Paul Smith

It couldn't be autumn, not in this heat. But for a moment beneath the chestnut trees of Three Kings School in Auckland it resembled that season without the mists and mellow fruitfulness.  For there an elderly Asian man stooped and, using a scoop, cleared the gutter of fallen leaves and debris from the trees above.  

We thought for a moment that he might be collecting chestnuts, but they had yet to ripen; that he might be an honorary caretaker, for he went about his job assiduously leaving hardly a speck behind him. Then, when he'd finished, he bundled his find into two large plastic bags. He bound them with a rope, and tied them to the frame of an ancient girls' bike he'd parked nearby.  

I greeted him as he passed and pointed to the bags. He looked at me and his face was as brown and as wrinkled as any of the leaves in his collection. But his eyes glittered - he was a boy again, a boy who'd come across buried treasure - and he told me proudly: