was the most beautiful shell ever. I HAD to get it! And to do that, I had to climb over the rocks. The huge, slippery, sharp, granite rocks. What would YOU have done? Maybe put your bag down and shoes on first, unlike me. I scrambled onto the first rock. After a few painful minutes, I was close enough to reach the shell. I reached out, stretched a bit more... "GOT IT!" I yelled triumphantly. I sat down on the rock to inspect my shell. Suddenly, out popped a head. Followed by a claw. The little crab decided that he'd rather be back on his rock, and nipped my finger before I could drop him. "OW!!" I yelled and, without thinking, I threw the shell away!

I sighed. I guessed I wasn't meant to have the shell after all. "Come on, Becca!" Mum called, "Time to go!"

"Coming!" I called back, as I climbed over the rocks. 'Oh well,' I thought, 'Maybe it'll be there again next time.'