Squeeze box

Squeeze Box

A ghost story set in Aotearoa.

Most of the other immigrants had few possessions. Some of the skilled people had made furniture out of their bunks - perhaps a small table or the like.

Alexander, his Father Thomas and his Mother were luckier than most, strangely enough. Thomas was an engineer and they still had some money, most of which Father kept in a black leather bag. The bag never left his side. They had made arrangements to take a house on the outskirts of town, through a distant relative.

Alexander gazed around at all the people. His Father had not really told him why they had left their home in Scotland to come to this strange land. Why had the others come here, he thought ?

Alexander gripped his teddy bear with one hand and his father’s coat with the other. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry and the noise from all the talking was quite deafening for a small boy. All of a sudden the crowd parted and everyone looked totally shocked as a man ran around the dockside jumping over sacks and boxes. He looked terrified, perhaps rightly so as there were several men chasing him. The poor mans only crime was that he was Chinese. These people had never seen a Chinaman before and he seemed really quite strange to them running around in his pyjamas with that long wispy moustache. The men were not sure what he was and were taking no chances.