25. Liyan, Elle and F-sharp boarded the bus

Liyan, Elle and F-sharp boarded the bus the next morning taking them as far as Pahia, in the north of the North Island of New Zealand.

- "This is real bad luck," the Opua harbour master said when Elle turned up, "all the yachts have left only last week. They left earlier than previous years as the weather forecast was predicting bad weather for the end of May. They fled!"

- "Well... perfect timing, isn't it?" Liyan said to Elle when they were back at the Pahia hostel.

Elle scowled at her. It meant clearly that they will have to wait for a whole year before the next departures.

- "Because sailboats always leave in May!... They sail up to the tropics to avoid spending the winter in New Zealand. They sail south in October to avoid the cyclone season in the tropics... I told you ten times already!" Elle added in anger.

- "No, you never told me!" Liyan hurled back.

The compact disc hadn't really pacified the situation between them, specially since Liyan couldn't even listen to it as they didn't have a CD player and specially because Elle had added:

- "You will not let F-sharp listen to it, do you hear me?"

- "That's the limit now!" Elle had hurled back.

- "It's no use turning the knife in the wound, you know," Elle had explained, "she doesn't feel like remembering things."

Liyan had shrugged her shoulders. "Talk for yourself," she had thought truly determined to exceed Elle's orders when she gets the opportunity.

Elle arrived at noon at the Kerikeri hostel further north where she had heard that mandarine pickers were needed. She pushed the wooden gate and let her bags fall on the ground.

- "Good timing," the hostel keeper said, "I've just sent a couple to the plantation. Maybe they'll need more than two. Run there now!"

Elle didn't wait for a repeat. Her purse was flat and her stomach empty.

The hangar where mandarines were sorted and packed was a tall rough concrete building. She hesitated a moment and then climbed the steep straight stairs to a large dark room. A very long table cut whole in a rimu tree was waiting for the workers at lunch break, so it seemed. A couple sitting in a corner was discussing some point in an unknown language, not paying any attention to Elle's arrival.

Minutes later they were all using their clippers in rows of mandarine trees. At the end of the day they found themselves discussing work at the hostel. Elle was saying she wanted to do something else like trying the sorting perhaps. They would continue to pick until they had enough to go on with their travelling in the southern hemisphere. Between them they spoke hungarian.