Thanks to my Grandpa hitting the back of Papa's seat with his walking cane my head bolted forward while I was fumbling around in my pockets trying to find my old wrapper with the bubble gum in it. Leaning back after calming the rhythm of my heart beat down, I glanced sideways, and saw what Grandpa was looking at.

We were outside an old, abandoned house.

The corrugated iron roof had long since fallen apart. Kids must have been playing around the home because the windows were smashed, and you could see old, ripped curtains blowing with the wind. Where the balustrades weren't damaged, there was a rocking chair gently swaying back and forth on the balcony. In my own little, but mature mind I concluded that the home was worse for wear. You could see that it had once been white, because the paint had long since scratched in places. Overgrowth was everywhere around it, looking like a scene from those old ghost town in Grandma's old cowboy comics.

Grandpa got out of the car and I hopped out with him.

He told my folks to go into town we would make it there, it wasn't far, after all this was an old country town and he had asked my papa to bring him here.

All of a sudden, my Grandpa had a spring in his step, the walking cane wasn't even touching the ground, He was well ahead of me and opening the wrought iron gate. Throwing the wrapper on the ground, I ran up as Grandpa made his way to the front door. He mumbled, so I mumbled, he walked inside, so I walked inside behind him, he mumbled again, so I did too. We walked on towards the kitchen part of the house, there was a table that had dust all over it broken chairs here and there, the wet back, my Grandpa called it, had birds' nests, cobwebs and leaves over it and the door was slightly open. I dared not look in it for fear a mouse might jump out of it, the curtains on the broken windows were blowing, cupboard doors hanging, empty jars here and there. Above the ceiling was cracked and yellowing, the light bulb was covered in dust.

I guess I knew what was coming and mumbled before he did, I heard him laugh.

I followed him outside the kitchen door and around the now overgrown with weeds and straw backyard, he stopped at the tap and tried turning it. I thought I'd do it for him, he smiled and placed his hand under the water throwing it over his head, flicking water all over him, I did the same as well as the mumbling thing I became accustomed to. You could clearly see the faded outlines of where gardens use to be, with small, jagged rocks emerging from the overgrowth.

We walked back to the front and grandpa picked up the empty birds' nest off the rocking chair, he sat down, and I sat on his knee, holding the nest, we rocked together. "Do you remember me telling you about my Koro and Kuia?" he started, as I nodded, "this was their home" My eyes widened my first thought was, "what happened to it?" My own Grandpa's home that my Papa grew up in was in better condition than this one.

He pointed up the road with his stick, "I lived down there, where that vacant land is" We both looked silently on. "One day I was walking past this house, and Koro was sitting here rocking away with his pipe in his mouth. He saw me and called me over" he let out a small laugh "I yelled back it him, "why, you got money?"

He yelled back "kāore boy, but such as I have, give I unto you"

My grandpa was a cheeky white kid going off the rails, his favourite thing to do was to throw stones in peoples places except this one, and anyway my grandpa told me that the Maori boy who lived there would beat you up. When he opened the gate to walk up to the old man, the boy walked out the door and asked him what he was doing there. His Koro spoke to him in his language, Grandpa didn't know how to speak or understand Maori then, the boy walked off seizing Grandpa up and down. Grandpa stood up straight and did likewise as he heard Koro laughing and waving his stick the same one that is now my Grandpa's, "Haere atu e Tama!" My grandpa being the nosey lad that he was, walked cautiously up to him and that's when Koro handed my grandpa an empty nest. Grandpa had no idea what it meant, but he decided to humour the old man and took it anyway.

Grandpa turned back and stood watching the boy as he walked off shaking his head and asked the old man what he said, the old man said, "I told him you were my grandson." The old man asked him to help him with his garden he wanted to plant some kamo kamo, veges and stuff.   My grandpa didn't mind, he had nothing to do anyway. His Mum was a single mother unheard of in his days and frowned upon, she worked hard to keep the roof over his and her head. After they turned the soil over Koro told Grandpa go in the house and say to the old lady in there "Eh Kuia, Koro asked for our cup of tea, hinu bread, golden syrup and homemade jam and butter please" I saw my Grandpa breathed in as If he could smell the food right now.

Every day after school and in the weekends, my Grandpa was back helping the old man plant, or weed and when the food grew, he took some home for him and his mum. He even learnt how to make this hinu which is what we call fried bread and Kuias berry jam, she helped my Grandpas Mum too. He is even teaching me how to make it, even though my Mummy can already.

He read to the old man and lady when they wanted something read to them, he taught them how to answer letters from certain agencies, and he also had to sit with them and show them his homework or he didn't get any of that delicious kai that Kuia made him and his now new friend Tama. There was an interval where Grandpa hadn't been able to see Koro as often as he did. One day when he was helping Koro fix the car the old man asked him what happened; he told him about getting a beating and being called a Honky who thinks he's a Maori, can't even get himself his own grandparents. The old man told him that life was going to be like that for some, but for him it wouldn't be that way and that he needed to learn a thing called selective hearing, that two wrongs don't make a right. The old man taught him how to listen for the things that would help move him forward not backward.

Every day he was learning the language as well and looked forward to being with his Koro and Kuia. His mother would take them over some of her baking and the family became friends, she loved his newfound grandparents. Tama had accepted him as part of the whanau and they had become friends. Tama was entirely orientated by his education and wanted bigger and better things, this stuff the old man taught was worthless, he told my Grandpa.

When my Grandpa asked Koro why it was worthless, He smiled and said, "Ae Tama, that one, he's going to go places, nothing wrong with that, he learnt selective hearing early" Koro confused Grandpa most times.

Grandpa enjoyed the times they would all talk together and Tama would share the new technology that was happening, Koro and Kuia, and my Grandpa never quite understood a lot of what Koro Tama shared, but they enjoyed it any way and Grandpa, he hated science and mathematics. My Grandpa and Koro Tama still keep in touch, he went on to be great in his field of study and my Grandpa he became a mechanic, and still plants his gardens the way he was taught by Koro.

Now that my Grandpa is older, he understands more than he had back then. He grabbed the nest from my hand and said "such as I have, give I unto you, that Koro knew all right" he muttered, as a tear fell from his cheek.

I muttered too, "thank you Koro and Kuia, for my Koro"