“Down I say!” Kotuku repeated, her beak slashing wickedly close to his manhood, “or else —”
Tui knelt on the paepae. There was a moment of suspense. Then Ruru went down on his knees too.
“I will not do it!” Kawau said. “I will not —” Ruru tripped his left foot and Kawau crumpled also.
One by one, all the manu whenua followed suit. Silence fell across the Great Forest of Tane.
“We will never forget you, Skylark,” Tui said, “nor you, Arnie, valiant champion.”
Swayed by the rightness of it all, the manu whenua finally erupted with throbbing cheers and shouted hurrahs. Some surrounded Skylark and Arnie, and many began to fly around the sacred tree. They made of it a whirling bright multi-coloured carousel of joy. Tui warbled with happiness. He saw that the wingless birds were bringing berries and fruits for the feast, and signed for the celebrations to begin. “Eat! Drink! Be merry —”
Right in the middle of it all, Arnie stood up and hugged Skylark in his wings, and was about to peck her — when something shifted, changed. Something came like an invisible fist and smashed all the flying birds to the ground. Everywhere birds were falling, and Skylark would have fallen too had Arnie not been there to hold her.
“It’s happening again,” Skylark said. “Time has begun moving forward.”
Acid rain began to fall, burning Skylark’s feathers. In alarm, the manu whenua sought deep shelter among the leaves of the sacred tree. Looking out Skylark saw the rugged mountains becoming dusted with hoar frost, glacial ice and snow. The surface split and crumbled, forming a corrugated patterns of hooks and chevrons like an ancient nightmare.
“It’s like a nuclear winter,” Arnie said.
The wind came up Manu Valley and in a trice all the birds of the forest were doubled, coughing and vomiting.
“What is causing this?” Tui asked.
Skylark searched the Heavens for an answer. She saw a huge ominous stain spreading from the rip in the sky.
“The poisonous gases of our world are affecting yours,” she said. “In our Time, our world is polluted. All the gases are pouring through the ripped sky.”
“Then it’s time for you to go back,” Kotuku said. “Although I will miss you, Skylark, your task is not over. Return to your own Time and tell the guardians of the future that they must close the ripped sky — not just against the pollution but anything else that might come through. Who knows? Another leader like Kawanatanga may arise, similarly obsessed with world domination. You did well to come here with your message and to help us. It is time for you to return now with mine.”
“Skylark and I should get moving,” Arnie nodded. “We’ve only got a day before the Time Portal closes.”
“Must you really go?” Kahu asked, looking for Kahurangi and motioning her to join him.
“I’m afraid so,” Arnie answered. “The sooner the better. The sun is sinking and the clouds are lowering.”
“What shall we do with the shotgun?” Skylark remembered.
“We’ll just have to leave it here.”
He was so cross with himself for forgetting the time, and now he was getting worried.
Skylark grinned. “That’ll set the cat among the pigeons. What on earth will a future archaeologist think when he comes across this artefact embedded in the Palaeolithic age of birds and dinosaurs.”
But Kahu was still persistent. He sidled up to Arnie and whispered to him. “Are you sure you wouldn’t want to stay behind with us? You are the son I never had. You could marry and bear me strong grandsons. Now, on that score —” he coughed — “I have a lovely daughter. You’ve seen the way she looks at you —”
Kotuku cut Kahu short. She took him aside. “You should know better!” She glanced at Skylark and Arnie. “Love doesn’t work that way.”
“Eh? What?” Kahu asked.
Sometimes, Kotuku sighed, Kahu could be as dumb as. “Kua eke ke taumou na tetahi, kauaka hai raweke,” she scolded him. “Do not interfere with those whose hearts are already reaching out to each other. You may be able to see into the corners of the sky, Kahu, but you are blind at seeing into the corners of the heart. Although they do not know it yet, Skylark and Arnie are as if already betrothed.”
In a last-ditch effort, Kahurangi threw herself into Arnie’s arms, and Skylark herself spoke out. After all, Kahurangi was really pretty and, well, she wasn’t Winona Ryder. “Arnie, if you want to stay, then stay. You’ve done your job, and I’m grateful. I’ll be able to make it back by myself.”
Arnie’s face blanched. He stared at Skylark as if she didn’t know anything.
“How can you say that to me, Skylark?” he asked. “Don’t turn your face away from me.”
“Don’t you want to keep on playing the hero?”
“Skylark,” Arnie answered, “where you go, I go.”
After that, it all happened so quickly. The Runanga a Manu set up a loud trilling farewell. Chieftain Ruru and his owl clan began a series of sad, lugubrious poroporoaki. Skylark found it difficult to leave them.
“We must go,” Arnie said. “Now, Skylark.”
“Goodbye,” Skylark cried. “Manu whenua, live forever —”
She lifted into the air, Arnie beside her, and they began their return journey to the Time Portal.
“Don’t look back,” Arnie said. Even so, long after they had left the twin mountains, Skylark could still hear the trilling birds.
Kotuku and Kahu escorted them as far as Cook Strait. The Great White Egret and her kung fu warriors also accompanied them, and then turned to the east for their flight back to China.
“It has been an honour,” Yu Shu Lien said. “I will take back with me to my side of the world the story of the extraordinary exploits that have taken place, here, at the end of the sky.” Then she led her warriors from that place, flying fast and in a pefect V-formation, falling like feathers into the setting sun.
“We must hurry,” Arnie said. He turned to embrace Chieftain Kahu. “I have travelled under the protection of the white hawk,” he said to Kahu, who couldn’t disguise the tears at the corners of his eyes. “When I return to the future, I promise that your descendants will travel under mine.”
“Farewell, Chieftainess,” Kotuku said to Skylark. “I will carry you in my heart forever.”
Skylark and Arnie flew up into the sky. The emotion was too much for Te Arikinui Kotuku. Her filamentous wings glittered in the sunlight as she sang a waiata of farewelclass="underline"
“Haere ra e te hine, farewell, Skylark, farewell, farewell, oh farewell …”
Skylark and Arnie climbed towards the clouds. The sky was empty, oh so empty, and Skylark felt very alone. At least Arnie was there. No matter that she had offered him the chance to stay in this world, she was glad he was coming back to hers. But she was worried about him too. The blood was seeping through the poultice from his injured wing. All the way up, Skylark tried to find thermals, any little upward current that would make flying easier for him.
“As soon as we get home, I’m taking you straight to a doctor,” Skylark said.
“That won’t do my wing any good,” Arnie quipped. “I need a vet. Actually, speaking of home, it’s sure going to seem pretty quiet after all we’ve been through, isn’t it? No one will believe us of course, but the things we will have to tell our children —”
“What! Our children?”
“Oh.” Arnie blushed, trying to cover his tracks. “Well, after all, one of these days you’ll get married and, uh, I’ll probably get married, not to each other of course, and um —”
“I’m never getting married,” Skylark cut in. “I’ve been a witness to one bad marriage and I’m not about to repeat their mistake, thank you very much.” Having feelings for Arnie was one thing, but marriage? Whoa!