Lachie, Ru and Archie, Havelock North

The cubby house is our meeting place, and it’s called The Brothers’ Club. The club spies on Mum and Dad in their room.

Lachie: I’m Lachie and I’m six and a half and this is Ru and he’s five on Saturday, and that’s Archie and he’s two. We live in Havelock North with our mum and our dad.

We’re all at home because there’s a new sickness. Ummmm and people are getting sick from it – old people, and you could spread it, aaaaannnd, I don’t know anything else about it.

I like playing with my toys and my Lego and stealing food. And I like talking to Gran – she reads me books, and Poppa teaches me some maths on the iPad. And we’ve been making potions. We make ones with fruit. And vegetables. We find the fruits and vegetables outside and sometimes we steal them from inside.

I would normally be playing with friends at school, actually. I like the turf. On the turf I played some soccer, and we have basketball goals, and we have basketballs in our classroom, so we just took the basketballs onto the turf and tried to get them in the goal. I didn’t really like writing, but I like, I like, I like … playing with all the toys in there. And going on all the iPads and computers.

Ru: I go to Cherry Grove. I’m staying at home because, because it’s coronavirus. It’s a new sickness. I’m starting school at the end of term, but I don’t want to miss my poroporoake (farewell speech from pre-school). Daddy’s home a bit. And he’s a bit at work.

Lachie: Right now our dad is … ummm … he’s making sure no one disobeys the rules. If he sees someone he will lock them up in jail!

Ru: My favourite thing to do is building huts. Gran and Poppa are at Mahia. Why? Mum, why are Gran and Poppa at Mahia? Because of the sickness. Muuuuuum!!

Lachie: At home I’m learning more maths and I’m in a spying club with them (points at brothers). The cubby house is our meeting place, and it’s called ‘The Brothers’ Club’. The club spies on Mum and Dad in their room. We used to have food in the club house but we had to clean it all up. We don’t take food in there anymore because the ants and the bugs are getting attract to it. And they come in.

Lachie: Mum’s reading the Secret Seven to us. They make clubs. I’ve already read one whole chapter of one. I mean, one whole story and I’m up to another story of it. I don’t miss my friends cos I’m the youngest out of all of them anyway. But we did one FaceTime with Riley and Brody and Kauri and Rico. And I like scooting. Eden our dog gets lots of walks, every day we go for a walk to pick the feijoas. Gran and Poppas neighbours have been stealing their feijoas!

Archie: And me! And me!

Lachie: We really don’t want to run out of rope cos we like attaching rope to things. We put on the washing line a giant bucket of water and we were planning to tip it on Archie’s head. But Dad tipped it out. But then we used up all the rope and now we don’t have any. We made a real life phone that actually works. We got two tins and when we un … un … unravel it, one of us sits on the deck and one of us sits in the cubby house then we can talk through it to each other. Actually we only used string but I want real rope. We can’t get any more cos of lockdown. Because all the shops are closed. We can’t go out. Only for work and to the supermarket. We can’t even go to the playground. No-no-no-no-no!! It’s cos you could get to close to people and spread the virus. If you had a cold or something, or the virus, you could leave it on the playground and someone else could catch it from there.

Ru: Muuum, when do I start school? Muuuum?

Archie: And me!

Mahia.

Archie, Ru and Lachie.

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