Billy and Old Smoko Read Online Free Page A

like Old Smoko. “I don’t know where to start,” he said in simpler words. Already he felt much better.
    â€œA problem shared is a problem solved,” Old Smoko said a little sententiously. “Even if it takes a while.”
    The wind blew off the Kaimais as they started for school, but Old Smoko ignored it. Rain fell, and the river flooded as he swam breaststroke with his front feet and kicked his back feet like a big frog. “I find this exhilarating!” he exclaimed.
    Halfway across, a cannibal eel stuck its head out of the water, said something that Billy didn’t hear, and had a go at biting his foot. Old Smoko wrung the eel’s neck, bit its headoff, and chewed it the rest of the way into Waharoa.
    When Billy took off the hackamore and let him go in the school horse paddock, Old Smoko put down the eel’s head and said, “That is yet another advantage of a hackamore. Chewing is easier when you do not have an iron bit in your mouth.”
    In the classroom, Mr Strap wiggled his eyebrows, blew down his nostrils till his moustache shook, and taught the kids how to sit up straight, how to put their hands on top of their heads, and how to stand up when he entered. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you’re going to learn how to pay attention, how to concentrate, and how to behave when the School Inspector comes to examine your work. And we might look at how to read.”
    At three o’clock, Billy climbed up the fence, and got on Old Smoko’s back. He could still smell oil of wintergreen.
    â€œYour horse’s chewing that eel’s head!” the other kids yelled.
    â€œIt was a pretty big one,” Billy told them. “What did the eel say to you this morning?” he asked Old Smoko on the way home.
    Old Smoko cleared his throat. “It had the impertinence to say to me, ‘You look like a hairy frog swimming breaststroke.’ So I wrung its neck and bit its head off. I invariably do that to people who are impertinent, what you call giving cheek.”
    â€œI thought you did it to save my life,” said Billy.
    â€œThat, too,” Old Smoko told him. “But mainly for impertinence.”
    At the river, Billy scrubbed his hands with sand, then crushed wild mint leaves between them, scrubbed them with more sand, and rubbed lemony tarata leaves on them to make sure there was no smell of oil of wintergreen left from the morning.
    â€œWhat did they learn you at school today?” his stepmother demanded when he got in.
    â€œMr Strap taught us how to sit up straight, how to put our hands on top of our heads, and how to stand up politely when he comes into the room.”
    â€œGood useful stuff can I smell oil of wintergreen?”
    â€œNot on me. Tomorrow, we’re going to learn how to pay attention, how to concentrate, and how to behave when the School Inspector comes to examine our work.”
    â€œMore useful stuff!”
    â€œAnd we might look at how to read.”
    â€œWasting time on frills me’n your father can’t read and look at us it never done us no harm.”
    Billy sat up straight, put his hands on the top of his head, and stood up. “Mum,” he said, “may I have something to eat before I go down to the shed, please?”
    â€œI don’t know where you put the food look at the breakfast you ate the whole beak of a chook all to yourself a meal fit for a king didn’t you eat the cabbage stalk I gave you for your lunch?”
    â€œThat was hours ago. And I gave half to Old Smoko.”
    â€œWasting good food on that four-legged malingerer it’s bad enough that you keep demanding more to eat all the time useless old nag.
    â€œThere’s no need to cry you can have a drink of water out of the hose down in the shed but don’t tell your father I said so or he’ll tell me off for bringing you up a sissy.”
    Down at the cowshed, Billy looked at the hose, but the end was